Here’s a link to an article from January: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/biden-administration-talks-head-off-5g-aviation-standoff-2022-01-18/
The article explains the problem of 5G towers being installed near airports interfering with avionics. In bad weather, pilots need to rely on their instruments, but have concluded that 5G transmissions will alter the readings obtained, particularly from altimeters. An altimeter tells a pilot how high he is. It measures altitude above sea level (ASL), and by subtracting the airport’s known ASL altitude from the altitude indicated by the altimeter, a pilot can approximate how far the plane is from the ground --- very important info when visibility is severely impaired.
So why don’t the altimeters get recalibrated to account for the interference from the 5G towers? It seems that the talent pool of avionics engineers able to do the calibrations are mainly in the area of Wichita, Kansas. Wichita is the avionics counterpart to Silicon Valley. Further, it seems that the covid vaccination rate in the Wichita area is rather low. The avionics engineers who are able to do the required work on civilian aircraft also work on military aircraft. The USA mandated that federal contractors must require those working on federal equipment to be vaccinated or fired. The result is that many of the engineers who could remedy the 5G interference problem have been fired or have quit in protest or perhaps disgust. So, once again a bottleneck is created in a supply chain on account of unreasonable interference by a government in the economy.
For decades the intellects of the Austrian School of Economics, as folks such as von Mises, Rothbard, and von Hayek are known, have warned us of the inefficiencies and misallocation of resources that occur from such interference. I am heartened that we finally have in Pierre Poilievre a candidate for the job of PM who understands the principles of freedom for which such intellects have long fought so hard.
