Obviously, control of aircraft cannot be turned over pell-mell from human to computer. The FAA is proceeding cautiously, and a recent report from an industry fact-finding board recommended a “Project Beacon” approach which will continue to rely heavily on radar plus human controllers. But when the problems of communication between man and machine are worked out, no human being can keep track of so many aircraft so accurately, or compute alterations in course to prevent collision and ensure an optimum use of air space as can the computer.
On the Sea
The Navy uses computers too. At the David Taylor Test Basin in Maryland, a UNIVAC LARC is busy doing design work on ship hulls. Other computers mounted in completed Navy vessels perform navigation and gun-ranging functions. At New London, Connecticut, a Minneapolis-Honeywell computer simulates full scale naval battles. Radar and sonar screens in mock submarine command posts show the maneuvering of many ships in realistic simulations. Polaris submarines depend on special computers to launch their missiles, and the missiles themselves mount tiny computers that navigate Polaris to its target. Another computer task was the “sea testing” of the nuclear submarine “Sea Wolf” before it was launched!
Photo courtesy of Litton Systems, Inc.
Airborne computer-indicator system in Hawkeye naval aircraft. This equipment performs task of surveillance, tracking, command and control.
Computers are being used by the Navy in a project that has tremendous applications not only for military application but for civilian use as well. Mark Twain to the contrary, a lot of people have tried to do something about the weather, among them an Englishman named Richardson. Back in 1922 he came up with the idea of predicting the weather for a good-sized chunk of England. Basically his ambitious scheme was sound. Drawing on weather stations for the data, he determined to produce a 24-hour forecast.
Unfortunately for Mr. Richardson, the English, and the world in general, the mathematics required was so complicated that he labored for three months on that first prediction. By then it had lost much of its value—and it was also wrong! The only solution that Richardson could think of was to enlist the aid of about 60,000 helpers who would be packed into a huge stadium. Each of these people would be given data upon which to perform some mathematical operation, and then pass on to the next person in line. Pages would transfer results from one section of the stadium to another, and a “conductor,” armed with a megaphone undoubtedly along with his baton, would “direct” the weather symphony, or perhaps cacaphony. As he lifted his baton, the helpers were to calculate like crazy, when he lowered it they would pass the result along. What Richardson had invented, of course, was the first large-scale computer, a serial computer with human components. For a number of reasons, this colossal machine was never completed. It was obviously much easier to simply damn the weatherman.
Actually, Richardson had stumbled onto something big. He had brought into being the idea of “numerical weather prediction.” It is known that weather is caused by the movement of air and variations in its pressure. Basically it is simple, knowing pressure conditions yesterday and today, to project a line or extrapolate the conditions for tomorrow. If we know the conditions tomorrow, we can then predict or forecast the temperature, precipitation, and winds.
