[{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/college/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"College","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/empty-nest/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Empty Nest","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/family/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Family","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/family/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Family","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/florida/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Florida","type":"tags"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been a big year for the Ledwiths. Both boys are in college at the same time, one finishing up and one just getting started, and Sandra and I decided the obvious thing to do with our newly quiet house was to leave it and move to a different one, about 1,700 miles away.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s where everybody landed.\nWe Moved. Again. # If you know us, you know we don\u0026rsquo;t stay put for long. Sandra and I have lived in Southern California, Central New York, Overland Park, Kansas, and, most recently, Blaine, Minnesota. This time, we moved to Davie, Florida.\nMinnesota taught us a lot. It taught us that \u0026ldquo;feels like\u0026rdquo; is a number you check before you go outside, and that the number can be well below zero. It taught us that in some places, people plug their cars in overnight like phones. It taught us that \u0026ldquo;it\u0026rsquo;s not bad out\u0026rdquo; means something very different in January than anywhere else in the country.\nFlorida is teaching us a whole new set of lessons. \u0026ldquo;Feels like\u0026rdquo; is still a warning; it just points the other direction now. It rains almost every summer afternoon, hard, for about twenty minutes, and then the sun comes back out like nothing happened. Nobody here says \u0026ldquo;at least it\u0026rsquo;s a dry heat,\u0026rdquo; because nobody here would believe you. In Minnesota, you keep an ice scraper in the car. In Florida, you keep an umbrella in the car, another one by the door, and it still isn\u0026rsquo;t enough.\nDavie itself turned out to be a surprise. It\u0026rsquo;s a town in Broward County with deep western roots, thousands of horses, a rodeo arena, and streets where horses are allowed to share the road.1 I did not expect to move to South Florida and end up in horse country. Then again, we just came from a place where cars have extension cords, so maybe nothing should surprise me anymore.\nEdward: Senior Year # Edward is a senior at the Florida Institute of Technology, studying aerospace engineering. His senior capstone team is building a system that detects and intercepts drones on its own, which is the kind of sentence I never expected to write about my own kid. He plans to stay at Florida Tech for a master\u0026rsquo;s degree in flight mechanics and controls, so he isn\u0026rsquo;t done with school quite yet.\nThe best part of the move: Edward is now a few hours up I-95 instead of halfway across the country. That makes visits a lot easier, in both directions. (Laundry is a direction.)\nYou can read more about him on the Family page, or check out his own site at edward.ledwith.org.\nNathan: Freshman Year # Nathan just started his freshman year at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Maryland, just outside Baltimore. He\u0026rsquo;s studying nursing and swimming for the Stevenson Mustangs. For those keeping score, that\u0026rsquo;s a major and a sport that both start well before sunrise. He chose this. On purpose.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s my favorite fact from this whole year. When Sandra and I moved from Minnesota to Florida, we went roughly 1,700 miles, and we ended up almost exactly as far from Nathan as when we started. It\u0026rsquo;s around 1,100 miles from Blaine to Owings Mills and around 1,050 from Davie. We moved across the country and gained about fifty miles on him. I\u0026rsquo;m calling it a win.\nThe Empty Nest # With both boys away at school, it\u0026rsquo;s just Sandra and me now. It\u0026rsquo;s quiet. You\u0026rsquo;d think the refrigerator would finally stay full. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t. It\u0026rsquo;s empty most of the time, because we\u0026rsquo;ve started buying exactly what we need and nothing more. For twenty years, the question was how to keep enough food in the house. Now the question is what, exactly, two adults want to eat tonight, and it turns out that\u0026rsquo;s one of the harder decisions of the day. I\u0026rsquo;ve designed software systems with fewer open questions than our dinner plans.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a strange feeling to be proud and a little lost at the same time. For a long time, our days were built around the boys: their schedules, their practices, their friends, their stuff in every room. Now they\u0026rsquo;re off building lives of their own, and doing a good job of it. That\u0026rsquo;s the whole point of raising them. It just turns out the point comes with a lot more silence than I expected.\n\u0026ldquo;Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature\u0026rsquo;s delight.\u0026rdquo; — Marcus Aurelius\nSo here we are: a senior, a freshman, and two empty nesters in horse country, learning to love the rain. If you\u0026rsquo;re ever in South Florida, come say hi. Bring an umbrella.\nTown of Davie. Bergeron Rodeo Grounds. https://www.davie-fl.gov/276/Bergeron-Rodeo-Grounds\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/snow-shovels-to-umbrellas/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"One son\u0026rsquo;s a senior, one\u0026rsquo;s a freshman, and Sandra and I traded Minnesota winters for Florida rain. A family update from a much warmer place.","title":"From Snow Shovels to Umbrellas: A Ledwith Family Update","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/minnesota/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Minnesota","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ledwith.org/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ledwith.org","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/site-news/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Site News","type":"tags"},{"content":"Ledwith.org has been around in one form or another since 2000. Every few years I tear it down and start over, and in January 2025 I did it again: a fresh Hugo site with a new theme and a plan to write about technology, photography, family, and whatever else caught my attention.\nThe writing part went fine. The finishing part, less so. The domain wasn\u0026rsquo;t pointed at the new site, the About page promised things that weren\u0026rsquo;t there yet, and a few posts needed a second look. So this month I went back through all of it. Here\u0026rsquo;s what changed.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s New # A new name. The site is now \u0026ldquo;The Ledwiths.\u0026rdquo; It\u0026rsquo;s a family site, and the name should say so. (The old name, \u0026ldquo;Ledwith Dot Org,\u0026rdquo; sounded like someone reading the URL over the phone.)\nThe domain works. You can reach everything at ledwith.org, over HTTPS, the way it should have been from day one.\nA Family page. There\u0026rsquo;s now a Family page, starting with my son Edward, who\u0026rsquo;s studying aerospace engineering and has a far better website than I had at his age, mostly because the web barely existed yet. More of the family will show up there over time.\nA real About page. The About page now covers where the Ledwith name actually comes from, with sources. Along the way I learned that a few things I\u0026rsquo;d read about the name didn\u0026rsquo;t hold up, and that our crest is a nice picture rather than a medieval grant of arms. Better to know.\nA fact-checked air traffic control series. I wrote a six-part series on air traffic control in early 2025, when everyone online suddenly had an opinion on it. I went back through every article, corrected the errors, added sources, and rewrote them to sound more like me and less like a textbook.\nAn updated camera review. My Canon EOS R review now covers whether it\u0026rsquo;s still worth buying in 2026. (Short answer: for the right person, yes. Mine is still on my desk.)\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s Next # The big project is the family history: tracing where our branch of the Ledwiths came from, and getting the stories written down before they\u0026rsquo;re lost. That\u0026rsquo;s slow work, and I expect it to take a while.\nIn the meantime, I\u0026rsquo;ll keep writing about whatever I\u0026rsquo;m thinking about. If you\u0026rsquo;re a Ledwith, a Ledwich, or a Ledwidge, or you just have a question or a correction, I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear from you.\n","date":"22 September 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gettingstarted/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"The site has a new name, a working domain, a Family page, and a lot of fact-checking behind it. Here\u0026rsquo;s what changed and what\u0026rsquo;s coming next.","title":"The Ledwiths: A 2026 Refresh","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/air-traffic-control/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Air Traffic Control","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/air-traffic-control/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Air Traffic Control","type":"series"},{"content":"Part six, the last in my series on air traffic control. I\u0026rsquo;m not an ATC professional; this is what I learned from a lot of reading. Sources are at the bottom, and corrections are welcome.\nThis is the article that got me started on the whole series. After the Potomac River collision in January 2025, the online conversation about air traffic control went from \u0026ldquo;how does this work?\u0026rdquo; to \u0026ldquo;whose fault is this?\u0026rdquo; in about a day. Some of the claims flying around were well grounded. Many weren\u0026rsquo;t. I wanted to understand the arguments well enough to tell the difference.\nThe first five articles covered history and technology. This one covers the parts that are harder to fix: money, politics, and people.\nMoney # NextGen has been running since 2003, and it has never had the kind of steady, predictable funding a multi-decade program needs. The FAA\u0026rsquo;s budget is set year by year through congressional appropriations, and that process brings government shutdowns, stopgap funding bills, and the occasional round of automatic cuts. Every one of those disrupts long-term work.\nThe cost is significant. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office reported the FAA\u0026rsquo;s estimate of $20.6 billion in FAA costs through 2030, plus another $15.1 billion that the aviation industry would spend equipping its aircraft.1 Earlier GAO work had already flagged the usual suspects for delays and overruns on major ATC programs: requirements that grew after work started, software that was harder to build than planned, and not enough input from the people who\u0026rsquo;d actually use the systems.2\nNot everyone thinks NextGen\u0026rsquo;s problems are just about money. Concentrating flights onto precise GPS-based paths put a lot more aircraft noise over some neighborhoods, and community groups pushed back hard. Maryland\u0026rsquo;s Montgomery County Quiet Skies Coalition, for one, published a paper in 2018 arguing that Congress needed to step in and fix how NextGen was being rolled out.3\nPolitics # Airlines have been some of the loudest critics of the pace of modernization, and in 2016 their frustration turned into legislation. The Aviation Innovation, Reform, and Reauthorization (AIRR) Act proposed moving air traffic control out of the FAA and into a federally chartered, not-for-profit corporation, similar to Canada\u0026rsquo;s model. Airlines for America, the airline industry\u0026rsquo;s trade group, supported it. General aviation groups opposed it strongly, worried about user fees and about who would control the new corporation\u0026rsquo;s board. The bill passed committee but never got a House floor vote. A second version in 2017 met the same fate, and its sponsor eventually gave up on privatization.4\nThe idea hasn\u0026rsquo;t gone away, and every time the system has a bad stretch, it comes back up.\nThe Hiring Fight # This is the most contentious part of the story, and I\u0026rsquo;ve tried to stick to what\u0026rsquo;s documented.\nFor years, one of the main pipelines into controller jobs was the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI), a set of college programs that prepared students for FAA training. In late 2013, the FAA changed its hiring process. Starting in 2014, applicants from the general public, including CTI graduates, first had to pass a \u0026ldquo;biographical questionnaire\u0026rdquo; before taking the cognitive aptitude test. The FAA\u0026rsquo;s stated goal included building a more diverse workforce. Many CTI graduates who had spent years and real money on aviation degrees failed the questionnaire and were screened out before they ever took the aptitude test.\nThe backlash was significant. In July 2016, Congress passed the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act, which restricted the FAA\u0026rsquo;s use of the biographical assessment for CTI graduates and experienced applicants.5 A class-action lawsuit, Brigida v. U.S. Department of Transportation, now in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that the process discriminated against applicants based on race. The certified class covers roughly 1,000 to 1,500 CTI graduates who applied in 2014 and failed the questionnaire. The case was still active in early 2025.56\nAfter the Potomac collision, the questionnaire and the broader question of diversity hiring became a central part of the public argument. Within a day of the crash, President Trump publicly suggested that the FAA\u0026rsquo;s diversity efforts had contributed to it.7 Critics of diversity programs argue that any change to hiring standards in a safety-critical job risks lowering the bar. Supporters argue that a broader applicant pool helps the FAA find qualified people, and that hiring practices from a decade earlier had nothing to do with that night\u0026rsquo;s events.\nWhen I first wrote this article, no investigation had tied the collision to hiring policy, and the loudest claims online were well ahead of the evidence. See the update at the end of this article for what the NTSB ultimately concluded.\nNot Enough Controllers # Whatever you think about how controllers were hired, there\u0026rsquo;s no real debate that there aren\u0026rsquo;t enough of them. In 2023, the Department of Transportation\u0026rsquo;s Inspector General found that 20 of 26 critical air traffic facilities were staffed below 85 percent of the FAA\u0026rsquo;s target. The New York TRACON was at 54 percent, and Miami\u0026rsquo;s tower at 66 percent.8 As of September 2023, the tower at Reagan National, where the Potomac collision happened, was nearly a third below its targeted staffing level, and controllers there were working up to six days a week and ten hours a day.7\nOn the night of the collision, a single controller in the DCA tower was working both the helicopter position and the local control position for airplanes, two jobs that are normally split between two people.7\nThis didn\u0026rsquo;t happen overnight. As I mentioned in part one, the 1981 strike forced the FAA to rebuild most of its workforce at once, and a workforce hired in a wave retires in a wave. Training a new controller to full certification takes years, and a good share of trainees don\u0026rsquo;t make it through. Add a pandemic-era slowdown in training, and you get a shortage that will take a long time to dig out of, regardless of what anyone does with hiring policy.\nShort staffing means mandatory overtime, fatigue, combined positions, and less slack when something goes wrong. The job is stressful enough when you\u0026rsquo;re rested.\nHow Other Countries Do It # The US isn\u0026rsquo;t the only way to run an air traffic control system, and the comparison comes up a lot.\nCanada moved its air navigation system out of government in 1996 and into NAV CANADA, a private, non-profit corporation with no shareholders. It\u0026rsquo;s funded by fees charged to aircraft operators rather than tax dollars.9 Supporters point to it as proof that a non-government model can work well and invest steadily in technology; it was an early investor in space-based ADS-B. Critics, particularly in general aviation, point to the fees.\nThe UK runs a public-private partnership: NATS has been partly owned by private shareholders and partly by the government since 2001.\nAustralia keeps air traffic control in a government-owned corporation, Airservices Australia, that operates on a commercial basis.\nThese models are worth studying, but they don\u0026rsquo;t transfer cleanly. The US system handles far more traffic than any of them, with a much larger general aviation community, and the politics of changing it are very different.\nWhere I Landed # After six articles and a lot of reading, here\u0026rsquo;s my take, for what a non-expert\u0026rsquo;s take is worth.\nAir traffic control in the US is extremely safe and extremely strained at the same time. The technology is old in places, and replacing it has been slower and more expensive than anyone promised. The funding model makes long-term planning hard. And the workforce shortage is real, decades in the making, and the most urgent problem on the list. None of that fits in a social media post, and none of it has a single villain.\nThe good news is that the problems are well understood. Audit reports, investigations, and testimony have laid them out in detail. What\u0026rsquo;s been missing is sustained follow-through.\n\u0026ldquo;The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.\u0026rdquo; — Marcus Aurelius\nThanks for reading the series. If you work in this field and I got something wrong, I\u0026rsquo;d genuinely like to hear from you.\nUpdate (September 2026): The NTSB adopted its final report on the Potomac River collision in January 2026. The Board found the probable cause was the FAA\u0026rsquo;s placement of a helicopter route close to a runway approach path, along with the FAA\u0026rsquo;s failure to regularly review helicopter routes and available data and its failure to act on earlier recommendations to reduce the risk of a midair collision near DCA. Contributing causes included an overreliance on visual separation, errors by the helicopter crew, air traffic controller workload, and the Army\u0026rsquo;s failure to ensure its pilots understood altimeter error tolerances.10 The FAA\u0026rsquo;s hiring practices were not among the causes the Board identified.\nReferences # U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2017). Next Generation Air Transportation System: Information on Expenditures, Schedule, and Cost Estimates, Fiscal Years 2004–2030 (GAO-17-241R). https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-241r\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nU.S. Government Accountability Office. (2012, February). Air Traffic Control Modernization: Management Challenges Associated with Program Costs and Schedules Could Hinder NextGen Implementation (GAO-12-223). https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-12-223\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMontgomery County Quiet Skies Coalition. (2018, January 31). FAA\u0026rsquo;s NextGen Program: What Went Wrong and How Congress Can Fix It. https://marylandaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/022018_What-Went-Wrong-with-NextGen-and-How-Congress-Can-Fix-It.pdf\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAviation Innovation, Reform, and Reauthorization Act. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_Innovation,_Reform,_and_Reauthorization_Act\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nCivil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Brigida v. United States Department of Transportation, 1:16-cv-02227 (D.D.C.). https://clearinghouse.net/case/45988/\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBrigida v. FAA. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigida_v._FAA\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n2025 Potomac River mid-air collision. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_collision\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nU.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General. (2023, June 21). FAA Faces Controller Staffing Challenges as Air Traffic Operations Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels at Critical Facilities. https://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/39530\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNav Canada. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nav_Canada\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNational Transportation Safety Board. (2026, January 27). Systemic Failures Led to Midair Collision Over Potomac River in Washington. https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20260127.aspx\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/atc-modernization-challenges/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"The non-technical side of fixing air traffic control: funding fights, the privatization debate, the FAA hiring controversy, and a controller shortage decades in the making.","title":"ATC Modernization: Money, Politics, and People","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/aviation/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Aviation","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/aviation-safety/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Aviation Safety","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/faa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"FAA","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/modernization/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Modernization","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nextgen/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"NextGen","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/policy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Policy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/staffing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Staffing","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"AI","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/drones/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Drones","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/satellites/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Satellites","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sesar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"SESAR","type":"tags"},{"content":"Part five of my series on air traffic control. I\u0026rsquo;m not an ATC professional; this is what I learned from a lot of reading. Sources are at the bottom, and corrections are welcome.\nPredicting the future of any technology is a good way to look foolish in ten years. I\u0026rsquo;m going to do it anyway, but I\u0026rsquo;ll try to be honest about which parts are already happening, which parts are being tested, and which parts are still a slide in somebody\u0026rsquo;s conference presentation. In my experience, that last category is always the biggest.\nAlready Happening # Space-based surveillance. For most of aviation history, controllers over the ocean had no live picture of where aircraft were. Aireon changed that by putting ADS-B receivers on Iridium\u0026rsquo;s satellite constellation, with service starting in 2019.1 Aircraft that already broadcast their position for ground stations are now tracked from orbit too, over oceans, poles, and remote areas where radar will never reach.\nRemote towers. Sweden\u0026rsquo;s Örnsköldsvik Airport has been controlled from a remote center in Sundsvall since 2015, and London City Airport has operated with a remote tower since 2021.2 Controllers watch a high-resolution video panorama from cameras at the airport instead of looking out a tower window. For small and mid-size airports, this lets one center serve several airports, and it avoids building and maintaining a tower at each one.\nDigital clearances. Data Comm, the FAA\u0026rsquo;s text-based messaging between controllers and cockpits, is in use at dozens of airports. It\u0026rsquo;s not glamorous, but every clearance sent as text is one less chance of a misheard number on a crowded frequency.\nDrone authorization. Drones are already part of the airspace system. The FAA\u0026rsquo;s LAANC system (Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability) lets drone operators request permission to fly in controlled airspace near airports and get an answer from the system, often in seconds.3 That\u0026rsquo;s a small, practical example of air traffic management without a human in the loop, and it\u0026rsquo;s working today.\nBeing Tested # AI as a controller\u0026rsquo;s assistant. This is where most of the buzz is, and where I\u0026rsquo;d urge the most caution. The realistic near-term role for AI in air traffic control is decision support: flagging conflicts earlier, suggesting reroutes around weather, helping sequence arrivals. Researchers are also working on speech recognition to turn controller-pilot radio conversations into data the system can check. Those are useful ideas. But air traffic control has a very low tolerance for errors, and anything that makes or suggests decisions has to be proven safe before it goes near live traffic. Expect this to move slowly, and that\u0026rsquo;s appropriate.\nDrone traffic management. NASA and the FAA have spent years researching UAS Traffic Management (UTM), a framework for coordinating large numbers of drones at low altitudes without every flight needing a human controller. Today\u0026rsquo;s drone traffic is manageable. If package delivery by drone becomes common, it won\u0026rsquo;t be.\nAir taxis. Companies like Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation are developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for short trips within cities, and they\u0026rsquo;ve been working through FAA certification. In October 2024, the FAA finalized rules for training and certifying pilots of \u0026ldquo;powered-lift\u0026rdquo; aircraft, the category these vehicles fall into.4 It\u0026rsquo;s also a reminder that this industry is still shaking out: Germany\u0026rsquo;s Volocopter, one of the best-known names in the field, filed for insolvency in December 2024.5 If air taxis do arrive in real numbers, they\u0026rsquo;ll need low-altitude routes, landing sites (usually called vertiports), and a way to share airspace near busy airports with airliners. That\u0026rsquo;s a genuinely hard air traffic problem.\nStill Speculation # Fully autonomous air traffic control. Some forecasts describe AI running whole sectors with humans only supervising. Maybe someday. For now, the systems that exist are tools controllers use, not replacements for them, and I haven\u0026rsquo;t seen anything that suggests that changes soon.\nQuantum computing. You\u0026rsquo;ll see claims that quantum computers will solve air traffic scheduling. Scheduling problems like this are the kind of thing quantum researchers like to study, but there\u0026rsquo;s a long road from a research paper to software a controller relies on at 5 p.m. on a Friday before a holiday weekend.\nSpace traffic. This one is less speculative than it sounds. Commercial rocket launches are becoming routine, and each one requires closing off a chunk of airspace. As launches get more frequent, fitting them in without disrupting airline traffic is becoming a real coordination problem. Space tourism and point-to-point suborbital travel, on the other hand, are still a long way from needing their own controllers.\nWhat Doesn\u0026rsquo;t Change # However the technology changes, a few things won\u0026rsquo;t. Every new system has to be as safe as the one it replaces, and proving that takes time. Every new connection is something that has to be secured. And people will stay at the center of the system for a long time, because someone has to be accountable when something unexpected happens, and unexpected things happen in aviation every day.\nMy Guesses # Since I promised predictions, here they are, clearly labeled as the guesses of a non-expert.\nBy 2040, I expect satellite-based surveillance to be the primary way aircraft are tracked almost everywhere, with radar kept as a backup. I expect most routine clearances to be sent as data rather than voice. I expect human controllers to still be in charge, working with much better tools. And I expect air taxis to be operating in a few cities, though probably fewer than the current press releases promise.\nBeyond that, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to guess. The people predicting air traffic control on Mars can have that one.\nNext up, the final article: ATC Modernization: Money, Politics, and People, which gets into the funding fights, the hiring controversies, and the staffing shortage.\nReferences # Aireon. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aireon\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nRemote and virtual tower. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_and_virtual_tower\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFederal Aviation Administration. UAS Data Exchange (LAANC). https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/laanc\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFederal Aviation Administration. (2024, October 22). With New Rule, FAA is Ready for Air Travel of the Future. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/new-rule-faa-ready-air-travel-future\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVolocopter. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volocopter\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-future-of-air-traffic-control-innovation-growth-and-safety/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"Space-based tracking, remote towers, AI, drones, air taxis, and rockets. What\u0026rsquo;s already happening in air traffic control, what\u0026rsquo;s being tested, and what\u0026rsquo;s still a presentation slide.","title":"The Future of Air Traffic Control: What's Real and What's Hype","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/urban-air-mobility/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Urban Air Mobility","type":"tags"},{"content":"Part four of my series on air traffic control. I\u0026rsquo;m not an ATC professional; this is what I learned from a lot of reading. Sources are at the bottom, and corrections are welcome.\nAnyone who has worked on replacing a legacy system knows the phrase \u0026ldquo;changing the engine while the plane is flying.\u0026rdquo; In software, it\u0026rsquo;s a figure of speech. In air traffic control, it isn\u0026rsquo;t. The system can\u0026rsquo;t go down for a weekend while you swap in the new version. There\u0026rsquo;s traffic in the sky every minute of every day, and every change has to be made underneath it.\nThat one fact explains a lot about why modernization takes so long.\nWhy Bother? # The case for modernizing is simple. Air travel keeps growing, and much of the equipment handling it is old. In January 2023, a failure in the FAA\u0026rsquo;s NOTAM system (the system that publishes notices to pilots about closed runways, equipment outages, and other hazards) led the FAA to halt all domestic departures nationwide for the first time since September 11. The FAA traced the problem to contract personnel who had unintentionally deleted files while working on the database.1 A mistake like that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to stop an entire country\u0026rsquo;s air travel, but on old, tightly coupled systems, it can.\nBeyond reliability, newer technology offers more direct routes (less fuel, fewer emissions), better tracking over oceans and remote areas, fewer voice-radio misunderstandings, and more capacity at busy airports.\nA Cautionary Tale # Before NextGen, there was the Advanced Automation System. It was the centerpiece of the FAA\u0026rsquo;s 1981 modernization plan, meant to replace the computers and displays at the heart of air traffic control. In 1983, the FAA estimated it would cost $2.5 billion and be finished in 1996. By 1994, estimates had climbed as high as $7.6 billion, with completion pushed as late as 2003.2 That year, the FAA restructured the program, cancelling major pieces outright. Parts of it were eventually replaced by smaller, more focused projects, including the STARS system that TRACONs use today.\nAnyone who has spent time in software has seen smaller versions of this story: a huge, all-at-once replacement project, requirements that keep growing, software that turns out to be harder than anyone planned, and eventually a reset. The lesson most people draw from it (and the one I\u0026rsquo;d draw) is that incremental change beats the big bang. NextGen, for all its problems, was built more along those lines.\nNextGen: What It Actually Delivered # NextGen launched in 2003 as a long-term program to move the US from radar and voice to satellites and data. Some of its major pieces:\nADS-B: aircraft broadcast their GPS position to controllers and other aircraft. Since January 1, 2020, it\u0026rsquo;s been required for aircraft in most controlled US airspace (Class A, B, and C, and Class E above 10,000 feet). It supplements radar rather than replacing it.3 Performance-Based Navigation: GPS-based routes and approaches that let aircraft fly more direct paths instead of zig-zagging between ground beacons. Data Comm: text-based clearances and instructions sent straight to the cockpit, cutting down on radio congestion and misheard numbers. It was in use at 65 airports as of 2025.3 Time-Based Flow Management: scheduling arrivals by time instead of spacing them out by distance, which cuts down on holding and last-minute vectoring. None of that is trivial, and the FAA says NextGen has delivered billions of dollars in benefits.3 It has also been slower and more expensive than promised. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office reported the FAA\u0026rsquo;s own estimate: $20.6 billion in FAA costs through 2030, plus $15.1 billion for the aviation industry to equip its aircraft.4 Airlines have to pay for new avionics before they see much benefit, which makes them reluctant early adopters. And the FAA has to keep the old systems running alongside the new ones during every transition, which means paying for both.\nSESAR: Europe\u0026rsquo;s Version # Europe\u0026rsquo;s modernization program, SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research), is chasing many of the same goals, with an extra layer of difficulty. The US has one air navigation provider. Europe has dozens, each run by a different country with its own equipment, procedures, and politics. EUROCONTROL, the intergovernmental body that coordinates European air traffic management, has 41 member states.\nA few SESAR-era ideas have made real progress. Free route airspace lets aircraft fly direct between entry and exit points instead of following fixed airways. Remote towers have gone from concept to reality: Sweden\u0026rsquo;s Örnsköldsvik Airport has been controlled from a center in Sundsvall since 2015, and London City Airport has run on a remote tower since 2021.5 But harmonizing airspace across national borders has been slower than planners hoped, mostly for political reasons rather than technical ones.\nElsewhere # Canada\u0026rsquo;s NAV CANADA was an early customer of Aireon\u0026rsquo;s space-based ADS-B, which gives controllers a live picture of aircraft over the North Atlantic, where radar can\u0026rsquo;t reach. ICAO\u0026rsquo;s Global Air Navigation Plan gives countries a shared framework for modernizing, so that equipment and procedures stay compatible as aircraft cross borders.\nWhat Slows Everything Down # Old and new have to coexist. Every new system has to work with the equipment it\u0026rsquo;s replacing, sometimes for years. That transition period is where cost and risk pile up.\nFunding comes in unpredictable pieces. The FAA\u0026rsquo;s budget is set by annual appropriations, and long-term projects don\u0026rsquo;t do well with short-term money. Government shutdowns stop work, and budget fights create uncertainty. In 2013, automatic budget cuts under sequestration forced controller furloughs that caused delays across the country, until Congress passed a fix within days.\nSecurity matters more as systems go digital. Moving from isolated radar and radio systems to networked data systems adds new ways for things to go wrong, from equipment failures to deliberate attacks.\nPeople have to be trained on the new thing while doing the old thing. Controllers learn new systems while still working live traffic, and they\u0026rsquo;re already stretched thin. Pilots and airlines need training too, and procedures have to be standardized across the industry.\nWhy This Feels Familiar # Reading about all of this reminded me of the big software migrations I\u0026rsquo;ve watched over the years, just with much higher stakes. The technology is usually the easy part. The hard parts are funding, coordination, transition planning, and people. Air traffic control has all four, at a national scale, with zero tolerance for downtime.\nNext up: The Future of Air Traffic Control, where I try to separate what\u0026rsquo;s actually coming from what\u0026rsquo;s still a slide in a presentation.\nReferences # 2023 FAA system outage. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_FAA_system_outage\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nU.S. General Accounting Office. (1994). Advanced Automation System: Implications of Problems and Recent Changes (GAO/T-RCED-94-188). https://www.gao.gov/products/t-rced-94-188\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNext Generation Air Transportation System. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Transportation_System\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nU.S. Government Accountability Office. (2017). Next Generation Air Transportation System: Information on Expenditures, Schedule, and Cost Estimates, Fiscal Years 2004–2030 (GAO-17-241R). https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-241r\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nRemote and virtual tower. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_and_virtual_tower\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/modernization-efforts-challenges-in-upgrading-air-traffic-control/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"Replacing air traffic control technology means changing the engine while the plane is flying, literally. A look at NextGen, SESAR, and why upgrades take decades.","title":"Modernization Efforts: Why Upgrading Air Traffic Control Is So Hard","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/airspace-management/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Airspace Management","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/flight-operations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Flight Operations","type":"tags"},{"content":"Part three of my series on air traffic control. I\u0026rsquo;m not an ATC professional; this is what I learned from a lot of reading. Sources are at the bottom, and corrections are welcome.\nPart two walked through the pieces: towers, TRACONs, en route centers, oceanic control, and the equipment they use. On a clear Tuesday afternoon, those pieces mostly just work. This article is about what happens when they don\u0026rsquo;t get a clear Tuesday afternoon.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve spent my career around software systems, and one lesson carries over well: the individual components are rarely the hard part. The hard part is the seams, where one piece hands work to another. Air traffic control is a system made almost entirely of seams.\nThe Handoff Problem # Every flight crosses multiple facilities, and every crossing is a handoff. The sending controller has to coordinate with the receiving controller, the pilot has to switch frequencies and check in, and everyone has to agree on altitude, route, and speed. Multiply that by thousands of flights an hour and you get a sense of the coordination involved.\nMost of the time, it\u0026rsquo;s routine. When it isn\u0026rsquo;t (a missed frequency change, a misunderstood altitude, a handoff that doesn\u0026rsquo;t happen), the gap can open up fast. International flights add another layer: different procedures, different equipment, and controllers and pilots working in English as a second language.\nCrowded Skies # Some airspace is simply packed. New York is the classic example: JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark sit within a few miles of each other, their arrival and departure paths are tangled together, and a single TRACON handles all of them along with dozens of smaller airports. It\u0026rsquo;s also chronically short-staffed. A 2023 report from the Department of Transportation\u0026rsquo;s Inspector General found the New York TRACON staffed at just 54 percent of the FAA\u0026rsquo;s target level.1\nWhen demand exceeds what the airspace can handle, controllers slow things down. They space arrivals further apart, put aircraft into holding patterns, and work with the national Command Center to hold flights on the ground before they ever take off. Ground delays are frustrating when you\u0026rsquo;re the one sitting at the gate, but they\u0026rsquo;re a lot better than circling for an hour.\nWeather # Weather is the biggest single cause of delays, and it\u0026rsquo;s where the system\u0026rsquo;s flexibility gets tested. A line of summer thunderstorms across the Midwest can close off the routes that dozens of flights per hour were planning to use. Those flights have to go somewhere, which pushes more traffic into the airspace that\u0026rsquo;s still open, which makes that airspace harder to work. Winter storms shut down airports for deicing and snow removal. Volcanic ash, military exercises, and security restrictions can close airspace outright.\nThe Command Center and the airlines work through reroutes together, often using pre-planned \u0026ldquo;playbook\u0026rdquo; routes for common weather patterns. It\u0026rsquo;s a daily negotiation, and it\u0026rsquo;s one reason a storm in Chicago can delay your flight in Atlanta.\nEmergencies # Then there are the moments nobody plans for: a medical emergency, an engine failure, a pressurization problem. The controller\u0026rsquo;s job shifts instantly from routine flow to getting one aircraft whatever it needs (priority handling, a direct route, the nearest suitable runway) while keeping everyone else safely out of the way. The pilot flies the airplane; the controller clears the path.\nThree Cases Worth Knowing # Atlanta: Volume Every Day # Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International is the world\u0026rsquo;s busiest airport by passenger count, with about 108 million passengers in 2024. It also recorded 796,224 takeoffs and landings that year, which works out to roughly 2,200 a day.2 Atlanta handles that volume with five parallel runways, which lets controllers run arrivals and departures on separate runways at the same time. The layout is a big part of why the airport can move as much traffic as it does.\nSeptember 11, 2001: Clearing the Sky # On the morning of September 11, the FAA did something it had never done before: it ordered every aircraft in US airspace to land at the nearest suitable airport. Controllers got more than 4,500 aircraft on the ground in roughly three hours, with no accidents.3 International flights headed for the US were turned back or diverted, many of them to Canada. NATCA, the controllers\u0026rsquo; union, has called it the single greatest feat in air traffic control history, and it\u0026rsquo;s hard to argue with them.\nUS Airways Flight 1549: Four Minutes # On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 hit a flock of Canada geese shortly after departing LaGuardia and lost thrust in both engines. Controller Patrick Harten immediately offered Captain Chesley \u0026ldquo;Sully\u0026rdquo; Sullenberger a return to LaGuardia\u0026rsquo;s Runway 13, then Teterboro\u0026rsquo;s Runway 1 in New Jersey. Sullenberger judged he couldn\u0026rsquo;t reach either one and told Harten they\u0026rsquo;d be in the Hudson. Less than four minutes passed between the bird strike and the landing on the river, and everyone on board survived.4\nThe pilots rightly got most of the attention. The part I find worth studying is the controller\u0026rsquo;s side: in a matter of seconds, Harten had to understand what had happened, offer realistic options, and coordinate with other facilities to clear the way for whichever one the pilots chose.\nWhere Technology Helps # Technology already takes some weight off controllers, and more is coming. The en route computer system continuously checks flight plans and projects them forward to warn controllers of conflicts before they happen. NASA\u0026rsquo;s Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 project tested a departure scheduling system at Charlotte Douglas International Airport; it let airlines wait at the gate with engines off instead of idling in a taxiway line, and it saved more than a million gallons of fuel over four years.5\nRemote towers are another example. In April 2015, Örnsköldsvik Airport in Sweden became the first airport in the world to be controlled from a remote tower, with controllers working from a center in Sundsvall using cameras and sensors displayed on large screens.6 London City Airport followed with a fully remote tower in 2021, operated from the NATS center in Swanwick. These are camera-and-display systems, not artificial intelligence; there\u0026rsquo;s still a human controller watching.\nThe Common Thread # After reading about all of this, what struck me most is how much the system depends on judgment. The equipment tells controllers where aircraft are and where they\u0026rsquo;re going. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t tell them what to do when a storm line moves faster than forecast, or when an airliner loses both engines over Manhattan. That\u0026rsquo;s still a person, making a call, in seconds.\nNext up: Modernization Efforts: Why Upgrading Air Traffic Control Is So Hard.\nReferences # U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General. (2023, June 21). FAA Faces Controller Staffing Challenges as Air Traffic Operations Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels at Critical Facilities. https://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/39530\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartsfield%E2%80%93Jackson_Atlanta_International_Airport\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNational Air Traffic Controllers Association. ATC on 9/11: \u0026ldquo;The Single Greatest Feat in All of ATC History.\u0026rdquo; https://natca.org/community/awards/atc-on-9-11-the-single-greatest-feat-in-all-of-atc-history/\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nUS Airways Flight 1549. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNASA. NASA Testing Saves Airlines One Million Gallons of Jet Fuel. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/nasa-testing-saves-airlines-one-million-gallons-of-jet-fuel\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nRemote and virtual tower. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_and_virtual_tower\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-complexity-of-the-air-traffic-control-system/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"What happens when all the pieces of air traffic control have to work together on a bad day: congestion, weather, emergencies, and three real-world cases.","title":"The Complexity of the Air Traffic Control System","type":"posts"},{"content":"Part two of my series on air traffic control. I\u0026rsquo;m not an ATC professional; this is what I learned from a lot of reading. Sources are at the bottom, and corrections are welcome.\nThe first thing that surprised me when I started digging in: a single airline flight gets passed between a lot of controllers. A routine trip from New York to Chicago might talk to half a dozen different people, in several different buildings, before it reaches the gate. Nobody \u0026ldquo;flies\u0026rdquo; the whole trip from the ground. It\u0026rsquo;s a relay race, and the handoffs are where much of the skill lives.\nFollowing a Flight # The tower. It starts at the airport. At a busy airport, one controller issues the clearance (the route the flight has been approved to fly), a ground controller handles taxiing, and a local controller in the tower cab clears the aircraft onto the runway and into the air. Larger airports also use surface surveillance systems like ASDE-X to track aircraft and vehicles on the ground, which helps a lot at night and in bad weather.\nThe TRACON. A few miles after takeoff, the tower hands the flight to a Terminal Radar Approach Control facility. TRACON controllers typically work the airspace within roughly 30 to 50 miles of the airports they serve. They\u0026rsquo;re the ones sequencing departures out of a crowded area and lining up arrivals for final approach. One TRACON often covers several airports at once; the New York TRACON handles JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, and a long list of smaller fields.\nThe center. Once the flight climbs out of terminal airspace, it\u0026rsquo;s handed to an Air Route Traffic Control Center. The US has about twenty of these covering the continental states, each responsible for a large chunk of the country split into sectors. A cross-country flight moves from sector to sector and center to center, and each handoff is a brief radio exchange: new frequency, check in, carry on.\nAt the other end, the whole thing runs in reverse. Center hands the flight to the destination TRACON, the TRACON sets it up for approach, and the tower clears it to land.\nOceanic control. Over the ocean, there\u0026rsquo;s no radar. Centers like Oakland, New York, and Anchorage handle huge stretches of oceanic airspace using position reports, HF radio, satellite data links, and wider spacing between aircraft to make up for the lack of a radar picture. Space-based ADS-B has started to change that; more on this in a minute.\nHow Controllers See Aircraft # Radar is still the backbone, and there are two kinds. Primary radar bounces radio waves off anything in the sky. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t need anything from the aircraft, but it also can\u0026rsquo;t tell you who the aircraft is or how high it\u0026rsquo;s flying. Secondary radar interrogates the aircraft\u0026rsquo;s transponder, which replies with an identity code and altitude. That reply is what puts a labeled data block next to each target on a controller\u0026rsquo;s display.\nADS-B flips the model around. Instead of the ground asking \u0026ldquo;where are you?\u0026rdquo;, the aircraft figures out its own position from GPS and broadcasts it, along with altitude, speed, and identity, about twice a second. Since January 1, 2020, aircraft flying in most controlled US airspace (Class A, B, and C airspace, and Class E above 10,000 feet) have been required to carry ADS-B Out.1 ADS-B doesn\u0026rsquo;t replace radar in the US; the FAA keeps radar as a backup and for tracking anything that isn\u0026rsquo;t broadcasting.\nAireon put ADS-B receivers in orbit on Iridium\u0026rsquo;s satellite constellation and launched its service in April 2019. Air navigation providers including NAV CANADA and the UK\u0026rsquo;s NATS, both investors in Aireon, use it to track aircraft over the North Atlantic.2 For oceanic airspace, that\u0026rsquo;s the first time controllers have had something close to a live picture.\nHow Controllers Talk to Pilots # Most communication is still voice over VHF radio, the same basic method used for decades. It works, but a single frequency is shared by every aircraft in a sector, so at busy times the radio gets crowded, and a misheard number can cause real trouble.\nThe FAA\u0026rsquo;s Data Comm program sends some of that traffic as text instead: departure clearances, route changes, and frequency changes delivered straight to the cockpit, where the crew accepts them with a button press. As of 2025, Data Comm was in use at 65 airports and has been expanding into the en route centers.1 Over the ocean, pilots and controllers use HF radio and satellite data links, since VHF only reaches line of sight.\nThe Computers Behind the Scopes # The en route centers run on ERAM (En Route Automation Modernization), which replaced the 1980s-era Host computer system; the FAA finished that transition in 2015.1 TRACONs run STARS, the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System. These systems process radar and ADS-B data, track flight plans, and flag possible conflicts.\nAnd then there\u0026rsquo;s paper. Many US towers still manage flights using paper flight strips, small printed strips of cardstock that controllers move around in holders to track each aircraft. (As someone who works in technology, I found this equal parts charming and alarming.) The FAA\u0026rsquo;s Terminal Flight Data Manager program is replacing them with electronic strips, airport by airport.\nNavigation # For decades, airplanes navigated between ground-based radio beacons called VORs, often paired with DME equipment that measures distance. Flying beacon to beacon means zig-zagging across the country instead of flying straight. GPS-based area navigation (RNAV) and Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) let aircraft fly precise, direct routes and approaches that don\u0026rsquo;t depend on where a beacon happens to be. The FAA is gradually shrinking the VOR network but keeping a backbone of them in case GPS isn\u0026rsquo;t available.\nManaging the Whole System # Individual controllers work their sectors, but somebody has to look at the whole country at once. That\u0026rsquo;s the FAA\u0026rsquo;s Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia. When thunderstorms shut down routes or an airport\u0026rsquo;s capacity drops, the Command Center coordinates reroutes and ground delay programs, which hold flights at their departure airports rather than letting them circle at the destination. (If you\u0026rsquo;ve ever sat at the gate with the engines off waiting for a \u0026ldquo;wheels-up time,\u0026rdquo; this is why.)\nTools like Time-Based Flow Management schedule arrivals by time rather than by spacing aircraft out in miles, which helps keep traffic moving into busy airports without long holding patterns.\nNextGen and SESAR # Much of what I\u0026rsquo;ve described (ADS-B, Data Comm, PBN, time-based flow management) came from NextGen, the FAA\u0026rsquo;s long-running modernization program. Europe\u0026rsquo;s equivalent is SESAR, the Single European Sky ATM Research program, which is working on the same problems across dozens of countries\u0026rsquo; airspace. Both programs get their own treatment in part four.\nWhat Makes It Hard # Even with all this equipment, the system runs on people. Busy airports run near capacity, weather is the biggest single cause of delays, digital systems bring cybersecurity concerns, and there aren\u0026rsquo;t enough fully certified controllers. That last issue comes up again and again in this series.\nThe technology is impressive. What impressed me more is how much of it depends on trained people making good decisions quickly, all day, every day.\nNext up: The Complexity of the Air Traffic Control System, which looks at what happens when all these pieces have to work together on a bad day.\nReferences # Next Generation Air Transportation System. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Transportation_System\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAireon. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aireon\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-modern-air-traffic-control-system-technology-and-operations/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"How a single flight gets handed from controller to controller, and the radar, radios, satellites, and computers that make it work.","title":"The Modern Air Traffic Control System: Technology and Operations","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/history/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"History","type":"tags"},{"content":"In early 2025, it felt like everyone on the internet became an air traffic control expert overnight. After the midair collision over the Potomac River in late January, my feeds filled up with confident explanations of what was broken, who broke it, and how to fix it by next Tuesday. Most of those explanations contradicted each other.\nI realized I didn\u0026rsquo;t know enough to have an opinion, so I started reading. This series is the result: six articles on where air traffic control came from, how it works today, why it\u0026rsquo;s so hard to upgrade, and the arguments over how to fix it.\nA note before we start: I\u0026rsquo;m not an air traffic controller, a pilot, or an aviation regulator. I\u0026rsquo;m a technologist who spent a lot of evenings with FAA histories, government audit reports, and more than a few Wikipedia rabbit holes. I\u0026rsquo;ve worked to get the facts right, and sources are listed at the bottom of each article. For anything authoritative, go to the FAA, ICAO, or EUROCONTROL. If you know this world better than I do and spot a mistake, please tell me.\nFlags and a Beach Umbrella # For the first couple of decades of powered flight, there was no air traffic control. Pilots flew by \u0026ldquo;see and be seen,\u0026rdquo; which works fine when there are three airplanes in the sky and progressively less fine after that.\nCroydon Airport, outside London, is generally credited with introducing the first air traffic control in 1920. Controllers there used radio to give pilots position, weather, and traffic information, which beat the previous system of hoping for the best.1\nIn the United States, the job started with a man named Archie League. In 1929, the city of St. Louis hired him to direct traffic at its airfield. His equipment was a wheelbarrow, a beach umbrella, a chair, and a pair of flags: checkered meant go, red meant hold. (Somewhere, a modern controller is looking at a radar scope with a renewed sense of gratitude.) When the airport installed a radio a few years later, League became its first radio controller.2 Cleveland opened the first radio-equipped airport traffic control tower in the US in 1930.1\nThe rules of the road were taking shape internationally, too. The 1919 Paris Convention set up the International Commission for Air Navigation, which was eventually replaced by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) after the 1944 Chicago Convention. ICAO still writes the international standards that controllers and pilots work under today.3\nThe Airlines Built It, Then Washington Took Over # Towers handle the airport. The harder problem is the airspace between airports, and the first people to tackle it were the airlines. A group of airlines opened the first airway traffic control center in Newark in 1935, followed by centers in Chicago and Cleveland in 1936.1 That same year, the federal government took over the centers, and air traffic control has been a federal job in the US ever since.\nThe Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 put civil aviation under a single federal agency, the Civil Aeronautics Authority, later reorganized into the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Then World War II arrived and brought radar with it. After the war, radar moved into civilian air traffic control and changed the job completely. Controllers could see aircraft instead of relying entirely on position reports and mental math.\nThe Accident That Created the FAA # On June 30, 1956, TWA Flight 2 and United Air Lines Flight 718 collided over the Grand Canyon, killing all 128 people on board both aircraft. At the time, it was the deadliest commercial aviation accident in US history.4 Both airplanes were flying in uncontrolled airspace, where staying apart was still the pilots\u0026rsquo; job. The air traffic control system of 1956 was largely running on 1930s methods, and the accident made that impossible to ignore.\nCongress responded with the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, which created the Federal Aviation Agency and gave it responsibility for both air traffic control and safety regulation. When the Department of Transportation was created in the late 1960s, the agency moved under it and became the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA we know today.4\nThrough the 1960s and 1970s, the FAA put computers into its en route centers and terminal radar facilities. Instead of tracking each flight on paper and memory, controllers started seeing an aircraft\u0026rsquo;s identity and altitude displayed right next to its radar target. That sounds basic now. It was a big deal then.\n1981: The Strike # On August 3, 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization went on strike. President Reagan ordered the controllers back to work within 48 hours, and on August 5 he fired the 11,345 who didn\u0026rsquo;t return.5 The FAA kept the system running with supervisors, the controllers who stayed, and military controllers, but rebuilding the workforce took close to a decade. Training a controller normally takes years, and you can\u0026rsquo;t hire experience.\nI bring this up because it matters later in the series. A workforce hired in one big wave tends to retire in one big wave, and staffing has been a sore spot for the FAA ever since.\nThat same year, the FAA published the National Airspace System Plan, an ambitious program to replace much of the system\u0026rsquo;s aging equipment. Its centerpiece was a massive software project called the Advanced Automation System. We\u0026rsquo;ll get to how that went in part four. (Spoiler: not well.)\nSatellites Enter the Picture # The Global Positioning System became fully operational in 1995, and it opened the door to a different way of thinking about air traffic control. If every aircraft knows exactly where it is, why not have it broadcast that position to controllers and other aircraft? That idea became ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast), which the FAA began testing in Alaska around 2000, where radar coverage is thin and the terrain is unforgiving.\nIn 2003, Congress passed the Vision 100 – Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act, which launched the Next Generation Air Transportation System, better known as NextGen.6 NextGen was supposed to move the US from a radar-and-voice system to one built on satellite navigation and digital communication. Europe started its own version, SESAR, a few years later. Both programs are still going, which tells you something about how hard this is.\nA Pattern Worth Noticing # Reading through this history, one thing stood out to me. Many of the biggest changes to air traffic control came after something went badly wrong: a collision, a strike, a near-disaster. The system gets better, but it tends to get better in response to tragedy rather than ahead of it. That\u0026rsquo;s part of why the conversation after the Potomac collision got so heated so quickly.\nNext up: The Modern Air Traffic Control System: Technology and Operations, a look at how the system actually works today.\nReferences # Air traffic control. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_traffic_control\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nArchie League. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_League\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nInternational Civil Aviation Organization. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Civil_Aviation_Organization\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Grand_Canyon_mid-air_collision\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nProfessional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (1968). (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_%281968%29\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNext Generation Air Transportation System. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Transportation_System\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-origins-and-evolution-of-air-traffic-control/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"How air traffic control went from a man with two flags and a beach umbrella to radar, computers, and satellites, and the accidents that pushed it along the way.","title":"The Origins and Evolution of Air Traffic Control","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/camera-gear/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Camera Gear","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/canon-eos-r/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Canon EOS R","type":"tags"},{"content":"Updated September 2026 with current pricing and alternatives.\nI bought my Canon EOS R back in 2019. I\u0026rsquo;m an amateur photographer, and I wanted three things: great images, a camera that didn\u0026rsquo;t fight me, and room to grow into it. Seven years later, it\u0026rsquo;s still delivering on all three. That\u0026rsquo;s a long time in camera years, when a new model shows up every eighteen months promising to change your life. Mine sits on my desk, ready to go, every single day.\nCanon has moved on, though. The EOS R was reportedly discontinued in mid-2023, and Canon now lists it as no longer in production.1 So the question isn\u0026rsquo;t whether you should buy one new; you mostly can\u0026rsquo;t. The question is whether a used EOS R is still a good buy in 2026. For the right person, I think it is.\nWhat It Still Does Well # Image quality. The 30.3-megapixel full-frame sensor still produces sharp, detailed files with plenty of room to crop. Canon\u0026rsquo;s color science is the reason a lot of people shoot Canon, and it shows here: skin tones and landscapes look natural straight out of the camera, without much work in post. The DIGIC 8 processor is two generations old now, but high-ISO files are still perfectly usable for the kind of shooting most of us do.\nAutofocus for stills. Dual Pixel autofocus was the EOS R\u0026rsquo;s headline feature, with up to 5,655 selectable AF points. Eye detection got much better with firmware updates after launch, and it\u0026rsquo;s good enough that I rarely think about focus for portraits and everyday shooting. It won\u0026rsquo;t recognize animals, birds, or vehicles the way newer Canon bodies do, and that\u0026rsquo;s the biggest gap between this camera and anything current.\nThe screen. The fully articulating touchscreen is still one of my favorite things about this camera. Shooting low to the ground or over a crowd is easy, and tapping to focus is faster than any joystick.\nLenses. This is the real reason the EOS R holds up. My everyday lens is Canon\u0026rsquo;s EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, mounted with Canon\u0026rsquo;s EF-to-RF adapter. It\u0026rsquo;s an old design and nobody\u0026rsquo;s idea of exotic glass, but it covers everything from wide-ish rooms to tight portraits, the ultrasonic motor focuses quickly and quietly, and it works just as well on the EOS R as it did on my old DSLR. That\u0026rsquo;s the point: your EF lenses don\u0026rsquo;t become paperweights when you move to mirrorless. And if you want to step up, the RF lineup has grown a lot since 2019, and every one of those lenses works on this body too. Buying into this camera still means buying into a system Canon is actively building.\nBuild. It has a deep, comfortable grip, weather sealing, and it uses the same LP-E6 family of batteries Canon has used for years, so older batteries still work.\nWhere It Shows Its Age # I don\u0026rsquo;t want to pretend this is a 2026 camera. It isn\u0026rsquo;t, and a review that skips the weaknesses isn\u0026rsquo;t worth much.\nVideo is the weak spot. The EOS R shoots 4K at up to 30 frames per second, but with a heavy crop (about 1.75x) that turns your wide-angle lens into a normal lens. It does offer 10-bit 4:2:2 output over HDMI and Canon Log for people who color grade, and Dual Pixel autofocus works in 4K. But if video matters to you, almost any current Canon body is a better choice.\nNo in-body stabilization. You\u0026rsquo;re relying on stabilized lenses. That\u0026rsquo;s one reason the 28-135 lives on my camera: the \u0026ldquo;IS\u0026rdquo; in the name is Canon\u0026rsquo;s image stabilization, built into the lens. For stills with fast shutter speeds, it rarely matters either way. For handheld video, or slow shutter speeds with unstabilized primes, it does.\nOne card slot, 8 frames per second. Fine for landscapes, portraits, travel, and family events. Not great for sports or wildlife, or for anyone who wants a backup card in case one fails.\nThe touch bar. Canon added a touch-sensitive \u0026ldquo;Multi-function Bar\u0026rdquo; next to the viewfinder, and reviewers were not kind to it. Canon quietly left it off the cameras that came after, which tells you what Canon thought of it too.\nWhat It Costs in 2026 # As of this update, used EOS R bodies in good to like-new condition are selling for roughly $700 to $900 at dealers like KEH and Adorama, and Canon\u0026rsquo;s refurbished store has listed them around $1,250 when it has stock.2 For a full-frame camera with this sensor and access to the whole RF lens system, that\u0026rsquo;s a lot of camera for the money.\nHow It Compares to What Canon Sells Now # EOS R8 (around $1,500 new): Newer autofocus with subject detection for people, animals, and vehicles, and uncropped 4K. It\u0026rsquo;s smaller and lighter, but it uses a much smaller battery, and it lacks the EOS R\u0026rsquo;s top screen and deep grip. EOS R6 Mark II (about $2,000 new after a price cut in early 20263): In-body stabilization, dual card slots, far faster shooting, and much better video. For a lot of enthusiasts, this is the camera the EOS R should have been. EOS R6 Mark III (about $2,800 new, announced November 20254): A 32.5-megapixel sensor, 40 frames per second, and 7K video. A serious camera at a serious price. Who Should Buy One # Buy a used EOS R if you mostly shoot stills (portraits, landscapes, travel, family), you own EF lenses or want to try RF glass without spending $2,000 on a body, and you\u0026rsquo;d rather put your money into lenses. Lenses outlast bodies, and good glass will make a bigger difference to your photos than anything on the spec sheet above.\nSkip it if you shoot a lot of video, sports, or wildlife, or if you need in-body stabilization. Save up for an R6 Mark II instead.\nSeven years in, mine is still on my desk every morning with the 28-135 attached, ready when something worth shooting shows up. The best camera is the one you actually pick up, and I haven\u0026rsquo;t found a good reason to replace this one.\nFor the full specifications, see Canon\u0026rsquo;s EOS R product page.\nReferences # Canon EOS R. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_R\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nCanon Price Watch. Canon EOS R Price, Deals, and Comparison. https://www.cpricewatch.com/product/06700/Canon-EOS-R-price.html\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDigital Camera World. (2026, January 20). Canon\u0026rsquo;s do-it-all full-frame camera just got $300 cheaper. https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/cameras/mirrorless-cameras/canons-do-it-all-full-frame-camera-just-got-usd300-cheaper\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nCanon U.S.A. EOS R6 Mark III Body. https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/eos-r6-mark-iii\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/canon-eos-r-review/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"I\u0026rsquo;ve shot with a Canon EOS R since 2019. It\u0026rsquo;s discontinued now and selling used for well under $1,000. Here\u0026rsquo;s who should still buy one, and who shouldn\u0026rsquo;t.","title":"Canon EOS R Review: Is It Still Worth Buying in 2026?","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mirrorless/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mirrorless","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/photography/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Photography","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"1 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/used-gear/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Used Gear","type":"tags"},{"content":"Ledwith.org has been around in one form or another since 2000, back when having your own domain still felt a little exotic. It has been rebuilt more than once since then. (Websites, like basements, accumulate clutter, and sometimes the only fix is to start over.) This version is run by me, Steve Ledwith, and it has two jobs: to be a home for the Ledwith family and its history, and to be the place where I write about whatever I\u0026rsquo;m thinking about.\nThe writing side is up and running. The family history side is the long-term project, and this page is where it starts.\nWhere the Name Comes From # Ledwith is one of many spellings of an old Norman name, de Ledwich, which simply means \u0026ldquo;of Ledwich,\u0026rdquo; a place in England. Over the centuries it has been written as Ledwich, Ledwidge, Ledwitch, Lidwich, Lutwyche, Ledwith, and more, depending on who was holding the pen.1\nExactly which place is a matter of some debate. Most sources point to Ledwyche in Shropshire, a pair of hamlets now called Upper and Lower Ledwyche, which appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as \u0026ldquo;Ledewic.\u0026rdquo; The earliest recorded version of the surname is a Roger de Ledewich, who shows up in Shropshire court records in 1221.2 Even the meaning is uncertain: the \u0026ldquo;wich\u0026rdquo; part comes from the Old English wic, a dwelling or farm, but scholars disagree about the first half.2 If it makes you feel better, Rev. Patrick Woulfe, who wrote the standard reference on Irish surnames in 1923, said plainly that he couldn\u0026rsquo;t find the spot either.1\nThe Irish Branch # The name crossed to Ireland with the Anglo-Normans. After the Norman invasion in the late 1100s, Hugh de Lacy granted a family of the name land in Meath and Westmeath, and they settled at a place that became known as Ledwichtown, in County Westmeath.13 The name has been in Ireland since the early 1200s.2 Like many of the old Anglo-Norman families, the Ledwiches later lost much of their land in the upheavals of the 1600s.3\nA few people who carried some version of the name along the way:\nEdward Ledwich (1738–1823), an Irish clergyman and antiquarian who published Antiquities of Ireland in 1790. Later historians found plenty to disagree with in it, which I suspect is the fate of anyone who writes about history.4 Francis Ledwidge (1887–1917), an Irish poet from County Meath who was killed in the First World War.3 Mike Ledwith (1874–1929), an American baseball player, and Thomas A. Ledwith (1840–1898), an American lawyer and politician.5 Where our own branch fits into all of this, I don\u0026rsquo;t know yet. Figuring that out is the project.\nAbout the Crest # You\u0026rsquo;ve probably noticed the crest at the top of the site: an eagle with outstretched wings, a shield, and a lot of gold and silver.\nTo be clear, it\u0026rsquo;s a modern design, not a historic coat of arms. Traditionally, coats of arms were granted to individual people, not to everyone with a surname, so the \u0026ldquo;family crests\u0026rdquo; sold online are mostly nice pictures. This one is our nice picture. It looks good on the site, and I like what it stands for, but I\u0026rsquo;m not going to pretend it came from a medieval herald.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s Coming # Over time, I want this site to become a real resource for the family. That means:\na deeper look at the history of the name and its many spellings genealogy: tracing our branch back, and connecting with relatives I haven\u0026rsquo;t found yet family stories, photos, and the kind of history that never makes it into official records That last one matters most to me. I\u0026rsquo;ve written before about the question of what we\u0026rsquo;ll leave behind. For a family, a big part of the answer is the stories. If nobody writes them down, they\u0026rsquo;re gone within a generation or two.\nGet in Touch # If you\u0026rsquo;re a Ledwith (or a Ledwich, or a Ledwidge), you\u0026rsquo;re researching the family, or you have a story or photo to share, I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear from you. You can find me through the links on my author page.\nSources # Woulfe, P. (1923). Irish Names and Surnames: \u0026ldquo;de Léadús.\u0026rdquo; Via Library Ireland. https://www.libraryireland.com/names/d/de-leadus.php\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSurnameDB. Ledwith Surname: Meaning, Origin \u0026amp; Family History. https://surnamedb.com/Surname/Ledwith\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLedwidge. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledwidge\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEdward Ledwich. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Ledwich\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLedwith. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledwith\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"1 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"About Ledwith.org","summary":"","title":"About Ledwith.org","type":"about"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m Steve Ledwith, and this is our family\u0026rsquo;s corner of the internet. Ledwith.org has been around in one form or another since 2000, and it\u0026rsquo;s had a few lives since then. This version is part family history project and part blog: a home for the Ledwith name, for our family, and for whatever I happen to be thinking about.\nRight now, most of what\u0026rsquo;s here is my writing on technology, photography, and the occasional deep dive into something I got curious about (lately, air traffic control). The family history side is still a work in progress. You can read more about the name, and where the site is headed, on the About page.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re a Ledwith, a Ledwich, a Ledwidge, or you\u0026rsquo;re tracing a branch of the family tree, I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear from you.\n","date":"1 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"Welcome to Ledwith.org","summary":"","title":"Welcome to Ledwith.org","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"20 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/leadership/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Leadership","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"20 June 2020","externalUrl":"https://www.thearchitectandtheexecutive.com/stories/manage-your-stress/","permalink":"/posts/manage-your-stress/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"Manage Your Stress Even In Tough Times on The Architect and The Executive.","title":"Manage Your Stress Even In Tough Times","type":"external"},{"content":"","date":"20 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/meditation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Meditation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mindfulness/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mindfulness","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/stoicism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Stoicism","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/stress-management/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Stress Management","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/yoga/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Yoga","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/application-migration/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Application Migration","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cloud-computing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cloud Computing","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/low-code/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Low Code","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mendix/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mendix","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/technology/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Technology","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"27 May 2020","externalUrl":"https://medium.com/mendix/working-with-the-mendix-cloud-75080b5cd05a","permalink":"/posts/working-with-the-mendix-cloud/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"Read Working with the Mendix Cloud on Medium.","title":"Working with the Mendix Cloud","type":"external"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/legacy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Legacy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/personal-development/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Personal Development","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2020","externalUrl":"https://medium.com/@sledwith/what-will-you-leave-behind-8d4d1814a068","permalink":"/posts/what-will-you-leave-behind/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"Read What Will You Leave Behind on Medium.","title":"What Will You Leave Behind?","type":"external"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2020","externalUrl":"https://medium.com/@sledwith/managing-teams-remotely-a44c7474ed9f","permalink":"/posts/managing-teams-remotely/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"Read Managing Teams Remotely on Medium.","title":"Managing Teams Remotely","type":"external"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/remote-work/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Remote Work","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/team-management/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Team Management","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/virtual-teams/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Virtual Teams","type":"tags"},{"content":"More detail about the authors who contribute to this site.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Contributing Authors","summary":"","title":"Contributing Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":" Act I - The Beginning # Stephen Ledwith was born in a military hospital in Kansas in 1971. Shortly after arriving, the family moved from Kansas to Baldwinsville, in the heart of Central New York. Growing up, Steve played baseball, soccer and excelled at the martial arts. Around the age of 10, Stephen was exposed to computers when he received a TRS-80 for Christmas. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship with computers.\nAfter an exceptionally mediocre showing, at least as far as the GPA was concerned, at C.W. Baker High School, Steve went on to major in Chemistry at SUNY Oswego. A mere four and a half years later, and far too many Calculus classes, Steve graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry, while setting the educational excellence bar at a sufficiently low level for his siblings. Ed. note: You\u0026rsquo;re welcome.\nWith college completed and a crisp, white diploma for a subject that was no longer interesting, Steve moved to Virginia Beach, VA. Living near the beach and working retail was a great way to spend some time. Steve spent the rest of his time on the computer, engrossed in a multi-user domain game, Revenge at the End of the Line (EotL), which he had started playing in college.\nDuring the summer of 1994, Steve went out to California to meet Sandra, an interesting young lady he\u0026rsquo;d met on EotL in 1992. The two would travel to the northern portion of the state to attend a doomed marriage of two others they knew from the game. It was this initial trip that set the next phase of life into motion for Steve.\nAct II - Dot Com, Here I Come! # As fall approached in 1994, Steve packed up everything he owned, including a pearl-faced cockatiel, and drove across the country to live with Sandra and her family. Steve landed a job with a retail outfit fairly quickly and set out to make some money. Turns out that living in California was an expensive proposition.\nOne retail job led to another and each led to an increasing pool of friends and networked associates. One of those associates helped to get Steve into a small computer software firm that was making marine and motorcycle dealership information systems. The new tech support job was a lot better than slinging packaged software in a retail joint.\nSteve\u0026rsquo;s tenure at the software company didn\u0026rsquo;t last long, mostly due to illness. A bout with cancer and chemotherapy made for a rough going and there wasn\u0026rsquo;t any working going on for quite a while. As Steve made his way back to reality post-treatment, he studied for the all-important Microsoft Certification! With that crisp, white, not-yet-useless diploma in hand, Steve set about freelance consulting, networking, and software.\nSince the first computer at age 10, Steve continued to work with computers alongside everything else. In high school, there were countless hours spent in self-study classes focused on learning the ins and outs of computers and software development. In college, the campus had a great lab and absorbed nearly as much time as the chemistry labs. Ed. note: Yes, Steve was pale. Exceptionally pale. After college, there was the use of any dial-up services Steve could get into, just to keep in touch with the ever-developing computer field.\nThen, out of the blue, the Dot Com bubble started. Through a few networking connections, Steve landed a job with Homeseekers.com, an online real estate search engine. Homeseekers needed a developer and team leader that could do ASP and keep people on track. Steve needed a job and a chance to use cool toys on the internet. It was a perfect match.\nDuring this same time, Steve was finally able to convince Sandra that they should get married, and their blissful union was started.\nFast forward a few years and the Dot Com bubble burst, and Steve found himself in the familiar position of working as a freelance software developer. A few long-term gigs with some small companies, and lots of great people in those years. It was during this time that the next phase of life began.\nAct III - Fatherhood # While fighting cancer, it had become clear to Steve and Sandra that having children of their own was not going to be a possibility. The cancer, the tremendous delay in starting treatment, and the chemo had all conspired to ensure that Steve was not going to be producing any children.\nHowever, amid all of that evidence, Sandra, the wonderful wife, was carrying a child, and fatherhood was mere months away. Discussions were started, re-started, tabled, and continued. Steve and Sandra agreed that raising a child with a stay-at-home mom was a difficult proposition in Southern California.\nA plan was hatched to get out of Southern California and go somewhere much more affordable. Steve and Sandra discussed Virginia, Montana, and a few other places. They finally decided that Central New York, Steve\u0026rsquo;s old stomping grounds, made the most sense. Sandra would have support to help with a small child, and the small child would have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and eventually cousins around.\nShortly after the decision was reached, Edward was born and officially changed Steve and Sandra\u0026rsquo;s lives forever.\nAct IV - Going Home # Steve took a trip to the Baldwinsville area to find a house for the family and managed to buy one on the first trip. Sandra, the trusting, wonderful wife, didn\u0026rsquo;t even see the house before she moved in.\nMoving back to New York was not something Steve had really ever considered. Sure, it\u0026rsquo;s a great area, but there are a lot of great areas in the country. In retrospect, it was a great decision. Sandra and Edward had the support they needed, especially when Steve took a job as a consultant that required 80% travel.\nSomehow, during the next two years, Steve and Sandra managed to foil the anti-children forces, and Sandra was pregnant with another child. Everyone, even Edward, was pleased by the prospect of another family member.\nNathan was born on tax day and has forever changed the dread usually associated with April 15th. The arrival of the second child prompted additional discussions, conversations, and planning. Not long after, Steve left his traveling consultant job and started a role with a local company that would allow him to grow in his role as a father.\nAct V - Going Forward # To be continued \u0026hellip;\nContributions by Steve # ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/steveledwith/","section":"Contributing Authors","summary":"","title":"Steve Ledwith","type":"authors"},{"content":"Every post gets a few tags, so if one topic caught your interest, this is the quickest way to find more like it. The number next to each tag is how many posts use it.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"Ledwith.org is a family site, so it seemed only fair to introduce the family. This page will grow over time as more of us set up our own corners of the internet, and as I convince people to let me write about them.\nEdward # Edward is our oldest, and he got the math gene that apparently skipped me somewhere around my fourth Calculus class. He\u0026rsquo;s studying aerospace engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology, with a minor in computational mathematics, and he plans to stay on for a master\u0026rsquo;s degree in flight mechanics and controls. In his own words, he\u0026rsquo;s fascinated by how math and physics come together to make complex systems work, especially in flight dynamics and control.\nHis projects are the kind that make a proud dad nod along and then quietly go look things up: a senior capstone team building a system that autonomously detects and intercepts drones, satellite constellation simulations, and a machine learning model that spots faults in a spacecraft\u0026rsquo;s reaction wheels. When he isn\u0026rsquo;t doing that, he\u0026rsquo;s refereeing hockey and lacrosse games, which may be the more stressful job.\nYou can find his portfolio at edward.ledwith.org.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/family/","section":"The Family","summary":"","title":"The Family","type":"family"},{"content":"This is where I write things down. Some of it is technology, some is photography, some is leadership, and some is whatever I got curious about and couldn\u0026rsquo;t let go of (a six-part series on air traffic control, for example). A few of these first appeared on Medium or on The Architect and The Executive; those cards will take you there.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Thoughts","summary":"","title":"Thoughts","type":"posts"}]