LOL! The 5 (5.25?) or 3.5 inch floppies? Where did find the disk drives if one failed?
They have now upgraded to zip drives.
I bought one, experienced glitches and errors, and never used them again.
I remember there was a small period in time in which we really believed they were a replacement.
FAA: "Now introducing… The FACSIMILE (fax) machine!!"
Everyone: confused applause 🤔
If it’s still using floppies in 2026, there’s likely a damn good reason. Nobody is keeping around something vulnerable to antiCMOS.b for no reason.
It is intentional. It solves a problem. And we’re going to regret this fuckery.
Failure rates and avenues that are predictable and can be operationally regulated around. That’s a form of reliability that they want in that system. That’s it. Plus it costs money to update things like that.
Let me get a 5.25” drive
For critical systems, reliability, predictability, consistency, and long-term performance data are more important than modernization. It makes perfect sense that a system like this would lag the leading edge of technology significantly. It is ok if the technology has problems, even if it has high failure rates, as long as the failure rates are predictable - then you can write procedures around them. Floppy disks don’t exactly offer bulletproof reliability, but they are well understood - and also you can generally just toss them on a desk or in a drawer without worrying too much about incidental damage.
You want this kind of technology to be so simple and dependable that you don’t have to think about it, it just works as expected. It also massively simplifies staff training and procedure documentation if the relevant bits of technology don’t change very often - until of course those bits become so outdated that the procedures for getting them to interface with newer systems becomes its own mess.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I wholeheartedly agree… but floppy disks?!?
They havnt been remotely rubust or reliable next to various flash memory systems for 20 years. A little magnetic field or dust and that 1.2Meg is corrupt. Usb flash drives can go through the laundry and get run over by a car and give you your files back.
Yeah agreed. There’s a point made elsewhere in this thread, but the FAA is 100% architected around the idea of understanding and managing risk profiles, and it really works for aircraft. For IT the approach is less sane I’m afraid.
This guy ITs.
Yeah, I’d guess most of these systems have single purpose computers with a screen that updates every second. There’s not much need to replace 100, 1MHz, computers with a server sending data to 100 ipads, updating every second with pretty colors. Plus I’d say familiarity for the controller is 1000x more important than anything else.
“a single platform that pulls that data into one view. Instead of searching for info, they [will] have immediate access to everything they need to make split-second decisions,”
So taring down “data siloes” and centralizing all to an interconnected data treasure trove… I’ve read numerous case stories from Genetec at airports, which is a provider of surveillance tech (both software and hardware), and the integration of air control systems into (relatively) modern surveillance platforms is a recurring priority. This typically allows data from various systems to be used as context, for human operators, but increasingly automated systems (generating reports and triggering alerts).
Airport operators might not even be to blame for these “operational efficiencies”, but rather the government imposing extremely stringent legislation, which must be complied with (the PATRIOT act being an example). And the following line suggests this is yet another political push:
“The greatest nation in the world deserves a state-of-the-art air traffic control system, and under President Trump, we’re delivering just that,”
This is at least as disturbing as it is reassuring.
Or, should we be worried? The stupidest kakistocracy in history in charge of replacing a very important, highly complex, mission critical system? These people don’t think you and I deserve any human rights at all. Look at the pool man!
Be more disturbed that the Minuteman III missiles, one leg of the nuclear triad, rely on the big 8 inch floppies in their launch control systems.
The replacement missiles will not enter service until the “early 2030s.”
FAA information display systems to be floppy-free at 435 sites by end of 2028.
not so fast!
Not the Onion… huh
Uh.
Wut.
Neat. Can I have the old ones? It’ll go well with my water modeling software from the 80s that I got from an old company trashing their old stuff.
No more floppy disks or paper strips to provide operationally essential information for controlling aircraft 👍
