The problems with radar data processing that I discovered and wrote about didn't come up all of the sudden or anything. The near midair collision that occurred in the Spring of '85 was the impetus for my devoting untold hours upon hours upon hours to this topic, in an effort to understand just what was taking place. Then, in April 1988, I observed an operation that made me understand clearly that I wasn't going to get anything addressed by just talking about the problems I saw with radar data processing at Cleveland Center (see section 3.1.1.2 from the paper I reference at the end of this paragraph). I figured I had to learn as much as I could and write something official about it to get things improved. So I started hanging around and talking with the systems maintenance technicians, and asking a lot of questions. Then I dug into their manuals. Mind you, I'm not a computer programmer or electrical engineer, or anything like that. My background had some technical aspects to it. For instance, I got my ham radio license (WA8ZTV) back when I was in 7th or 8th grade, and I built some electronic kits and stuff like that. After high school I went to Ohio Institute of Technology and got an associate degree in Electronics Engineering Technology, then I went out and got a job and worked as an electronic technician. So I have a limited background in electronics and computers, but I'm certainly no whiz at this stuff. However, I stuck with this and learned all I could, then I began to write. What I wrote turned into a paper entitled "Selective Rejection of Low Altitude Radar Data at Air Route Traffic Control Centers: An Unsatisfactory Compromise." I submitted this paper as an Unsatisfactory Condition Report (UCR) on September 26, 1988. The UCR was closed April 4, 1989.
At any rate, one day, out-of-the-blue, I get this letter in the mail. It is a "call for papers" for the Sixth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology (see glossary). I have no idea how I got on this mailing list, but I figure, why not give it a shot, as by that time I had exhausted my avenues in the FAA for addressing this issue. So I submitted an abstract, and much to my surprise I was selected to be one of the speakers! So I then began to formulate another paper, as well as a presentation. The slides you're viewing here originated from that presentation. So, as I'm making up these slides, I'm wondering about what's going to be expected of someone speaking at a symposium on aviation psychology. Hmmm...is everyone there going to be psychologists? Let's see, psychologists deal with things like ink blot tests, right? What might be a subject's interpretation of this somewhat abstract graphic design above? What do you see?
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