How old is traffic control?

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My sister Faye was sitting on a plane in Hawaii, waiting to fly to Phoenix. The plane hadn’t taken off, and the crew was handing out cookies. I was in Scottsdale wondering when she’d get here. It’s one thing to hear about a nationwide ground stop on the news. It feels a little different when somebody you’re waiting for is sitting on one of those planes.

On November 13, the FAA paused departures nationwide after communications problems affected several air traffic control centers. Federal officials later said that new technology being added to the system overloaded older equipment, causing intermittent gaps in communications and radar. There was also a Microsoft outage around the same time. Federal officials described it as a separate incident.

I remember hearing about the FAA’s old radar and communications equipment 30 years ago. We were talking about how hard it was to get those systems upgraded even then. A 2024 Government Accountability Office report put some numbers on the problem. Of the FAA’s 138 air traffic control systems, the agency had rated 51 as unsustainable and another 54 as potentially unsustainable. Sometimes the trouble is as simple as being unable to get the spare part you need.

That reminded me of something I read in an electronics trade magazine 30 or 40 years ago. The writer said that transistors and silicon chips wear out, too. I remember being struck by the idea that a transistor could eventually develop a short. That can happen when a thin layer of insulation inside a chip breaks down. Other parts age in their own ways. A capacitor in a power supply can gradually dry out, and heat can speed that up. How long a computer or a radio lasts depends on how it was built and what it’s been through.

I’ve put Linux on old laptops and gotten more use out of them. A ten-year-old computer can still be handy for writing or checking email. Microsoft ended standard support for Windows 10 in October 2025, and some working PCs fall short of the requirements for Windows 11. If a laptop can still do what I need it to do with a supported version of Linux, I’m happy to keep using it.

If my old laptop quits while I’m writing this blog, I can finish it on another computer. An air traffic controller needs working communications while the planes are in the air. That’s where I’d want a tested backup, spare parts on hand, and a plan to replace equipment while there’s still time to test how the new gear works with the old. Friday’s ground stop showed how much can ride on that last part.