Officials stage 'largest' ATC radar‑upgrade demo to spotlight modernization needs

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Federal Aviation Administration chief Bryan Bedford used an April 21 summit in Washington to show off air-traffic-control upgrades and ask Congress to fund more. (transportation.gov) The event was billed as the first “Modern Skies Summit,” a Department of Transportation showcase for what the administration calls a “Brand New Air Traffic Control System.” Duffy said the overhaul touches radar, software, hardware and telecom networks across the national system. (transportation.gov 1) (transportation.gov 2) The basic problem is old infrastructure: many FAA sites still rely on copper communications lines, some towers still pass paper flight strips by hand, and much of the radar fleet dates to the 1980s. Bedford said many radar units have exceeded their intended service life and are getting harder to maintain. (transportation.gov) (cbsnews.com) Duffy said work already completed includes replacing about half of all copper lines with fiber and converting 17 air-traffic-control towers from paper strips to electronic ones. CBS News reported the department has also upgraded about 270 radio sites and added surface-awareness systems at 54 airports. (aopa.org) (cbsnews.com) The larger buildout is much bigger on paper. DOT’s 2025 plan called for new fiber, wireless and satellite links at more than 4,600 sites, 25,000 radios, 475 voice switches, 618 radar replacements, six new control centers, and surface-awareness deployments at 200 airports. (transportation.gov) Radar is the easiest piece to picture: ground stations bounce signals off aircraft so controllers can see where planes are. In January, DOT said contracts awarded to RTX and Indra would replace up to 612 radars by June 2028, starting with high-traffic areas. (transportation.gov) The software pitch is more ambitious. AOPA said Bedford told the summit that three companies have built “digital twins” of U.S. airspace, while Duffy told CBS that future artificial-intelligence tools would be used to spot conflicts and smooth schedules, not replace controllers. (aopa.org) (cbsnews.com) Duffy said the software could flag congestion 45 days ahead by combining airline schedules with FAA data, then suggest moving some flights by five, seven or 10 minutes to cut delays. He told CBS the department still needs separate congressional funding for that tool, which he put at $6 billion to $10 billion. (cbsnews.com) The urgency comes from repeated failures in old systems. The Federal Aviation Administration said the January 2023 Notice to Airmen outage exposed how fragile a core safety network had become; that system issues more than 4 million notices a year to pilots and flight planners. (faa.gov) FAA said in 2025 that it moved the new cloud-based Notice to Airmen service onto an accelerated timetable, and trade coverage this week reported the agency completed the transition on April 18, 2026. That makes the summit part progress report, part budget case for finishing the rest. (faa.gov) (flyingmag.com) Congress already provided what Duffy has called a $12.5 billion down payment, and Peraton was named prime integrator in December. Duffy told the summit the full overhaul would take about two and a half years, with DOT still pressing lawmakers for more. (aopa.org) (nextgov.com) The demo was meant to make an old systems story visible: less paper, less copper, newer radar, and software that warns controllers earlier. Whether Congress pays for the rest will decide how much of the summit display becomes working equipment. (transportation.gov) (nextgov.com)