Why 5G is a HUGE problem for Boeing, but NOT Airbus
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- Опубликовано: 17 фев 2022
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Sir Tim Clark is one of the most influential people in aviation today. After 20 years at the helm of Emirates, he’s had an immeasurable impact on the industry as a whole. Whenever he speaks, it’s smart to listen. So, when he called the recent 5G fiasco “one of the most delinquent” & “utterly irresponsible” things he’s seen in his career, you know the situation is bad.
But you don’t even have to take his word for it - just look at the chaos that ensued a few weeks ago. After airlines learned that 5G signals could compromise the safety of their aircraft, flights all across the globe were canceled. Luckily, the worst of it is behind us - wireless providers have temporarily switched off 5G near airports. But those towers won’t stay off forever, and once they come back online Boeing in particular could be in for a world of hurt. Let me explain…
#Boeing #Airbus #787 #5G 
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Dude, playing FSX while watching air crash investigations. You took me screaming back a decade to relive some awesome days flying online. I did the same stuff. Thank you.
Air crash investigation is also on disney plus in europe
@@maoam-im7lc thank you. I'm trying to figure out where to set my VPN to get it. If you have a suggestion, I'm open.
Why's thr 777x not selling?
@@alain-danieltankwa8007
This video is complete nonsense. Retrofitting the altimeter on thousand 787 sold is a one-day job. This is also a cost Boeing needs to take because they have sold an instrument with poor filtering capabilities - gambling on there were no needs at the time when the choice was made. There will be no laws against 5G near airports. Aviation and its random sense of quality are to blame. If you're a decent person you wouldn't construct an instrument that listens to a wider band than it is licensed to use - just because it was cheaper this way.
The airlines didn’t “just learn of it” 5G issues have been a concern for years. The Europeans dealt with it. The FCC and FAA did not until it appeared to be a crisis - then it became a scramble for CYA actions.
are Boeing still actively a part of FAA? if so, that is the explanation for the omission - a problem ignored, is money saved - suggestion for proper Boeing motto
No it hasn't. 5g itself is not dangerous. It's simply the signals output are very similar to the signals output by the ground equipment.
It's like having a green traffic light but the stop light is only a slightly darker green . You can technically tell the difference, but they are similar enough l that it may cause issues.
That's all. 5G isn't dangerous.
This seems like a good conclusion. A220, the Airbus model that potentially suffers from the issues, was designed by Bombardier of Canada.
It is not a crisis.
Europe uses a different band for 5G, do it's not that much of a problem for them unlike here
A bigger question might be: why is the signal filtering on these altimeters wide enough to accept interference from wavelengths outside of their assigned band? The 5G providers are doing nothing outside of their rights; the altimeters are faulty. Would we ban microwave ovens and wifi routers if we found out some aircraft are tuned to also accept those bands?
No, they are not faulty and they are built to exacting standards for many other aircraft than just airliners. Their frequency range and signal filtering were agreed upon by many manufacturers and the US government via the approval of the FAA. It is the fault of the FAA for not being able to pressure the FCC enough to look away from the billions of dollars the sale of 5G frequency range represented to the government. It is ALWAYS about the $$$.
@@105blwalker C-band emissions were still happening, but were ground based satellite stations, which meant they were very directional in their transmission so an aircraft flying overhead would not likely encounter an signal from that band or would only do so for a miniscule amount of time as they passed over the beam path. It is all about the money, but in this case, it's on the altimeter manufacturers cutting corners because they assumed the spectrum use would never change. - EDIT: I am incorrect about ground based sat stations, as the 3.7-4.2Ghz portion of C-band was used for downlink (ie satellite to earth) transmissions, not uplink.
@@bitsofgeek c band is dl only
Doppler effect.
@@jaik195701 You're absolutely right, I misread the info on that. My apologies.
The expressions "Lawmakers" and "Quick and decisive action" must always be separated by a big NOT in a sentence, in order to accurately represent the real world. ;)
In the US, yes. But in other parts of the world, not always.
Correct, the FCC & FAA didn’t talk to each other before this happened so now we are in pickle because of them not communicating.
Also the head of the FCC is not a technical person so that makes it worse.
I could see Boeing and ATT and Verizon all getting a bailout but using the money to pad their pockets instead of fixing the issue.
Lawmakers are really the issue here - we have enough laws what is at issue is the obvious inability of two government agencies (FAA and FCC) and private companies like Verizon, TMobile etc to work together.
@Alin S agree it is frustrating but frankly corporate greed is a and always has been a characteristic of capitalism. I am sure your very familiar with the Rockefeller and Vanderbilt era and the give aways to railroads and big oil and the mining industry before that. How many miners wives were widowed in the name of corporate profit?
That separation guard band is not too small, it is huge! The frequency difference is more than 200MHz. If Boeing devices still get crosstalk from the 5G signals, then it is utterly bad engineering on the instrument manufacturer. Aircraft companies should get forced to fix this or get those planes grounded.
Unlike you claim, it is definitely Boeing's fault. Unlike you suggest, hopefully lawmakers will take quick action to make Boeing comply to frequency regulations or prevent their planes from getting used.
What doesn’t help is Boeing’s move from quality engineering as its focus to financial success
I don’t get this. Europeans operate a 5G system about 0.3 GHz lower than what the FCC auctioned off to Verizon and AT&T just last year, they don’t have any problems. The FAA warned the FCC not to go all the way up to 3.91 GHz, because it was too close to radar altimeters. And the FCC didn’t listen. Most likely because they were lobbied by the telecom industry, specifically AT&T and Verizon. The reason is because this band with carries more data. Nowhere else in the world do we have this spectrum used by 5G providers, and as a result and because of poor coordination between the FCC and the FAA, we now have this problem.
The radio spectrum is a very, very limited resource. Almost every part of it, from AM bands to the 300GHz ranges are in use and mobile communications are just a small portion of its users. The entire ordeal relies on every user playing nice and keeping their actions within their designated band.
I couldn't care any less about Boeing's bottom line. They are getting enough concessions and subsidies from the government. Let them fix their BS.
Could you care any less if an airliner crashes due to this?
@@forestcooper5464 boeing shit are already crashing
@@forestcooper5464 worst part is a crash related to 5G bands will be the only way to rapidly fix this. Best in my opinion is to “fix” a few planes every quarter and pray that the radio towers play nice
@@forestcooper5464 they can ground their pane until they got working altimeters
@@forestcooper5464 if an airplane crashes due to that, it‘s because of Boeings bad design and not 5G. 5G does only produce slight out-of band interference and a 200 MHz guard should definitely be enough for any proper system.
The fact that some radar altimeter manufacturers are unable to properly operate within the specified allocated bandwidth is a sad statement about their competence in designing and developing of the radar receiver / filters / wave analysers. That is the real issue here, not Boeing nor Airbus nor even the wireless carriers that do remain within their allocated bandwidth. The frequency was allocated and they should have remained within it. There is enough separation in the bandwidth allocation to make this work properly.
The FAA and FCC should have known about these issues before hand. Yes, they did drop the ball but maybe they did not think that radar altimeter would be so poorly implemented.
Boeing chose the equippment, this is boeing's problem first. If boeing wants to turn around and sue the manufacturers for misleading them (if that truly even happened), they are free to do so. Do not be surprised to learn boeing knew about this the whole time they were in use. Boeing may have demanded cheaper prices and approved of the defects on purpose to make them cheaper. That is how the max crashes happened, trying to be cheap to boost profits. It is boeing's proven business model.
I like how you clearly take the side of the airlines. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here like nah. They had plenty of warning time let the airlines make the changes.
Yuppp
Or: let’s not roll out 60GHz millimeter wave radiation, which according to it’s own safety standards, is allowed to increase the temperature of the human skin by 1 degree celcius at normal operating distance (ie in the street). What if someone stands/lives closer for extended periods of time? It is literally the same frequency as microwaves.
@@DavidBcc with the rise in energy prices I wouldn’t mind that, save me some money heating my home.
@@DavidBcc No one is doing that. No one has ever even talked about doing that. It's not even something that is on the table. You make no sense.
The content in this video is incorrect in many ways. Millimeter Wave 5G is not and has never been an issue with planes. Verizon turned on mmw in many major cities over a year ago. Within the last month Verizon turned off most mmw for reasons that have nothing to do with planes. They turned it off because they failed to make the technological advances necessary to make mmw viable on a large scale. The newest C-Band 5G that ATT and Verizon had to beg the FCC to open up for them is the frequency range in question. The airlines did not have time to make adjustments for this set of frequencies because AT&T and Verizon only realized they needed some kind of mid-spectrum to compete. T-Mobile was crushing them in the 5G race because they were the only US Cellular network utilizing the mid-band. That said, Boeing doesn't get a pass. The reason for concern was due to Boeing useing low quality and noisy components with little to no care taken in regards to signal quality/discretion. Bottom line... Boeing made crappy altimeters. Just another reminder that Boeing is not and hasn't been the company it used to be. Disappointing to say the least.
I seriously doubt that regulators will limit 5G use when there are options for "safe" radio altimeters. Both Boeing and Airbus will need to replace their devices at some point, or have to develop software fixes for the current ones to work correctly.
Dear god don’t let them try to fix it with software
@Jaquan Kelsor car is a bigger death machine than a plane.
Completely disagree with the whole "hopefully" segment. You can't permanently freeze airports in the wireless past. Planes need to be updated, not 5G banned.
Yeah and he said a few minutes earlier that getting rid of 5G was a temporary solution because nobody is going to be ok with crap connections at airports and then immediately said he hopes lawmakers ban 5G at airports 😂
Nah 5g mmw is really really overrated
It also only effect certain rad alts, which could be changed out on future production models and an FAA airworthiness directive could require all airplanes with the problematic rad alts to be updated. And it wouldn't even have to be a grounding condition right away, as there are still ways to land safely in low visibility conditions without rad alts, like by using the altitude of the airport and the altitude reported on the static ports of the aircraft to determine the distance to the runway.
@@misham6547 It is C-band 5G causing these issues, not millimeter wave. The author stated this incorrectly in the video, but showed some charts that are correct.
I do agree with you, but coby does have a point
5G is not one single “thing.” The millimeter-wave portion is at 28-39GHz. That’s nowhere near radio altimeters’ 4.2-4.4GHz. But yes, the C-band, at the 3.98GHz top end, is much closer, within 220MHz, in the US.
But 220MHz is hardly a tiny band gap, neither in absolute nor percentage terms. 220MHz is about 1000 times the separation of FM-radio stations, and about 5% of the 4.2GHz carrier frequency. Meanwhile, crystal oscillators - mid-1900s technology - can tune a transceiver to within a few parts per million.
Furthermore, both 5G signals and radio altimeters are very directional, which makes interference even less likely.
Still 220MHz are a massive guard band.
On Sub-GHz, 20 MHz are much, while on these frequencies, 200 MHz are much. The channel bandwidth of 5G n77/78 usually is 60 or 90 MHz, the channel bandwidth of VHF FM radio is 0.2 MHz,
If Boeing builds their planes to have crappy band pass filters, it‘s their fault. Most phones don‘t have issues with strong harmonics, the strongest outside the band maybe is -30dBm.
Exactly. Did Boeing just not bother to put any filtering on these mission-critical components or something?
Interference is not likely. That is correct. But when it occurs, it can have disasters consequences. I've read reports at my work about aircraft having outrageous discrepancies between the barometric altimeter (a function of air pressure measuring altitude above sea level) and the radio altimeter (a function of radio-waves measuring height above ground). These events have occurred over flat terrain near sea level, but have up to a 10,000 foot altitude discrepancy, possibly caused by 5G interference. Further analysis is required to determine the exact cause of each individual incident and why they happened, but all these reports came flooding in once the cell carriers turned on the 5G towers. Unlikely to be a coincidence.
Several problems with this video. First, the FCC started modifying frequency widths and radio power limitations 15 years ago. The FCC also narrowed frequency modulation by 50% to adjust for the new frequency bands. Secondly, the frequency buffer between 5G and radio altimeter frequencies is more than twice as wide as any other frequency buffers. Third, there is no actual evidence of 5G signal bleedover affecting a radar altimeter. The interference is theoretical. Lastly, the FAA knew this was coming for more than a decade but did nothing about it. The airlines also knew about the frequency changes and chose not to do anything about the situation. As to altimeters affected, many can be fixed by firmware updates. And the older ones that can't be upgraded can be replaced by newer models. Yes, there are many interactions between the altimeter and other systems in the airplane, but the FAA, the plane manufacturers, and the airlines had plenty of time address the issue. So don't blame the cellular companies for a problem that the airline industry ignored for so many years
The telecom lobby used their influence to pressure the FCC so they could make more money. Full stop. Don't be confused by telecom propaganda that tells you otherwise.
@@jameshisself9324 Whether that is true or not, the FAA still had 10 yrs to deal with the potential problem and come up with a fix. And the FAA sat on it's hands and did nothing.
@@brianloomis9351 Bleed over affecting RA? U mean RA working outside manufactured parameteres?
@@mateuszzimon8216 : He means the altimeter listening to frequencies that it shouldn't. You could have had e.g. a malfunctioning automobile causing the same problem, or perhaps a welder, or any number of other things, so for reasons of simple safety it is mandatory that devices like this filter their inputs.
If the aircraft equipment is using or depending on frequency spectrum that is beyond the spectrum that was assigned - then that equipment should not be allowed to operate. It sounds like they have gotten away with that because neighbouring spectrum was not being used. But that doesn't mean that they have the right to it. Ultimately, the altimeter equipment is failing if it depends on frequency spectrum that is not assigned for that use.
The problem is that the FCC sold the frequency to the cell companies for big bucks and didn't communicate with the FAA. It's government for you
@@gimp6019 absolutely, and that is where the problem lies. Though I do not fully blame fcc for that either - if aircraft equipment is operating outside of its licensed limits, fcc would not neccesarily know about that. The FAA obviously did know about that and should have pushed this earlier and harder. Because it's not like the taking into use of this spectrum is anything new or unexpected - this has been in the works for a looong time.
The frequencies were not unassigned, they were FCC assigned buffer zones. . The FCC opted to narrow the buffers without adequate understanding the impact. Suspect massive lobbying effort by the cell phone crowd had something to do with it.
@@danharold3087 The FCC opted to narrow the buffers to a level that properly designed modern radio equipment can easily meet and the altimeter manufacturer/designer is ultimately at fault for designing devices without adequate filtering (which CAN be done just look at the long list of aircraft that do not have this issue).
We had to deal with a similar (albeit much less serious) issue where ground based two radios needed to be updated or replaced with narrow band versions after obsolete wide band radios were regulated out of use (and this was done in pretty much every country around the world).
Frequency bandwidth is a limited resource, it's expensive and requiring your neighbour to limit their use because of your own failure to comply with standards is disingenuous at best.
(I don't have a horse in this race, I am both a retired pilot and a radio technician)
@@geoffh784
It has been said that the FAA does not have the technical staff to evaluate this problem.
The units now in question worked before the FAA broke them by changing the rules using a flawed process.
One would expect a reasonable period to comply, AFTER the final decision, and prior to implementing the frequency allocation change. The cell phone interests put in equipment prior to final approval.
In europe there are cell tower restriction in and around airports that have not been implemented in the US. We could do that here too but the cell people have towers in place the can't use. It seems that they are calling the shots.
I recall, without proof, that the buffer bands are wider in Europe.
If the altimeter is getting confused by frequencies out of it's operating range, Boeing needs to fix the altimeters.
It’s clearly on the FCC. It allowed itself to be influenced by tech lobbying to prematurely institute 5G.
FAA warned the FCC about the problem and they chose to ignore it.
Tech industry has the more powerful lobbying power.
Not Boeing, it would be Rockwell Collins or whomever supplies the LRRAs for Boeing. It could be a PITA to refit all the jets with new LRRAs.
No they don't
@Michael Gotama It's your government that EF-ed this one.
The FCC government sold the frequency bands to the telecoms WAY after the airplanes got FAA certified!
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Imagine living in a place where one industry can steal 800MHz of spectrum (400 on each side) just by claiming they were there first and it's an expensive fix. Anybody with a basic understanding of radio is rolling their eyes.
If I shit in your toilet because installing a toilet at my place is too expensive, can I go to the FCC to complain when you install a lock to your toilet?
Essentially these radio altimeters are defective by design by not filtering out out-of-band signals.
My opinion is that Airbus and Boeing should upgrade these ones for free and always respect technical specifications in the future.
Thank you!! This is what I’ve been saying!
Should Ronald Regan be held responsible? It was he that led to the Deregulation of the Airline industry !
@@mariombrbovic8188 FAA is sharing responsibility, by not ensuring that radio altimeters works as expected by only using signals on their own band (on the receiver side), or at least by ensuring that this check have been thoroughly done.
Radio Altimeters might malfunction if there's parasite signal in their own band, it's being expected especially for old analog radio altimeters, not by signals of non-adjacent band, the adjacent bands (upper and lower) being blocked and used as security buffers.
Radio Altimeters are considered CRITICAL avionic systems, thus the lack of correct oversight from FAA is the symptom of many problems that we all observed peaking with the Boeing's MCAS, its lack of certification and oversight, and ultimately lost of human life.
Thing is they are currently compliant with the specifications. The c-band auctions were rushed. It’s a global specification and it takes a loooooong time to establish and change those in safety critical industries. There was barely over a year from “let’s auction the property next door” to “next door is now a high rise condo, and we added a freeway 100ft from your property”
There was a bit more time after the auction before it started to get built but not nearly the amount of time it takes to codify technical specifications, much less global ones.
Automatic ground spoilers rely on the weight on wheels switches, along with idle throttle or reversers. The issue with the C-band deployment only has effect in the air. It’s on approach and can be part of ground proximity warning systems too.
Not on all planes. I think Boeing said the 787 used the radar altimeter to reduce complexity by not having a weight on wheels sensor.
@@zeroone8800 In other words, the cheaper route.
@@fredmdbud not necessarily, the less complex and generally more reliable route. The 777 uses weight on wheels, and that system is quite complex and quite heavy. The RA is a required piece of equipment and on short final is 100% involved in flying the plane.
@@mrl22222 Are we seriously suggesting there is no weight on wheels switch? That is one of the most basic and super simple forms of insurance to avoid a whole host of goofs, the most basic and obvious is accidental gear retraction while on the ground. In most aircraft that is the only thing that prevents it.
@@jameshisself9324 no, I was suggesting that there's a lot more to it than just a switch...
I've been surprised that this issue has been allowed to happen. Surely it must have been known that there was a possible interference problem years ago?
The FCC decided to rush to auction even after the FAA pleaded with them to halt until it could be deemed safe.
Yes, which is the reason why in Europe, they are forbidden (by law) to be build within a certain radius of airports, since a qhile already
Replying to my own comment: I'll be flying out of Manchester soon and I have a 5G phone, so I can check what coverage there is in and around that airport. One thing is certain, of course: there's no sub-millimetre coverage. OfCOM, the UK authority, hasn't made that spectrum available yet.
I am amazed too.. simply scandalous.
Radio alti is not a system you want to f**ck with, many aircraft subsystem direct rely on it.
@@tomburke5311
The wave length of the radar altimeter is around 7 centimeters.
Sounds to me like Honeywell Aerospace and Rockwell Collins cheaped out on the altimiter input filtering - for a safety critical device to have such poor out of band signal rejection is really bad.
The aviation industry is notorious for 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', sometimes due to safety concerns/unintended consequences, sometimes due to avoiding cost increases. In this case, just as with the 737-MAX MCAS issue, the latter was the primary driving force.
@@bitsofgeek the issue with the 737 MAX was caused by poor training on the new MCAS system. It was a known issue and there was a failsafe in place to disable the MCAS system, but pilots were not properly trained on how to trigger said failsafe.
@@1m3agle The cause was bad design AND poor training to deal with the design flaw. The problem with MCAS was that it in certain conditions it could override the pilot's input, which should never be possible. The issue can be circumvented by not getting in these conditions or turning MCAS of. But as a software engineer, I have to say that such a poor design should have never landed in a plane, no matter how the pilots should be trained. Blaming software failure on the user is bad practice, even if the user is a professional software security must be ensured.
@@nanoder7te I agree that the software being able to override pilot input is something that never should've happened, however if the pilots had been properly trained on how to disable the system then none of the crashes would've had the outcome they did, and they would've reached their destination safely
Dude, 4G didn’t exist when the 787 first rolled off assembly lines some 15 years ago, let alone 5g. These altimeters had no issues until 5g rolled out a couple of years ago. This was a fail (or corruption) of the regulatory process. Now, arguably the best product made in America and one our most important exports has an issue that is literally manufactured by cell service providers and the tech industry. Should have never happened.
Avionics tech here....all it involves in the aircraft to change the band of radio altimeters (radaralts) is to change the box in the equipment rack, and the antenna. The outputs remain the same ARINC standard. If keeping the same radio band for Radar Altimeters, then all that's necessary is changing the box for an updated model with better filters. Antennas also have bandwidth design, and narrower band antennas can be made. Cheaper ain't always better.
They FCC didn't auction altimeter frequencies as some in this thread have said. They auctioned C-band satellite frequencies. The ones that were used by all the networks we've been watching such as NBC, CBS, HBO, Etc. to distribute their programming to affiliate TV stations and cable companies around the country. The Cellular industry paid you and me (i.e.: the government) $82-Billion for those frequencies. They should be able to use what they paid us for.
There is 200+MHz. between the two services. Any competent radio engineer can design an altimeter receiver to reject signals that far away. The filtering would have added minimal cost. It appears the competent altimeter manufacturers did that and those altimeters are working just fine on most of the U.S fleet. Apparently Boing used a unit that does not meet modern design practices.
There is no safety problem, it's all about money. If the weather is bad at the destination, the planes would divert to an alternate airport just like they did years ago before they had low visibility landings. It's certainly expensive to do that but not a safety issue.
7:45 how is this problem not Boeing's fault? The should be doing immunity testing on their aircraft and especially on all safety critical systems. This is bare minimum electrical engineering effort that they apparently skipped.
And what else has been skipped we should ask.
Are you saying a US business did "Nazi" this coming? ב''ה
Hmm FCC doesn't require immunity testing but Europe does.....and Europe's 5G implementation is different than US's.... add in lazy, cost-concious engineering/project management and a shoddy product is released that "meets all advertised specs...."
Auto brakes and spoilers deploy when the weight on wheels switch is activated, they have nothing to do with the radar altimeter.
The bigger danger is if a plane flares at a random altitude.
@@seriouscat2231 Particularly if that random altitude is negative several hundred metres. Flying into the ground at full speed would not be pretty.
depends on the plane type..
@@mrl22222 No it really doesn’t, the only planes that don’t have weight on wheels switched would be a Cessna or any other small GA aircraft, they don’t have radio altimeters either tho.
Scrolling down looking for this comment, thank you :)
Surely this is entirely the fault of the plane makers in accepting/specifying radio altimters that are not properly designed to be immune from signals in use well outside the authorised operating frequencies of the altimeter.
The law that needs to be passed is one requiring the airlines to use radio altimeters that meet the internationally agreed standards.
Why did the FAA wait until after the auction was over and 5G was about to be turned up to, you know, do some actual testing, rather than rely on an airline-industry funded study that did not name any models tested, and only said there was "potential" interference, as opposed to something like a percentage of planes in the flying fleet would be affected?
It's the same reason why you shouldn't have to worry about your Wi-Fi router affecting airlines. They aren't authorized to use that spectrum anyway and so the assumption was that Boeing wasn't using it.
The MNOs 100% have the right to use this frequency. If the airlines wanted it, then they should have bought it. Because they didn't they should have to upgrade their altimeters to use a better band pass filter or ground their planes. If they don't want to do that they should have to buy the spectrum.
There is a few things that is a bit unclear in the video. And some things are probobly wrong.
Firstly there is no "5G band", there is not any G band what so ever. Typically all generation mix and match with there bands. There is currently between 150 and 200 bands available for telecommunications. Those bands are mixed and matched differently in different countries. Most modern mobile phones can typically run 3G, 4G and 5G on any band that the phone have filters for.
On top of the little more than 100 band that have been reused, there is 7 new bands in the 3.5-6Ghz range, as well as 5 bands in the 24Ghz range as well as a handful of band at the 60Ghz range. The 60Ghz range is what is usually called mm wave, but also the 24Ghz band is sometimes refereed to as mm wave bands.
Both the 24 and 60Ghz band is predominantly used for point to point communications, while the 3.5-6Ghz band works really just like any of the old phone bands.
So there is really about 20 new bands, but there is also about 20 reused band. NOTE the 3,5-6Ghz band is NOT mm-wave band, its just an expansion of the normal bands. They work just like any older phone technology, just with the new protocol. Its really just the software that is the diffrance.
While yes, aircraft use radar in the 24 and 60Ghz range as well (mostly weather radar). Both those bands uses beamforming. This technology is not really new, but what is new is that it uses it as a part of the standard. That is, those bands uses beam forming exclusively. That is, they send out the radio signal like a laser beam from the base station to your phone. So the basestation know the diffrance between an aircraft and a phone.
So then you might wounder what would happen if someone uses a mm-wave phone onboard an aircraft. Well the aluminum shell of the aircraft would block the signal to the extent that the base station would revert back to normal frequency service.
So no, its not the mm-wave signal that is the problem, is the normal expanded frequency spectrum.
The fix should be fairly simple, just put in a new frequency discriminator.
Note, even if the 3.5-6Ghz band are disabled, there will still be some 5G bands livable in reused 3G bands. So its not like there will be no 5G service around the airports. The mm-wave system could also be used inside the terminals. Apart from that Wifi-6 will also become available with partial integration to 5G. There is many new features of 5G, one of those is that 5G can use wifi tunneling. So if you have 5G the phone will connect to 5G connected wifi6 access-point automatically removing the need to log in.
I have NO idea what anything you said means, but, it surely sounds impressive !!!!
Finally someone who makes some sense... as a Telco engineer, I approve this message :)
Would also like to state that the radio technology is not as relevant as much as the radio frequency & transmit power levels being used. Network operators the world over are re-farming spectrum for 5G use. They are using spectrum that was previously used for 3G or 4G, and those frequencies do not suddenly become dangerous just because the RAN technology in use has altered!
@@jayr6637 Yes if cause, calling it a 5G band is really just a lazy way of saying 3.6-6Ghz band.
Same way as 1G band (350-600Mhz as well as some other bands in the 900 range), is still called 1G bands, despite 1G been disbanded for years, and those bands are mostly used for 4G currently.
The only think i can think of is that the guard-bands can possibly be changed a bit.
Now most modern system use band transposing and soft radio, making them pretty much invulnerable to the guard bands... Well.. on the telecom side.
For the aircraft... i guess they just use simple filters. Othervise they wouldn´t have the problem to begin with.
Then of cause, more modern system may use soft radio for radar as well, eliminating the problem.
@@matsv201
Using DSS a radio band can be both 4G & 5G simultaneously... so the whole concept of referring to RAN technology in generic terms like bunch of frequencies in a range & saying it can interfere with aircraft navigation systems is just stupid.
Now I won't pretend to have read all the details about the frequencies that impact aircraft systems, but if it's mmWave frequencies, then I suspect the problem is overblown for no reason as the higher the frequency the more directional it is & the shorter the distance the signal travels for the same transmit power level.
@@jayr6637
"Using DSS a radio band can be both 4G & 5G simultaneously"
Yes that is true, i did forget about that. In honesty it was almost 10 years since i left telecom, 5G was just going online back then.
I would say its clearly a filter problem on the aircraft side.
of cause, because this frequency have never been used widely prior to really the last 2 years, if there was a built in problem with the frequency discriminator on the radar, it would not have been discovered.
For the 24GHz, if i remember correctly this is used for proximity radar for cars. And 60Ghz is used for weather radar for aircraft.
Of cause the weather radar is highly directional so if it picks up anything, it will show it in the direction that it is. So i would probobly want to claim that a pilot would pretty simply see that there just is a bit of information missing.
Also the 60Ghz is used directional only, so it would really never point the beam at a aircraft, so i kind of think the problem is theoretical more than practical.
Why do you hope that the consumers will have to "pay the price" (not having access to the latest version of cellular network when in/around the airport) instead of Boeing paying the price of upgrading their altimeters?
The type of 5G that the UK and rest of the world except the USA uses doesn't affect aircraft. It's the type of 5G used at airport's across the pond that needs to change not the aircraft.
@@bikerguychris31 "American" 5g (mmWawe) never had any problems with an faa. "European" 5g (n77 or less wide n78) - always had as here in Europe there are n78 restrictions around airports. EU mobile operators currently have the same amount of problematic band as US ones (3400 - 3800 on use in EU and 3700-3800 currently in the US, pending expansion towards 3700-3980)
@@volodumurkalunyak4651 I personally think they should just use LTE-A at airports if 5G affects aircraft's safety so much. I mean you can get 400+Mbps download on Advanced 4G 👍
@@bikerguychris31 I completely disagree. Faa missed all deadlines regarding to spectrum auction (before auction preparations started 5 years ago, auction announcements - 2 years ago, auction itself - 1 year ago). They all did nouthing till very last moment. Should that been a wireless carrier, not a radio altimeter band, their allocation would be cancelled. Squatting on neighboring spectrum isn't allowed and airline industry did exactly that.
One does do NOT punish cellular carriers (like Verizon) for airline industry wrong doing's (inadequate radio altimeters design).
I mean how necesarry is high speed internet on your phone anyway?
Does anyone know why the A340 seems to be affected but not the A330, to me it seems rather strange since the two aircraft are mostly identical especially when it comes to systems onboard
Same thoughts as well. The A340 and A330 are identical in every aspect except for the engines and landing gear. Funny the RA are totally different.
I'm asking this question aswell
I'm guessing that is because there are more younger A330 than younger A340, Airbus might have upgraded the A330's radio altimeter on the newer production airplane.
@@p1xlb522 Then why would a220 suffer from the same problem when it is newer?
@@stefan1250 it might come down to the RA supplier, model and the way it's implemented on the plane, there is a story but we don't have all the details apparently
Retrofitting the radio altimeters should require nothing more than an additional filter between the antenna and the altimeter.
And maybe an amplifier. The bigger barrier is the need for an airworthiness certification.
How on earth was this overlooked? C-Band satellite stations near airports have used bandpass filters for ages. The bandwidth in this range for 5G was taken away from weak-signal satellite downlink services. I guess the altimeters need to have filters added! Who pays the bill though? The gov't which rushed the auction, the cell companies who couldn't wait for new bandwidth, the airlines, or the manufacturers? I'd have designed filtering into something as critical as an altimeter. I have installed filters in area surveillance radars before, but these altimeters need a real sharp rolloff and the required filters may be on the large side.
For anything designed after the ~1990s regulations were approved, manufacturers should pay. For everything before that, ideally the government should pay. The auction was just the latest stage of a multi-decade process, and the earlier stages were enough to obligate safety precautions.
How about this: airports enable free, fast WiFi and nobody needs to use 5g? Also, just as we can't fly drones on flight paths, we sure could accept the need to limit ourselves to 4g at airports.
That only makes logical sense if you don’t know how computer networking works. Free Wi-Fi is one of the easiest ways for hackers to break into somebody’s computer/phone/electronic device. Also, free Wi-Fi does not fix the 5G problem. So now you have created a new problem and you still have a problem with 5G. You basically have started something else and at the end of the day everybody’s gonna end up with the same problem only angrier if that’s ever possible
@@ethanfairweather8736 When using free WiFi, I advice that you use nord vpn, It 99.9% keeps you safe from hackers.
@@cupcake0011 do you have any idea how easy it is to break through mass produced VPNs?
The problem is 2 miles around the runways, not just within the airport. How will free Wi-Fi be enabled for such a wide area?
@@FameyFamous free WiFi already exists in some subways
The frequencies used in Europe allow a larger guard band and they aren't allowed to operate near airports.
As a ham radio operator I find this interesting considering that my equipment is capable of receiving signals close together without needing a buffer zone. Sounds to me like Boeing decided to make very cheap and poorly selective receivers for their most popular airliner. At the end of the day Boeing should be doing better. I am not aware of any other manufacturer of radio equipment that can get away with telling the wireless carriers to turn off their equipment when they are operating inside their bands as required.
It’s probably a more difficult issue than you’re assuming. Considering the speed involved, there’s likely some sort if red or blue shift at play, as well as complications introduced by altitude. That said, if they can make it work in one plane, they should be able to make it work in the other ones. 787 probably introduces some complexity due to carbon fiber being more permeable than metal but still, cost is no excuse and that’s the only excuse they gave
The process of frequency band allocation has been this way for a long time, there is no reason for all fus.
Boeing and other manufacturers should upgrade their instruments. They are used to it, and should not rely on subpar equipment anyway.
FAA is protecting it's playground the same way FCC is doing to their.
5G is a crucial piece of our future infrastructure the same way aviation is, and band allocation has been known for a long time.
Those instruments that rely on band not allocated to them or protected from other uses MUST be upgraded to keep their airworthiness the same way a cracked turbine blade should.
Boeing and some other influential companies has become too used to bending rules as they please.
How much does the upgraded equipment cost? How many aircraft tires?
It's proven that resilient equipment can be built. Aviation industry should just do it quicker. End of the story.
Unless it's the 5G transmitting equipment that is subpar and is polluting the altimeter band. Radio signals are analog and can interfere with other frequencies unless care is taken in the design of the transmitter.
@@soupwizard Supposedly the FAA waited for data from actual radios instead of using the FCC regulations. The radios are orders of magnitude less interfering (for 5G on the altimeter frequencies. The issue here is altimeter not using modern (30+ year old) filtering technology.) than what they are allowed to do.
@@soupwizard that is never happening. Whatever you describe as subpar 5g transiver equipment will create way more interference to anouther carrier that has it's band 0 Mhz apart (AT&T to Verizon or T-Mobile or vice versa). Out of band emissions for cellular tech is so strict to avoid any guard band beetwen different carriers.
@@soupwizard my guy i am sorry but 220MHz of separation band is gigantic
if that is causing trouble it is not the fault of the neighbor band it is just dumb engineers
fire your avionic designers and hire competent ones
Airline companies should have the burden placed on them to make improvements and changes. We shouldn’t allow Boeing’s incompetence and corruption to stand in the way of technological advancement.
so you buy a new toyota tomorrow. For how many years will you expect them to make improvements and changes to your car? or are they too incompetent and corrupt. If the power company in your area decided to change the voltage and frequency of power distribution and all you had to do is rewire your house and replace 1/2 of your appliances, would you be OK with that?
@@mrl22222 No it’s more that your appliance maker broke the rules and it just took a couple decades for anyone to find out.
Boeing really can't get a break from regulations and random interferences lmao
"random", they were more often lazy and hasty in their approach, thats the cost of cutting corners.
Boeing did it to themselves. They let the rot from McDonnell and profit-over-everything MBA think infect them and hundreds of people paid with their lives because they’re a safety critical industry. It’s exactly why companies must be strongly regulated when and wherever they can cause harm. Because without a financial incentive to behave morally companies, in general, won’t.
Well they wont take a break from being a shitty company, so until then...
@@AlfaGiuliaQV Kinda a shame that Boeing doesn't use LIDAR altimeters. :) LIDAR is like radar, but uses infrared or visible light instead of radio waves.
They absolutely deserve every bit of it.
The statement that airlines have recently realized that 5G networks are interfering with their avionics is not accurate. To my knowledge all that has been established through lab testing is that their is a potential for interference. I'm still waiting for the data from aircraft testing in the 5G environment that shows 5G interference with the radar altimeter. Seems to me this should be the next step in determining if interference exists and to what extent.
How many discrete frequencies have been made available recently and which NEW frequency is encroaching to the LONG existing established narrow frequency band used by special low altitude radar altimeters used for low or no visibility AUTOMATIC landings
(Category II and III, which MUST use an autopilot)?
The pilot during the final approach and autoland monitors the RA display and must execute a manual Go Around when the RA fails, which can happen at less than 50 feet .
A control system performance (altitude flight path) is only as good (soft landing) as the quality of the sensor (RA)
The affected aircraft met regulatory requirements at the time of aircraft certification. Therefore, it can be argued, the financial burden of a 5G compliant retrofit program would fall on the airlines. Boeing and Airbus would bear initial costs to flight test and certify the equipment used in the retrofit program but that would later be passed along to the airlines in the form of chargeable service bulletins. The high cost of modified or new radio altimeter hardware would fall on the airlines. The real fault lies with governments auctioning off radio altimeter frequencies to 5G wireless providers.
I agree. The guard band between the 5G frequencies and altimeter frequencies is too narrow.
It really comes down to which equipment is not operating within specifications, if the altimeter is not operating within the band assigned to them; then it's the aircraft at fault and thus they must be fixed. If the 5G is not staying within band then it's the 5G that needs to be fixed.
End of the day it comes down to which is breaching their assigned operating specifications.
@@richardchantlerricoIt is also the matter of SELECTIVITY where a receiver is able to reject out-of-band signals. Apparently the Boeing altimeters do not have the selectivity to work with the narrow guard band. Boeing has had a history of cutting corners.
@@johnhudelson2652 The A220 is getting affected too
I would suggest instead that the manufacturer of the altimeters should be liable as it is their equipment that is operating outside of licensed specs.
3:39 scared the sh*t out of me lol
Sick of ms20 glitching like that
Lawmakers(in the US) making quick and decisive action could be the BIGGEST oxymoron ever! Great video! Super informative!
The lawmakers sat on their fat asses for a DECADE and ignored this issue until just about the last day.
And at the same time, they collected their fat paychecks.
I think it's obserd to expect lawmakers to step in. The airlines and Boeing need to implement whatever radio altimeters are used in the other "cleared to fly" aircrafts. The wireless companies paid their money to the FCC for that spectrum and have equipment all over the country that it works with. If Boeing knew this was going to be a issue why didn't they say something sooner?
Side note too BTW how Coby could you possibly side with Boeing over their imperfect equipment? It's disappointing to hear you position yourself in this way
I think I heard said best by one commentator.
Government is a dumb caveman with a big stick. Occasionally, you need a dumb caveman with a big stick. Most of the time, you don't. In this case, we don't.
Seems strange that newer aircraft like 787's are more susceptible than an old 737.
The older systems will be less sensitive and higher power so the noise from a nearby cell phone carrier wave will be less likely to reach the detection threshold. The consequences may also be less serious if it is just a loss of data to pilots rather than false data or no data reaching an autopilot system.
They used lighter hardware... less SWAP for filtering which makes them more susceptible to RFI.
But which country does have aircrash investigation on their Netflix database? I want to watch it too
Are there any regional airliners like the E-Jets, CRJ, ATR, etc. that threw up any red flags like the A220 and 787 did?
I’m more concerned with Boeings build quality on the 787 leading to an accident then 5g causing it
I think the bigger problem is flight computers still relying on single source inputs to determine important flight characteristics - rather than relying on a more diverse set of inputs. Various enhanced GPS systems are already meter accurate, glide slope indicators are a thing, and next gen ATC are more than capable of broadcasting altitude info to aircraft on the glide scope on a second by second basis.
When the airliners touch down they auto break assuming the pilots set the breaks before they touched its not the altimeter that tells the plane to stop but I agree that when they are in the air they might not get the right readings
Those airline companies behave like truckers who have been transporting 50-yard pipes sideways on their trucks and then complain that there are houses being build 10 yards away from the street...
Just a note, the spoilers and auto brake system, is activated by weight sensor in the landing gear, not altimeter. 😊
It's activated by a weight sensor in the landing gear on only some aircraft, mostly the 737 747 etc. The 787 uses altimeter for it to prevent it from being activated during a bounced missed approach but it also isn't affected by the altimeter interference since they're using a 1993 design instead of the 1958 radialtimeter design
Spoilers don't deploy based on RA, it's based on weight on wheel... For Airbus that's for sure.
Assuming you don't know how speed brakes work, ALL modern airliners have them deploy when the squat switch is activated on landing. The fact you even said "for Airbus" is false bias.
@@fighter5583 I'm pretty sure I know how these works, as I work on Airbus devices every day as a pilot and a test engineer. Since I'm only familiar with Airbus that's why i only mentioned that, but wouldn't be surprised other aircrafts use this and not the RA.
@@skat0r If you're supposed to be an aircraft maintenance person, you should know that all airliners have squat switches regardless of manufacturer. Just because you worked on Airbus aircraft but didn't know this shows how little you paid attention in training; and I've worked on both Boeing and Airbus planes..
@@fighter5583 not maintenance but lol okay whatever you say
@@skat0r The only difference between maintenance and pilots is that one isn't trained to fly an aircraft; though some also go that route. Even so, if you fly a plane, you should know how everything works. It definitely helps understanding checklists more.
may i know which country has the air crash investigation netflix catalogue??
"We have to trust that regulators and lawmakers will do what's safe" that got a chuckle out of me
i am sorry but this is a rare case of regulators being right and the corps being wrong
220MHz is a gigantic buffer zone, a properly designed RF device can operate with a 10th of that.
being and airbus just wanna cheap out and are trying to suppress 5G growth
Note MM Wave can only work up to 300-400 feet from the towers. It can never work in the air. MMWave Always starts as regular 5G, only switching to mm after the initial connection - MM Wave turns on in the phones after the 5G start. Add this the Back scatter scanners used by TSA have been using MM for years inside all airports, since it’s only usable for very short distance then the degrade exponentially they do nothing to aircrafts. MM has barely been setup as the number of antenna can be 3 to cover a 2 story homes. Actually the sub‑6 GHz area of 5G is More important than mmWave as it goes father and passes through walls.
They do lots of testing and many consultations. I can’t believe this slipped through. Clearly it did. Why are some altimeters unaffected. Can they just swap in the unaffected ones?
The unaffected altimeters have better input filtering. Fortunately this doesn't seem to have caused problems before, but it's just good luck that has prevented an accidental emitter on these frequencies from causing problems before now.
it is about cheap and expensive equipment
expensive RF devices barely need a couple of MHz of buffer space
cheap RF devices can't tolerate closely used bands and can't filter them out
Boeing and airbus thought that the neighboring band would never be used so they cheaped out and used RF devices that need 100s of MHz of buffer space and now don't want to replace equipment because "maximize profits"
220 MHz of buffer space is way way gigantic, the regulators are too nice to airlines
My question is has Boeing upgraded the Altimeter for all new 787's?
If you look at the FCC's spectrum allotment, there is no "separation guard band", the bands adjacent to the radio altimeter band are allocated to other services.
I'm only a few minutes in and already a few things:
1. That RF separation guard band is HUGE and really should be pretty easy to fix the issues the altimeters are having
2. The radio altimeter isn't the only altimeter on the aircraft, in fact they only work from around 500 feet or below. Even if there is a serious issue with the rad alt, the altitude readings from the static ports are there and, while it doesn't necessarily give altitude above ground level, it's relatively simple to compare the altitude of the runway to the altitude the plane is at so the pilots can still land safely, the only issue could be autopilot systems not working properly, but human pilots can adjust for the rad alt not working properly
3. Spoilers refer to when the extendable surfaces on top of the wing are actuated independently of each other to provide extra roll control, when they are actuated together to slow the plane down during landing they are referred to as speedbrakes or airbrakes
It's not 5G that's the problem. It's the frequency bands.
By default when assigning new frequency bands to a company there's a gap of 6mhz.
Apparently the USA has a smaller gaps so somewhere in the 3.0 to 4.0ghz bands there's to small of a gap. Rather than addressing it. This debate & conversation seem to be dragging on.
6 Mhz of frequency gap is beetwen 4194 Mhz to 4200 MHz. With that of a gap, FCC could further sell frequencies in range of 3980 MHz - 4194 Mhz to cellphone companies and enen tell them to disregard and concerns FAA will have.
Boeing apparently claimed that a little over 1 MHz would be fine, and wound up with (permanently) more than 2 MHz- this is no longer the fault of the FCC, this has ling since passed into a failure of the aviation industry to use appropriate equipment.
the wast majority of A220s are ordered by US Airlines Jetblue, Delta and Breeze alsone make up about half of its orders so it will be a problem. But I belive tha simplest solution would be to use the diffrent wavelength 5G just like in Europe and the rest in the world, never understood why the US uses a diffrent system.
Because the different frequencies in the US are the ones made available by the FCC. The frequencies used by Europe are likely already taken by other services within the US.
And if anything, the ones at fault here are the FAA, Boeing, and Airbus. They knew which frequencies were allotted to them, and if their equipment receives crosstalk from 5G, that's on them, because they have no legal ownership of those radio frequencies. The "simplest" solution here is not to adjust American 5G frequencies, something that were decided on a decade ago, but for Boeing and Airbus to fix their equipment that blatantly infringes upon radio frequencies that do not belong to them.
Changes were made a few years ago to air band vhf from 12Khz channels to 8.33Khz channels. This meant radios had to be replaced / modified / re-programmed en-masse.
Now a flaw in the design of some RA’s has been discovered… so now they need to be upgraded too.
It’s clearly not out-of band signals from the 5G networks, otherwise all RA’s would be affected.
You can change out the radio and nothing happens because it does not work with nothing else. The RA's work with other systems. Meaning you mess with it you mess with everything.
According to a Flight Global article, the retrofit cost per aircraft could be between USD 100-150k.
Which is nothing. Raise ticket price by $2 and its repaid in a week
I was waiting for a Coby video on this topic to get a clear and intelligent explanation of the problem. All expectations met or exceeded ! Well done. You are an expert communicator.
I think Boeing should upgrade their altimeters because limiting 5G will be a bad idea due to more Internet demands all over the world, and a slow connection helps hackers bypass the system easier.
4:00
Can we just talk about that SMOOTH landing?
This sounds to me like a security threat as well as a safety threat. The implication is that it would be easy to jam a plane's altitude instruments. In this age of terrorism, Commercial Carriers have a moral obligation to redesign the RF front ends of their altitude sensors and implement more sophisticated antijam systems. They need only go across the hall to their Defense Division counterparts to get the solutions. This is a national security issue, and as such, Congress should allocate funds to help pay for designing and deploying an antijam solution.
This is less of a Boeing issue and more of an FCC and FAA problem; one sold broadband ranges that were too close to the range of those used by aircraft. And the FAA for not making sure that the FCC and wireless carriers didn't put those towers in places that would affect flight operations.
Plus, just about all planes currently flying have been cleared for operations in spite of 5G, so the 787 and A220 won't have much issue. And what do you mean having poor cell service at airports? Unless you have a 3G phone, your local airport is trash, or you're in a tunnel underground, many airports have fast and free wifi through 4G, which is good enough.
220MHZ gap is in now way shape or form TOO CLOSE, that's a MASSIVE gap, the planes must have HORRIBLE input filtering or none at all for them to be interffered with a signland that's 220MHZ away... like for GPS you deal with a safety margin of max 5mhz....
@@DanielLopez-up6os I'm not going to pretend that I know how radio altimeter work, but I can tell you that 200 Mhz is "too close"; otherwise, there wouldn't be such a concern to make sure those cell towers are pointed away from the flight path when on approach.
@@fighter5583 200MHZ is by no means close in the radio spectrum, the reason they have to point them away is cause the plane insturment makers desided to either not put any filtering, or very poor filtering on the insturments.
As an example 2.4ghz wifi is up to 2484mhz and microwaves around 2.500mhz that's less 100mhz gap and your phone doesent magically stop working if someone in the house turns on a microwave, because they have actually thought about out band filtering.
Another example is for ex FM radio stations are only maybe 0.1mhz apart from each other at the close, and you can clearly hear one without interference from the other.
@@DanielLopez-up6os Just because it isn't very close doesn't mean it won't cause downlink interference when at a certain altitude. Antennas used for radio stations aren't as powerful as those of an aircraft, why else would 5g be of a big concern when the previous signals weren't of much concern? Heck, TV antennas are more powerful and certain channels don't exist or are blocked because it could interfere with something important.
If you want to blame someone, you can write your misgivings to the FCC for not listening to concerns about how such signals could interfere with aircraft readings, and the FAA for sitting on its ass and waiting until now to do something about it. Europe has had 5g for years and no issues arose. US incompetence made it a problem here.
So is not a 5G issue :)). Is an american issue :))
Coby stated a couple of times that only Delta's A220s are flying in the U.S. Doesn't Air Canada deploy any of its A220s on crossborder flights?
Why do I always have the feeling that the 787 is the gift that keeps on giving ?
If FCC fails to regulate, Boeing (and Airbus for that matter) deserve monetary compensation from 5G providers and FCC if they were to do the expensive act of revising their altimeters. The 787 and A220 have been around for longer than 5G, meaning that 5G was not a thing when they entered service, therefore neither Boeing nor Bombardier have any reasonable way of knowing about 5G specs when designing thair planes. Meanwhile, the 787 and A220 have been around for a while when 5G started, meaning that the 5G providers and FCC have reasonable ways of knowing the specs of 787 and A220. Therefore they should've known about the 787 and A220 specs and they should've designed their towers to not interfere with the planes.
It's irrelevant which one started operation first, if the altimeter is not operating within the spec band assigned to them; then it's the aircraft at fault and thus they must be fixed. If the 5G is not staying within band then it's the 5G that needs to be fixed.
End of the day it comes down to which is breaching their assigned operating specifications.
@@richardchantlerrico I agree that if the guard band is being violated by the 5G towers then the onus is on the FCC to regulate and cellular radios to deal with it. However the other is not so clear.
If the 787 RA relies on a larger bandwidth than license you’re right again but I doubt that’s actually the issue. More likely is that the RA’s RF front end doesn’t have enough rejection in the new 5G licensed areas and/or their chosen modulation has a lower signal to noise ratio and is less tolerant to what would otherwise be an acceptable bleed from 5G. Neither of those is particularly negligent at the time of design, and it’s a fairly straightforward engineering fix to fix the BP at least.
Ultimately, I think the aviation industry may get forced into a situation where, because the cell phones can also cause interference rather than just the towers and there are a butt ton more cellular devices out there than 787 RAs, a retrofit will probably be the most cost effective solution. With any luck it’ll be paid for at least in part by the cellular carriers.
Love the video and no, I’m not hesitant to fly now… I just returned from vacation in Orlando Florida and flew on an American Airlines 737 MAX 8… 😎👍
Greenhorn question... are there electronic altimeter failsafes/co-reporters on recent aircraft? Something like infrared lasers to assist in IFR landings? Or are pilots only able to revert to the mechanical altimeter
Autobrakes and spoilers don't depend on the Radar altimeter at all. They are activated by switches in the landing gear. The plane hits the runway, which compresses the struts and a limit switch is activated, allowing the spoilers to deploy if they are set to auto-deploy on touchdown. Autobrakes are activated when the wheels stated spinning, if the pilot has set the autobrakes to any setting at all. But they usually do. So this whole video is partially incorrect.
Regulators should not give in to boeing, airbus, and airlines. The spectrum is well defined and apparently rf engineers at boeing and airbus/bombardier were either too lazy to properly test this frequency band or willfully went outside of it thinking it wouldn't be a problem as the frequencies were unused or not used near airports. Obviously in the short term safety needs to be guaranteed so a short term ban could be justified but otherwise this is a mess boeing and airbus created themselves by supplying faulty instruments.
Uhhh... No. This was the FCC's fault. Before they rushed to auction that very close spectrum off to the highest bidder. The FAA tried to stop this from happening so a study could be done but somehow it still got through. This was not a problem before and careless decisions by the government have created it. Honestly, the government probably should be paying for the fix.
It's the other way around: radar altimeters were there first, since before WW2! The Big Telecom successfully lobbied the regulators to give them the bands too close to the radar altimeter bands. The FTC (I think) auctioned off the bands for billions, and ignored FAA's warnings that there might be a problem with 5g near airports.
Certifying new or verifying 5g-proofness of old radar altimeters (or any equipment for airplanes) takes years of testing, paperwork, and lots of money.
@@Timoohz I was there first doesn't matter certain applications get allocated a certain space of the frequency spectrum. Audio radio cannot suddenly broadcast on 4.2GHz because they were the first to market. Same goes for any radio application. I tried looking at the spectrum as allocated in 2016 (already 5-6 years ago showing the the relevant companies have more than enough time to act on it) and indeed only 4.2-4.4GHz is allocated to radio altimeters. The only difference is that band before it was allocated to satellite communication and not mobile. So lazy engineers probably thought well there are no satellites communications near the airport so no need to check for interference with that band.
Edit: went even further back the chart from 2003 (6 years before the first 787 flight) is also the same (around that frequency spectrum). So unfortunately it's a case not strictly adhering to the requirements expecting little inference from the other bands near to it.
@@thecooletompie this is still complete negligence by the FCC. They received legitimate complaints before the spectrum auction and now there is a problem. This Cannot be negligence on the part of a whole industry when clearly the FCC didn't do their homework right.
@@braddirt Unless they received that complaint before 2003 your claim is bs. And even then if the aviation industry lost out they had plenty of time to fix their issues. Also in any redistribution of the spectrum there are going to be loser and winners and that all depends on the need of the public. This is simply a case of the Aviation industry not designing their instrumentation within the spec, this was no problem before since the spectrum allocation before didn't really cause any interference but a redistribution of something outside of their spectrum caused interference with poorly designed radio altimeters. This is not a FCC issue.
As most of us know the FAA and FCC were asleep at the wheel listening to all the BS from the cell phone carriers. This is one time that Europe did it correctly.
The FAA was certainly asleep, but the manufacturers of these Boeing altimeters are equally at fault. The frequency allocations are in compliance with the 1990s rules, which means that some of their engineers were still in diapers when they should have updated their filters.
I thought spoiler deployment and autobrake activation depend on weight on wheels switches inside the landing gear, not the radio altitude ? Maybe the autoland logic could have problems though, like the airplane wouldn't flare correctly and just slam into the pavement ?
Iberia also stills operating A340s in the US
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It's much worse for Boeing than this video makes out because the far more numerous *737* fleet is also affected, specifically all non-Max models except a few 200/200C with a different flight control system than the others that doesn't offer any autolanding features. The FAA issued an airworthiness directive about this 3 days ago though it's very much a developing situation still.
As you note the 787 (1000+ built) has a much bigger problem than the A220 (
The part where you mention about “the speed brakes or Auto brake” functions not working due to inaccurate RADALT readings is incorrect.. these systems are activated via the “squat switch” on the landing gear as the wheels touch the ground and weight is applied they automatically activate as per their pre-set instructions through the landing checklist.👍🏻😊
An altimeter that can go from telling the flight computer that it is on ground to be several 100's feet up in the air in an ultrashort timespan is by definition already broken.
Back in the analogue days it was justifiable.
Early😁
My RF engineering background is woefully out of date now, but surely can't the just need to retro fit a a bandpass filter at the input to the RA's so only signals within the band enter the equipment? or is this something to do with Harmonics?
Yes they can make changes to their Rad Alt. But anything you do on an aircraft costs a lot of money. The manufacturer would have to do the redesign and bench tests. Then it would have to be Flight tested on each model and finally FAA approve it. It costs a lot of money and time to do anything on an aircraft.
You have a better chance of touching your right elbow with your right hand than lawmakers taking quick and decisive action
I am really surprised that there is no redundancy in such important instrumentation for airplanes of all things! 🤔
the device that work peoperly are out there on the market
it is about airline cheating out and trying to suppress 5G growth to avoid changing equipment
ask any decent RF designer and they will tell you that a 220MHz separation band is gigantic on an order of magnitude
Hey Coby, your Video sometimes has some weird noise pops, as if you were hitting the microphone. Is there maybe something wrong with your mic arm that makes the mic shake?
Hey man, good video, but you have some low end plosives that really rumbles the AirPods. Not sure if its setting things on the desk or breathing or what but makes the video uncomfy in the ears.
That was a wicked good series
hehehe... "are you at all hesitant to fly right now?"
Yes. But it has nothing to do with the technical information that you were so awesome to provide... THANK YOU for that.
My hesitation is 100% around unruly passengers and the news reports I keep seeing related to how these people who shouldn't be allowed to fly are still able to buy tickets.
At the end of the day, I am less concerned about technical issues related to flying and more concerned about my fellow passengers. Would it be against the law to create an airline that serves "only people who know how to fly without being complete jerks"?
Amen brother. I am kinda wary about flying cos of jerky passengers nowadays. Thankfully, I haven't stepped foot in an aircraft since 2019. ツ
03.40 and 05.08: check your high pass/low cut filter. And around 08.00.
Spoilers on most aircraft "boeing" are deployed via data from a sensor called a squat switch. Once the sensor detects a certain amount of tonnage it will deploy the spoilers if they have been armed which is part of the before landing checklist. Has nothing to do with the radio altimeter. 🙂
you're right. This guy has no knowledge about aviation lol
There are no 5G Airport Buffer zones in Europe, the mobile providers just dont use the problematic frequency band within the range of airports, but there is still 5G in airport regions.
Aah, Air Crash Investigation. I too remember watching late night shows of it on TV as a kid...
These altimeters need to be updated to stay within spec. They are poorly made by todays standards and are allowing too much extra frequency to interfere. The airlines have all the responsibility here.
IIRC there was a similar problem a few years back. A new cell phone company wanted to put transmitters near airports and then use enough power for their coverage but it was very likely that GPS signals from the satellites would be blanked out by this. Theoretically it would have been OK but quite a lot of GPS receivers including those used in small aircraft would have had to be replaced.. The GPS people won. I think the cell phone co was Lightspeed but I am not sure.
Ligado formerly Lightsquared.
777X not selling is not quite true, as it has enough orders. The problem is that Boeing is not delivering, mostly due to certification issues.
5:16 ehm what? how do the millimeter waves for 5G UWB, which are around 30GHz, interfere with the 4GHz radar altimeter band you described at 3:20?
Some altimeter manufacturers saved a penny by doing inferior filtering and got away with it for years because nothing was directly below the buffer. Such surprise...
This is clearly on the aviation industry to sort out. Radio spectrum is extremely valuable, and the 220MHz separation guard band is already massive. Seems that the radio altimeters in most planes have no issue with this level of separation, but a few radio altimeter models are designed so poorly they are unable to filter out C-band 5g.
The argument that the aviation industry can't be expected to cover the cost of replacing the poorly deigned radio altimeters, and instead the use of 5G C band should be restricted near airports is very weak.
Here we were thinking the 787 finally put all its early production woes behind it, but nowadays it just can't seem to avoid trouble