"Donald Ramsey" wrote in message
...

When radar fails, do ATC folks have at their avail the last recorded
positions of all aircraft or a computed projection (coast?), or do
all the screens just go black? :O


Depends on the facility and the type of failure. Is it an actual radar
failure or is it a computer failure? Single or multi radar site system?
You can have a computer failure and still have radar data available on a
backup system. You can lose a radar site in a multi site system with
minimal impact. An approach control may lose the secondary radar but still
have primary radar, it may be able to pull up an ARTCC radar site as a
backup. When some TRACONs lose their radar the overlying ARTCC takes their
airspace.



I don't doubt that most controllers
can revert back to non-radar procedures and successfully handle traffic,
I'm just curious how the transition would occur.


Many controllers can't revert back to non-radar procedures because they
never learned them to begin with.