It would appear the chafe between 5G and aviation safety will be around for some time but FAA Administrator Steve Dickson told Congress on Thursday he expects future disruptions to be minimal. Dickson told the aviation subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that new rules on the interference resistance to 5G of radar altimeters won’t be ready for a year and certification testing will likely push the seamless coexistence of high-speed cellular service and aviation safety for years. He also pledged the FAA and telecoms are “going to smooth this process out and make it more predictable.”
While a lot of the potential impact on airline operations was mitigated in a two-week scramble that saw telecoms shutting off some towers and the FAA speeding approvals for radar altimeters that are resistant to 5G interference, Dickson acknowledged that some airports and carriers were hit hard by restrictions imposed by the FAA. Among those was Paine Field in rainy, snowy and foggy northern Washington, which lost its only airline service for more than a week until Jan. 31. Alaska Airlines uses Embraer E-175 regional jets for flights to nine destinations from the airport, which was shrouded in fog for a couple of weeks, and the radar altimeters used by that aircraft were not cleared for use in low visibility landings until then.
A good part of the four-hour hearing featured committee members complaining about the events that led to what became a full-blown crisis. The apparent disconnect between the FAA and FCC, two of the most influential and important agencies in the federal government, prompted criticism and a call for better communications. “There’s no excuse for us to be in this situation,” Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., said. “It’s embarrassing. … It’s ridiculous and inexcusable.” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson did not disagree. “We recognize that the existing process for spectrum allocation did not serve anyone well.”
Let’s see, one federal agency with responsibility for the safe operation of our national air transportation system, and another federal agency with the responsibility for maximizing the profit from the sale of our electromagnetic spectrum. In our silo’ed federal government, how could that go wrong? You’d think FEMA would have no input on local building codes. Or HHS couldn’t require vaccinations during a deadly global pandemic, or …
It appears that one’s liberty to swing one’s fist no longer stops at our noses. Now, it barely slows down after protracted involvement with the judicial and health-care systems.
>>FAA Administrator Steve Dickson…“We recognize that the existing process for spectrum allocation did not
>>serve anyone well.”
Translation: “We recognize that the FCC screwed up”