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of America, which is the U.S. scheduled airline' national trade and service organization. In this way, other airlines can take immediate steps to prevent recurrences. If the airlines ever have the slightest doubt about the airworthiness of an airplane, they would ground it voluntarily and immediately. Can you imagine how far the airline industry would have progressed without the DC-6 series or the Constellation? Both were grounded by the airlines at first. The "fix" was made and they were returned to service. They have established a long history of performance and are the backbone of the pistonengined fleets of the world. As an aid to improved traffic control, the airlines are installing "radar beacons" in their planes. Such a device reinforces the image of the aircraft that the ground radar operator sees on his radar scope. It can also be used to help him identify aircraft. To bring even finer precision to navigation, the airlines are installing distance-measuring equipment on a fleet-wide, industry-wide basis. Such equipment gives the pilot a continuous indication of miles to or from the ground radio navigation station to which he is tuned. It registers distance much like an automobile mileage meter. A very complicated system-involving both ground and airborne electronic units-the airlines are installing the units as rapidly as they can be manufactured. Meanwhile, rapid strides are being made in airways modernization. More airports are getting control towers; more radar approach control equipment is going into operation. Greater stretches of the airways are being brought under long-range radar. Radio stations-the signposts of the airways-are growing in number. Much effort is going toward the freeing of restricted airspace-areas over which civil airplanes are not allowed to fly. The objective is to improve air routes, particularly flight patterns in the vicinity of airpots. Under development are computer systems to do away with much of the "bookkeeping" required of the air traffic controller-to free him for more decision-making. Other projects include altitude radar-enabling him to determine by radar the altitude a well as the position of an aircraft. Meanwhile, the safe separation of the aircraft is being maintained by an ANTC system that is growing more and more efficient day by day. However, there has been no reduction in the separation standards of aircraft flying on instruments. Flights are delayed to prevent crowding. For example, standard separation procedures provide a minimum of 10 minutes spacing between en route aircraft. This provides many extra miles of separation for high-seed jets. En route, DC-3's, for example, would be spaced about 30 miles apart. Jets, about 100 miles. In airport areas, a minimum of three miles of separation is permissible when aircraft are under radar control. The separation standards do not change, regardless of the number of aircraft. Thus, whenever traffic exceeds the capacity of the system, airplanes are delayed on the ground or in "holding" patterns aloft; and they are not permitted to proceed until the traffic control system can absorb them with safe separation. BACKGROUND "Air Traffic Story"-ATA booklet "Managing the Airspace"-ATA booklet ATA testimony before Senate Aviation Subcommittee, January, 1960, and February, 1961 "What Airlines are Doing on Major Safety Problems"-1960 Speech by William B. Becker, ATA Operations and Engineering Director "The Science and Art of Air Transport Safety (How the Airlines Make Flying Safer)"_ATA Advisory-Volume VII, No. 1
