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The Federal Aviation Administration says it needs to upgrade its air traffic control system. There are 169,000 take-offs and landings each day in the U.S. So, the FAA plans to upgrade. Stage I will arrive in September, 2000. The whole program will be implemented between then and 2005.
The system will rely on the GPS satellites. These will lose 1024 weeks on Aug. 22, 1999. Presumably, new software will compensate for this glitch.
No mention of y2k in this ABC news article.
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According to Les Dorr, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, "there are about 169,000 operations [take-offs and landings] every day in the United States. . . .
The FAA plan, which will first be tested in Hawaii and Alaska starting in September 2000, fills volumes, but one of its cornerstones is a set of new digital technologies. . . .
A major piece of the program relies on the Global Positioning System (GPS), a network of 24 satellites whose navigational signals are picked up by a receiver and converted into an exact location on Earth (or above it). The satellites were first launched for the military more than 10 years ago, back when the idea of guiding a B1 bomber to the executive restroom in the Kremlin was of great interest to the Pentagon. . . .
The FAA will test the system for two years and refine the equipment and procedures. If all goes well, the concept will be extended to the entire United States by 2005 for a cost of approximately $5 billion.
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