Where you look for information
Originally the military asked researchers to find a way to continue communicating in the event that telephone switching stations were blown up by a nuclear-equipped enemy. But the military meant communications between computers — sharing computer power from around the nation — not chitchat.
So in 1969 three universities in California and one in Utah — building on early work in Britain — became the nation's first (four-customer) Internet. And America was online. If one station failed, the network continued because it was internodal. No, not internoodle — internodal. A funny thing happened to the Internet discipline: Scientists began sending personal notes on joint research, or just comments on the latest science fiction book or movie. It formed the basis of today's Internet. The World Wide Web, the familiar www before most Web addresses, wasn't born until the 1990s. Now look where we are.
In aviation, the Internet is the place two-thirds of you will look if you are buying a new airplane. Or you can find out who owns N1234. Or set a course in an online flight planner, click on weather, and out comes an entire briefing, complete with graphics. Need to update your GPS database? Do it over the Internet; no need to wait for the mail. Afraid of flying through a pop-up temporary flight restriction (TFR)? It is depicted on several Internet sites. Want a safety course? Take one on the Internet complete with a printed-out diploma.
Integration of information is where we are at now. Internet-based programs are no longer Johnny One Note. Today the same Internet-based software program that will let you watch aircraft fly across the hemisphere is integrated with weather products that show at a glance where the storms are and where they will be. Roll a cursor over an airport in that same program, click, and there is the aviation routine meteorological report (METAR).
The old flight-planning software that you've had since the 1980s (with updates since then, of course) now has a button for downloading the latest TFRs, and it tosses them onto a map for you along with graphics showing airmets and sigmets. There is a flight-planning program that is always up to date and is just waiting for you to log on. (Now, if only every motel, hotel, remote bush strip, and FBO could be guaranteed to have Internet access!)
Where are we going? The thirst for information can only grow — and move to in-flight sources as well. One aeronautical chart company is using the Internet to lead a reluctant audience of pilots away from paper charts and procedures to the Internet. That will be followed in future years by adding an aerial component to uplink databases in flight, whether it be over satellite links or ground-station transmitters. TFRs that pop up suddenly because a VIP got an itch for Cincinnati barbecue, and just happens to be in the protection of the Secret Service, also will pop up on your glass-cockpit display just as suddenly. Twenty-eight-day database updates? How about 28-minute updates? Or every minute?
The reality is that we are living in the horse-and-buggy age of computing and don't know it. One large training company would stop selling courses on DVD or CDs today and use the Internet except for the lack of bandwidth for quality video. That's right, today's Internet is antiquated and not yet good enough, but it will be as soon as computer scientists or Microsoftkateers increase bandwidth. That will take five years or possibly longer.— Alton K. Marsh, Senior Editor
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