US: GPS for air travel came with big downsides: Noise, then lawsuits

The FAA is rolling out a system that allows planes to fly closer to one another, but the roar that it creates is unbearable, people in the flight paths say. The new flight paths were the result of a long-planned FAA program to modernise the nation’s airspace, minimise wasted fuel and increase the number of flights. The Next Generation Air Transportation System uses GPS instead of radar to guide planes and digital communication rather than radio. Because air traffic controllers know exactly where planes are, they no longer need to leave as much of a buffer between them. Flight paths are more predictable, narrower and at lower altitudes. But as the FAA has rolled out the program, the people who live below the new, more concentrated flight paths have risen up. <br/>