Another airport seeing STARS
The FAA's new system to update air traffic control workstations is now up and running in Syracuse, N.Y.
A second airport is now using the Federal Aviation Administration's new high-tech air traffic control workstations.
Syracuse, N.Y.'s Syracuse Hancock International Airport began using the system, the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS), Jan. 12. The FAA is phasing the implementation of the workstations, with high-resolution color displays and computer systems, into 173 airports. Air traffic controllers at the El Paso, Texas, Terminal Radar Approach Control facility tried the stations first.
Raytheon Corp., Lexington, Mass., developed the technology.
The FAA originally planned to install the first system, an early version of STARS, at Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport in June 1998 but delayed delivery by nine months to give the agency and Raytheon Systems Co., the STARS prime contractor, an opportunity to work out design problems that concerned air traffic controllers and technicians.
The early version of STARS deployed in Syracuse and El Paso is called the STARS Early Display Configuration. It integrates the new workstations and displays with the existing automation system. Ultimately, STARS will modernize automation equipment and displays at terminal radar approach control facilities and associated towers by replacing aging controller workstations, mappers and network infrastructure.
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