FAA funds brings life to Sony radar plant

San Diego Business Journal, Oct 26, 1998 by Andrea Siedsma

Months after being left in the dark, Sony Electronics Inc. is now reviving a closed production line in Rancho Bernardo.

The move comes after the Federal Aviation Administration awarded Sony a $59.7 million, three-year contract to produce color radar display monitors.

Restarting the production line will save at least 20 jobs.

The monitors are part of the nearly $1 billion Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System program. STARS, a partnership between the FAA and Defense Department, will provide new computers, display monitors and software for civilian and U.S. military air traffic control facilities.

The new system will enhance surveillance, weather displays, data link communications and traffic management. The system will also provide an emergency backup system to provide air traffic control in the event of a failure of the main STARS system.

Raytheon Co. is the prime contractor for the project. The contract is good news to the folks at Sony.

The future of STARS was dampened last year when the FAA halted the program due to a budget shortfall.

Sony had already produced roughly 2,000 color radar display monitors for the program before production came to a stop.

"It was a real rocky time for us in respect to seeing the contract end so abruptly," said Barbara Vance, manager of Sony's data display monitor operations.

At the time, Sony announced if the monitor production was shut down, work would most likely continue at the company's Japan plant if another contract was awarded, due to cheaper costs.

The Japan plant already produces color display monitors for air traffic controllers across the world, including Canada, Israel, Germany, India, New Zealand, Great Britain and China.

Sony was able to revive its Rancho Bernardo plant with some recent funding help from the FAA.

Vance also gave kudos to Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Escondido, and Rep. Ron Packard, R-Carlsbad, who were instrumental in freeing up the needed funding for the STARS program and keeping the monitor production in the United States.

Last fall, Congress ordered the FAA to come up with the money to fund STARS, but the agency couldn't find the funds.

Congress, however, recently came up with the needed funding in the fiscal year 1999 Transportation Appropriations Bill. The bill, signed last week by President Bill Clinton, includes $90.2 million for the STARS program.

Cunningham also credits new FAA Administrator Jane Garvey for reviving the project.

"We now have an administrator who is willing to make this a priority," Cunningham said.

"The good news is the FAA gets a high-quality, cost-effective color monitor, which means better air safety not only for civilians but for the military as well."

The Sony display monitors are expected to be up and running at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C., by next March. The monitors will eventually make their way into other airports around the country.

Sony's high-resolution color display monitor will replace existing monochrome monitors built in the 1970s.

"If you look at the stuff they have now, it looks like it should be in the Smithsonian," said FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto.

While the current air traffic control monitors get the job done, they pale in comparison to the Sony monitor, Takemoto said.

"The new ones are clearer. Different storm patterns can be indicated by different colors. You can give color-coded alerts for potential conflicts between aircraft."

The creation of the Sony color display monitor began in the early 1980s. At the time, the largest computer monitor had only a 17-inch screen. The Sony monitor, then still in the designing stages, has a 20-by-20-inch display.

"There was no real market for this," Vance said. "But what happened, at the same time, is the FAA was setting forth their plans for future systems."

Sony engineers knew they were on to something.

"Most of the color display community didn't believe you could push the technology further," Vance said. "But our local visionaries had these ideas and wanted to pursue it."

Vance said the engineers who make the monitors are Sony's most skilled and most sought-after employees. She said the renewed FAA contract has saved 20 of their jobs.