From: "John H Bowen" <jhbowen@thegrid.net>

In 1985 and 86 I was a Consulting Software Engineer on the FAA's replacement
of its obsolete air-traffic control system. I had worked on the prior system
when we developed it in 1961. The replacement, called the Advanced
Automation System (AAS), combined all the challenges of computing in the
1990s. A program that is more than a million lines in size is distributed
across hundreds of computers and embedded into new and sophisticated
hardware, all of which must respond around the clock to unpredictable
real-time events. I spent 1986 teamed with Hughes Ground Systems in
Fullerton, California while a parallel team at  IBM's Federal Systems
Division in Gaithersburg, Maryland worked on a competing technology that
eventually was awarded the contract. We spent about $400 million each that
year in a funded study.

When we attempted to alter the requirements in design in order to prevent
mistakes early, we were told by the FAA and our management there would be no
changes. The system just needed to be coded and built. Then the project
managers in the FAA and IBM ignored all the classic warning signs of a
project that was becoming exorbitant in price..

As the costs shot upward and tests showed  half-completed system to be
unreliable, FAA administrator Hinson decided in 1994 to cancel two of the
four major parts of the AAS and to scale back a third. The $144 million
spent on these failed programs is but a drop next to the $ 1.4 billion
invested in the fourth and central piece: new workstation software for
air-traffic controllers.

The project was finally flushed down the toilet. Costs were in the billions.
I am aware of nothing of the effort that was salvaged. Passengers continue
to pay a 10% tax on all airline tickets and the fiasco was so massive that
no government official or politician will talk about it.


  John Bowen   Black Lake Village, California
  jhbowen@thegrid.net
  http://www.thegrid.net/jhbowen/