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air traffic control, major improvements are just over the blue horizon--we expect to achieve, within the next five years, the capability of operating safely under near zero-zero ceiling and visibility conditions. In other words, all-weather flying.
There has been fear expressed about new types of airliners...the idea that they usually develop bugs--design flaws--which result in fatal accidents. Well, they have on some rare occasions--occasion, by the way, which taught the industry a lot about its aircraft design and development program! 
I said earlier that you would be flabbergasted if you could see an airline maintenance base. You would be even more flabbergasted if you could witness the incredible testing of a new airliner...testing which includes its deliberate destruction to determine exactly how much punishment it can take. 
I'll cite one example and you may find it hard to believe. The most an airliner's wings up or down--even in the most violent, severe turbulence--is two feet. In testing a jetliner recently, engineers bent the wings nine feet out of their normal position--and the wings still held. The weight applied to the wings in this test was more than 425,000 pounds--the equivalent of dropping 50 Cadillac cars on top of each wing to see if it would hold. 
The flight tests to which new transports are subjected would frighten a bird. They involved maneuvers which no sane pilot would dream of attempting. You hear about bugs that develop in spite of all the testing. You never hear of the countless bugs that are eliminated by the most thorough research and development program in the world. If your new car were put through the equivalent of an airliner testing, it would cost about $25,000.