5G and Airline flights?

[Duxnutz]

7 hours ago, wathabanos said:

True, lest we forget the 737 max disaster.

Yeah, I'm not IFR cert'd yet but wouldn't the cross check not matter if the 5G radio waves were affecting the altimeters? I imagine if it were affecting one, it'd affect the 2nd and even 3rd altimeter, if equipped.

It’s when the RAD ALT comes alive in the approach sequence and you can see the Readout on the PFD, the 2500 is an auto call out and used to cross reference the Altimeter against field elevation, airport altitude etc. A check to see it’s in the ballpark, obviously terrain can make it off slightly. 
 

The issue for us in the airbus world with the 5G is the aircraft prematurely going into a different flight law mode (FLARE) and can screw things up for you. 
 

 

[NSXCIGAR]

10 hours ago, wathabanos said:

True, lest we forget the 737 max disaster.

Yeah, I'm not IFR cert'd yet but wouldn't the cross check not matter if the 5G radio waves were affecting the altimeters? I imagine if it were affecting one, it'd affect the 2nd and even 3rd altimeter, if equipped.

Theoretically one, two or all of the radio altimeters would be affected by 5G if it was possible. You wouldn't be able to trust any of them although if 2/3 were consistent you could probably go by them. The radar altimeters wouldn't be affected. That's why if a pilot is paying attention and cross checking instruments the anomaly should be caught and a crash should never occur, although it would certainly be reported after landing. With 20 million flights a year I'm certain any regular occurrences of 5G interference would have been publicized by now. 

[wathabanos]

2 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Theoretically one, two or all of the radio altimeters would be affected by 5G if it was possible. You wouldn't be able to trust any of them although if 2/3 were consistent you could probably go by them. The radar altimeters wouldn't be affected. That's why if a pilot is paying attention and cross checking instruments the anomaly should be caught and a crash should never occur, although it would certainly be reported after landing. With 20 million flights a year I'm certain any regular occurrences of 5G interference would have been publicized by now. 

Kinda my thinking as well.
 

I do think the FCC is the one left holding the bag tho. They sold the frequencies with direct knowledge of possible interference and didn’t really conduct the necessary due diligence to prevent the drama from ensuing in the first place. But we are talking about the US government here, so that really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. 

[dominattorney]

We have reached peak absurdity. Samuel Backman fraud isn't real. Kanye west is a robot. People believe birds are spy robots for crying out loud. Does anyone think a single plane takes off or lands without someone using 5g?  Seriously?  Asking sincerely. 

[Corylax18]

12 hours ago, wathabanos said:

Kinda my thinking as well.
 

I do think the FCC is the one left holding the bag tho. They sold the frequencies with direct knowledge of possible interference and didn’t really conduct the necessary due diligence to prevent the drama from ensuing in the first place. But we are talking about the US government here, so that really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. 

You clearly didn't read/comprehend the first couple pages and you're missing the point entirely. The airlines where trying their hardest to take advantage of the exact Naivete you display above.

VZW, ATT and TMO spent a combined $76 BILLION Dollars on a very small piece of bandwidth. 3.7 -3.98 GHz.

The airlines spent Zero dollars and Zero cents, for those licenses or ANY licenses in ANY bands. They are ALLOWED to use the 4.2-4.4 GHZ for radio navigation under an IATA worldwide agreement. But the airlines themselves have ZERO ownership rights over any bandwidth, anywhere in the world.

Boeing and Airbus, in order to offer the cheapest possible airplanes, choose to spec Radio Altimeters with terrible, worthless band filters on them. The military didn't use these bands much around most civilian airports, so it wasn't a problem for like 40 years. 

Now its a problem because the airlines are expect to pay their way. Despite stealing 42 billion dollars from the US taxpayer over the last few years. Despite using that money to buy new plans and pay huge bonuses.(not retain employees) They're coming to us with their hands out. Again, lying to every taxpayer about how fragile their business is and how its everyone else's fault that it got that way. 

 

11 hours ago, dominattorney said:

We have reached peak absurdity. Samuel Backman fraud isn't real. Kanye west is a robot. People believe birds are spy robots for crying out loud. Does anyone think a single plane takes off or lands without someone using 5g?  Seriously?  Asking sincerely. 

While I completely agree with your sentiment, the answer is actually yes right now. Actual 5G service is a joke as we speak and will be for the next couple years. Its extremely cost and time prohibitive to install it compared to 3G and 4G.

Less than 1% of the hardware needed to bring nationwide 5G coverage to parity with 4G has been installed so far. But, the FCC is perfectly happy allowing the carriers to lie to you, so if you got a new phone in the last 18 months, you probably think you're getting 5G coverage, you aren't, like 99% percent of the time. Try downloading a full length movie on your phone. If it takes more than about 2 seconds, than you don't actually have 5G. 

[wathabanos]

5 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

While I completely agree with your sentiment, the answer is actually yes right now. Actual 5G service is a joke as we speak and will be for the next couple years. Its extremely cost and time prohibitive to install it compared to 3G and 4G.

Less than 1% of the hardware needed to bring nationwide 5G coverage to parity with 4G has been installed so far. But, the FCC is perfectly happy allowing the carriers to lie to you, so if you got a new phone in the last 18 months, you probably think you're getting 5G coverage, you aren't, like 99% percent of the time. Try downloading a full length movie on your phone. If it takes more than about 2 seconds, than you don't actually have 5G. 

2 Seconds? Well the typical (4K) movie is around 30GB, compressed. Granted at 1,000 Mbps that's 3 seconds, however that is in a perfect world scenario and if you listen to Huey Lewis at all you know we don't live in a perfect world. 5G technically has a bandwidth range of 10Mbps - 1,000 Mbps for the mid-band, which is what the US domestic carriers will primarily use, so if you were the only one on that particular cell tower and there were no other bottlenecks in the chain from you to the source of your data, you could in theory download it in about 3 seconds, again in theory. Just refer to your local computer on a wired connection for proof. I am on a 2Gbps up and down business (priority) connection for which I pay through the nose, yet I have only ever seen 1.5Gbps once or twice and even that was with multiple connections. Getting 1Gbps on an iPhone is not reality right now.

 

5 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

You clearly didn't read/comprehend the first couple pages and you're missing the point entirely. The airlines where trying their hardest to take advantage of the exact Naivete you display above.

VZW, ATT and TMO spent a combined $76 BILLION Dollars on a very small piece of bandwidth. 3.7 -3.98 GHz.

The airlines spent Zero dollars and Zero cents, for those licenses or ANY licenses in ANY bands. They are ALLOWED to use the 4.2-4.4 GHZ for radio navigation under an IATA worldwide agreement. But the airlines themselves have ZERO ownership rights over any bandwidth, anywhere in the world.

Boeing and Airbus, in order to offer the cheapest possible airplanes, choose to spec Radio Altimeters with terrible, worthless band filters on them. The military didn't use these bands much around most civilian airports, so it wasn't a problem for like 40 years. 

Now its a problem because the airlines are expect to pay their way. Despite stealing 42 billion dollars from the US taxpayer over the last few years. Despite using that money to buy new plans and pay huge bonuses.(not retain employees) They're coming to us with their hands out. Again, lying to every taxpayer about how fragile their business is and how its everyone else's fault that it got that way. 

So I understand the wireless companies spent billions to get a very small slice of frequency spectrum, but it is the duty of the FCC to ensure that frequency ranges they sell the rights off to won't negatively impact other ranges already in use, regardless if the operator paid to use that range or not.

Boeing & Airbus putting 'not up to par' equipment in their airplanes is a problem, but what about Bombardier, Embraer, Gulfstream, Textron, etc. etc? Are they doing the same? Is it really a Boeing & Airbus problem or more of a problem that these inferior pieces of equipment are allowed to be installed into modern airliners? Once again I point at the government. These companies are doing what is right for them, earning the almighty buck. The government is supposed to be the ones looking out for us and other government and/or corporate interests. I don't think they did their job.

On the airlines stealing our money, well GM & Chrysler did it and people still have no problems buying those pieces of junk...Just sayin'

[Corylax18]

On 12/11/2022 at 10:19 AM, wathabanos said:

2 Seconds? Well the typical (4K) movie is around 30GB, compressed. Granted at 1,000 Mbps that's 3 seconds, however that is in a perfect world scenario and if you listen to Huey Lewis at all you know we don't live in a perfect world. 5G technically has a bandwidth range of 10Mbps - 1,000 Mbps for the mid-band, which is what the US domestic carriers will primarily use, so if you were the only one on that particular cell tower and there were no other bottlenecks in the chain from you to the source of your data, you could in theory download it in about 3 seconds, again in theory. Just refer to your local computer on a wired connection for proof. I am on a 2Gbps up and down business (priority) connection for which I pay through the nose, yet I have only ever seen 1.5Gbps once or twice and even that was with multiple connections. Getting 1Gbps on an iPhone is not reality right now.

 

So I understand the wireless companies spent billions to get a very small slice of frequency spectrum, but it is the duty of the FCC to ensure that frequency ranges they sell the rights off to won't negatively impact other ranges already in use, regardless if the operator paid to use that range or not.

Boeing & Airbus putting 'not up to par' equipment in their airplanes is a problem, but what about Bombardier, Embraer, Gulfstream, Textron, etc. etc? Are they doing the same? Is it really a Boeing & Airbus problem or more of a problem that these inferior pieces of equipment are allowed to be installed into modern airliners? Once again I point at the government. These companies are doing what is right for them, earning the almighty buck. The government is supposed to be the ones looking out for us and other government and/or corporate interests. I don't think they did their job.

On the airlines stealing our money, well GM & Chrysler did it and people still have no problems buying those pieces of junk...Just sayin'

I missed this back in December, but I saw another article on this recently and came back to the thread. You are right about theoretical/actual 5G speeds, They just arent anywhere near a reality right now and things are not going well for Verizon's deployment at all. C-Band spectrum is very poor at shooting "through" things, glass in particular. They arent getting nearly the range or structure penetration they anticipated and its causing them to totally rethink their RF design/planning. More antennas mean more money, a lot more. 

That being said, they paid for the spectrum. Full stop. The laws are 100% in their favor here, the Airlines are just floating peoples lives as a bargaining chip. Its gross. If anything, the airlines beef is with the US military and the FCC. The carriers are just trying to do business, fully within the law. 

Its less about the manufacturer of the airplane and more about the manufacturer of the altimeters and ILS Radios. Boeing and Airbus purposely skimped on the band filters to save huge carriers millions of dollars on giant aircraft orders. The military had owned C-band for years and the chance of real word interference was low. The extra cost for good band filters to someone buying a private jet was a lot easier to justify, and private jet owners who didn't spec more expensive equipment don't have a multi billion dollar lobby to complain for them. 

https://simpleflying.com/airlines-faa-5g-retrofit-deadline-extension/

Now they need another 9 months, on top of the year plus delay they already got. The airlines have made little effort to comply and it appears their plan is never to comply. Our lives aren't worth $26 million dollars to them apparently. 

Its funny in this article that they complain about "supply chain issues" while Boeing is still delivering 737 MAX aircraft that sat in Seattle for 2 years during the grounding. Aircraft that could have been retrofitted for cheap, with no affect to schedule. They didn't spend any of the US tax payers billion's on those retrofits, instead, United Placed the two largest aircraft orders in the History of the US and spec'd the cheaper altimeters in all of them. 

As someone who works for a competitor of the big cell companies in the states,(Verizon makes our life as difficult as they can) I think its great that they're struggling and that the airlines are adding to their woes, but the Airlines/IATA, the whole group are 100% wrong here. 

[NSXCIGAR]

9 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

and spec'd the cheaper altimeters in all of them. 

Right, but if there's zero evidence (I'm assuming) of real-world risk or the altimeters being compromised then we can't blame them for opting for the cheapest option. 

Just based on the mechanics as I mentioned it should be highly unlikely for malfunctioning radio altimeters to bring down a plane. Recognizing anomalies with them (or the DME or ILS) is fairly easy and the pilots would almost immediately switch to barometric or radar altimeter. I would imagine at worst it would result in a go-around if it occurred during final approach. 

[Corylax18]

6 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Right, but if there's zero evidence (I'm assuming) of real-world risk or the altimeters being compromised

Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it wont. That's a bit of a false equivalency at this point. Carriers have been ordered not to "turn up" installations within a certain distance of major airports and the 5G installs they have turned up don't transmit nearly as far as they planned on. 

You're right, the chances of this brining down a US airliner are almost incalculably small. But the FAA isn't about to let these airlines find out the hardware, which they are making clear to the world they will. (its just a bluff) They don't want to kill 200 passengers and 6 staff any more than we want it. 

6 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

then we can't blame them for opting for the cheapest option. 

Right, up until about 2015, there was no real reason to spend the money. But the big 4 carriers in the US have ordered and received hundreds of brand new jets since they didn't bid on this spectrum. So the airlines knew their old altimeters didnt meet the new requirement, but continued to order planes with them, continued to take delivery of planes with them. Then the MAX was grounded and the pandemic hit and they received 10s of billions of dollars of tax payer money to "stay alive" 

They didn't spend a penny of it retrofitting the dozens of MAXs that sat, they did nothing, for years, then took delivery anyway. Its not a logistics or supply chain issue. Its rampant arrogance on the part of the airlines. The American government and society have bent over backwards for this industry since deregulation and they've become accustomed to it. They're willing to float our lives as a bargaining chip and they're happy to take advantage of it. They do it every chance they get. 

6 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Just based on the mechanics as I mentioned it should be highly unlikely for malfunctioning radio altimeters to bring down a plane. Recognizing anomalies with them (or the DME or ILS) is fairly easy and the pilots would almost immediately switch to barometric or radar altimeter. I would imagine at worst it would result in a go-around if it occurred during final approach. 

I think the whole 737 MAX debacle is actually a great comparison point here. Google "MOE" Minimum Operating Equipment.

Its a Minimum list of parts that a country's aviation authority lists for a plane to be registered in their airspace. The MAX crashes didn't and almost certainly wouldn't have happened in the developed world for two main reasons, the first one being the key. 1. Stricter MOE lists 2. Far Superior Pilot Training

MOE in the states requires a commercial plane to be spec'd with three pitot tubes, instead of the two that some other countries allow. A crew in the US needs 2 of the 3 to be functioning to leave the gate. The Lion Air flight that crashed took off with only two pitot tubes installed and they KNEW one wasn't functional. So when the single function pitot tube fed the flight computer some odd data, the computer started freaking out and looking for a second source of pitch/airspeed data. It couldn't find it, so the plane thought it was stalling and flew itself into the ground. Pilots in the UK and US actullay had some success pulling out of the dive in a simulated version of the Lion air crash. The Ethiopian crash was a different story though, once it went, that was it. Nobody was able to recover from that in a simulator.

Those disasters weren't avoided in the western world because those airlines care more than airlines in Asia/Africa. Those disasters where averted because those aviation governing bodies forced the Airlines to do the right thing. And thank god they did. 

I wish the FAA and FCC (and depts. like them) didn't need to exist, but they very much do. The big airlines prove on a daily basis that money is more important to them than human life, so they need to be baby sat and told what to do on occasion. The FAA protected the American flyer in the MAX incident. Boeing and the carriers didn't. 

[NSXCIGAR]

5 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

Its a Minimum list of parts that a country's aviation authority lists for a plane to be registered in their airspace. The MAX crashes didn't and almost certainly wouldn't have happened in the developed world for two main reasons, the first one being the key. 1. Stricter MOE lists 2. Far Superior Pilot Training

The MAX issue was unique. Only Boeing knew about MCAS and they couldn't tell anyone as it would essentially re-type the plane. Only Boeing knew there was secret software that could take complete control of the aircraft that was being fed from only one sensor. An airline could never know having only one functional tube could result in disaster. This was on Boeing--not the airlines.

And keep in mind the whole reason Boeing hid MCAS. The question should be asked whether the ratings/typing standards are overly onerous. Should the MAX have been subject to such a serious reclassification for background software that compensated for minor pitch changes? Something that a pilot could have been trained to deal with in 5 minutes? 

5 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

The big airlines prove on a daily basis that money is more important to them than human life

Like it or not there is a value on human life in business. Always has been, always will. A life doesn't have infinite value. Toasters explode and kill people too. People die, companies pay, the bottom line is calculated. There's calculated risk to every human action. If something is going to save $10 million and results in a death payout of $9 million it's going to be done. It's the nature of business as unpleasant as it is. Those calculations are made every day in every business. In fact, it would be virtually impossible to conduct business on a large scale otherwise. 

[Corylax18]

1 hour ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The MAX issue was unique. Only Boeing knew about MCAS and they couldn't tell anyone as it would essentially re-type the plane. Only Boeing knew there was secret software that could take complete control of the aircraft that was being fed from only one sensor. An airline could never know having only one functional tube could result in disaster. This was on Boeing--not the airlines.

And keep in mind the whole reason Boeing hid MCAS. The question should be asked whether the ratings/typing standards are overly onerous. Should the MAX have been subject to such a serious reclassification for background software that compensated for minor pitch changes? Something that a pilot could have been trained to deal with in 5 minutes? 

Boeing's justification for not telling the FAA about MCAS was that it would never (and didn't ever) activate on a jet that was legally allowed to fly under FAA registration. No passengers in the US where ever in danger.(or anywhere in the EU, and most of the Americas) Sure, its verbal gymnastics, but it was true. I flew on a United MAX 9 to and from Chicago late last week. I've flown dozens of segments on Southwest and United MAXs before and after the grounding. Even into Havana! The risk on those flights wasn't any higher than if they had been operated by 737 NGs. 

The failure happened when the FAA rubber stamped Boeing's work and passed it along to other agencies as their own. The FAA didn't do their own work to verify that the plane was safe under other countries rules, neither did those other countires. Its why the MAX JUST started flying again in China.(nearly 4 years after it was grounded) The CAAC essentially threw out the FAA's certification and started from scratch. China has the resources to do that, countries like Thailand and Ethiopia (and many others) don't. 

MCAS was a band aid on a band aide, covering another band aide. Out dated processors, decades old CRM processes, a 60+ year old structural design. They've been beating a dead horse for a while now. The airlines didn't want recertification worse than Boeing didn't. They set the product requirements.

Boeing went wrong when they let accountants take over the company, kicked out the engineers and moved their headquarters to Chicago. They run a balance sheet, not a company and it shows. Their human launch competition against space X was a disaster, the 777X program is going to be a decade late, The KC45 program will never break even, Its been a decade + of abject failure on the execution side. The timing isn't a coincidence. 

1 hour ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Like it or not there is a value on human life in business. Always has been, always will. A life doesn't have infinite value. Toasters explode and kill people too. People die, companies pay, the bottom line is calculated. There's calculated risk to every human action. If something is going to save $10 million and results in a death payout of $9 million it's going to be done. It's the nature of business as unpleasant as it is. Those calculations are made every day in every business. In fact, it would be virtually impossible to conduct business on a large scale otherwise. 

If the MAX crashes are any indicator, its 10s of billions per plane load of people. The math against $26 million in retrofits doesn't seem all that hard to me. Especially when they have the money to be putting down payments on hundreds of billions worth of new jets.(with inferior MOE that doesn't include updated band filters) Bitching in the media is free and easy though. No math to do there. 

As I laid out above, Boeing is a desperate, dying company. Willing to sacrifice their own future to show gains on next quarters balance sheet/shareholder call. They don't have any profitable products in the pipeline and the company is built to wring every last penny out of what was created before(the 787 program, which has had its own QC issues over the last few years). They need to be baby sat, they've proven that. Not just by the FAA, but by the DOD and NASA too. 

[Duxnutz]

21 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it wont. That's a bit of a false equivalency at this point. Carriers have been ordered not to "turn up" installations within a certain distance of major airports and the 5G installs they have turned up don't transmit nearly as far as they planned on. 

You're right, the chances of this brining down a US airliner are almost incalculably small. But the FAA isn't about to let these airlines find out the hardware, which they are making clear to the world they will. (its just a bluff) They don't want to kill 200 passengers and 6 staff any more than we want it. 

Right, up until about 2015, there was no real reason to spend the money. But the big 4 carriers in the US have ordered and received hundreds of brand new jets since they didn't bid on this spectrum. So the airlines knew their old altimeters didnt meet the new requirement, but continued to order planes with them, continued to take delivery of planes with them. Then the MAX was grounded and the pandemic hit and they received 10s of billions of dollars of tax payer money to "stay alive" 

They didn't spend a penny of it retrofitting the dozens of MAXs that sat, they did nothing, for years, then took delivery anyway. Its not a logistics or supply chain issue. Its rampant arrogance on the part of the airlines. The American government and society have bent over backwards for this industry since deregulation and they've become accustomed to it. They're willing to float our lives as a bargaining chip and they're happy to take advantage of it. They do it every chance they get. 

I think the whole 737 MAX debacle is actually a great comparison point here. Google "MOE" Minimum Operating Equipment.

Its a Minimum list of parts that a country's aviation authority lists for a plane to be registered in their airspace. The MAX crashes didn't and almost certainly wouldn't have happened in the developed world for two main reasons, the first one being the key. 1. Stricter MOE lists 2. Far Superior Pilot Training

MOE in the states requires a commercial plane to be spec'd with three pitot tubes, instead of the two that some other countries allow. A crew in the US needs 2 of the 3 to be functioning to leave the gate. The Lion Air flight that crashed took off with only two pitot tubes installed and they KNEW one wasn't functional. So when the single function pitot tube fed the flight computer some odd data, the computer started freaking out and looking for a second source of pitch/airspeed data. It couldn't find it, so the plane thought it was stalling and flew itself into the ground. Pilots in the UK and US actullay had some success pulling out of the dive in a simulated version of the Lion air crash. The Ethiopian crash was a different story though, once it went, that was it. Nobody was able to recover from that in a simulator.

Those disasters weren't avoided in the western world because those airlines care more than airlines in Asia/Africa. Those disasters where averted because those aviation governing bodies forced the Airlines to do the right thing. And thank god they did. 

I wish the FAA and FCC (and depts. like them) didn't need to exist, but they very much do. The big airlines prove on a daily basis that money is more important to them than human life, so they need to be baby sat and told what to do on occasion. The FAA protected the American flyer in the MAX incident. Boeing and the carriers didn't. 

Geez, you’re one opinionated Telecommunications dude come aviation expert.. 😬 Airlines have been operating under alternative methods of compliance wrt radar altimeters and Lower Landing minima for a while now and there’s nary a report of any interference that I’m aware of. GPS blocking by Uncle Sam is way more common. Don’t blame them for not rushing out to take aircraft offline to replace something that’s not much of an issue. 
 

MOE list: Wrong rabbit hole, the issue was with the AoA (angle of attack) vanes not the pitot tubes. MCAS software tied to single AoA vs dual input from both. The standby pitot tube you speak about is backup to the CA/FO ones and isn’t optional. Likewise the two on the tail aren’t optional. There’s lots of customer options but redundant pitot static systems is not one of them. 
 

Your comments about airline bailouts are obtuse. What did you want, the entire industry to collapse? That would have resulted in another great depression. The bills passed by the US government continued payrolls for tens of thousands of people preventing furloughs and meant that they could spool back up when demand returned (which it did). 
 

 

[NSXCIGAR]

19 hours ago, Duxnutz said:

the issue was with the AoA (angle of attack) vanes not the pitot tubes. MCAS software tied to single AoA vs dual input from both.

Right, yes, the AoA sensor--not the pitot. I was reading Cory's post when I said that. Was the MCAS linked to only one AoA in the US/EU as well? Is there any reason at all Boeing would have elected to link it to only one AoA? 

[Duxnutz]

1 minute ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Right, yes, the AoA sensor--not the pitot. I was reading Cory's post when I said that. Was the MCAS linked to only one AoA in the US/EU as well? Is there any reason at all Boeing would have elected to link it to only one AoA? 

Yep, only 1 (AOA sensor - the little metal wing sticking out perpendicular next to the cockpit on the side). Ridiculous design flaw that didn’t seem well thought through (since MCAS itself was a quick band aid fix for unsatisfactory stall characteristics discovered during testing). There was an option, airlines could purchase something that showed real time Angle of attack of the wing on the PFD (attitude instrument) or similar but not too familiar since I last flew 737s about 8 yrs ago. 

Apologies for derailing the thread. 

[Corylax18]

On 2/13/2023 at 5:27 AM, Duxnutz said:

Geez, you’re one opinionated Telecommunications dude come aviation expert..

The DOT appears to agree with my opinion. They've Finally put their foot down and told the airlines they cant continue taking money from the people that paid for this spectrum. 

I know the big 4 Carriers are over 100 billion in debt right now, but the fact that they've continued to kick this can can down the road is their fault. No one else. IATA says it will cost $638 million to refit the necessary altimeters, or less than 1% of what cell carriers paid, years ago, to use the spectrum. 

Its astounding to me that they let it get this far. I'm 100% sure we'll see delays late this summer because these carriers wont be able to us their aircraft. They've had at least 8 years to spread that cost hit out, now its everyone else's fault they cant get it done in 2 months. Lets not forget, United had the cash for down payments on the largest Aircraft order in history this December, but now they cant come up with the few 10s of millions it will cost them to make these changes. 

https://simpleflying.com/us-wont-delay-5g-rollout-again/