Hey everyone, we’re Kristian and Eric, cofounders of Enhanced Radar.

TL;DR

America leads the world in aviation, yet its systems are a patchwork of outdated technologies that move one billion passengers each year. At the same time, our country is facing an air traffic controller shortage: 9 out of 10 ATC facilities operate below the FAA’s recommended staffing levels, and this crisis will persist well into the next decade.

Enhanced Radar is building sensors and AI systems to augment America’s exceptional controller workforce, and to expand control services to the 85% of U.S. airports that have no control today.

The Team

Eric Button (CEO) - Prev. co-founder, Contrast (fintech, acq’d by PublicSq.). Former professional pilot, with 2,100 hours logged in Gulfstream, Embraer, Pilatus and Daher aircraft, across Part 91 and 135 operations. FAA and EASA certificates.

Kristian Gaylord (CTO) Prev. embedded computer vision for satellites (acq’d). High frequency trading in Rust. FAA private pilot certificate. Statistics & CS @ Columbia.

The Problem

America’s National Airspace System is aging, bloated, and not as safe as it could be. Our skies are controlled by the industry’s most talented individuals, but there aren’t enough of them and they need better systems.

By the numbers:

• The US averages 4 runway incursions every day, and 5 near mid-air collisions every week
• Of 313 FAA facilities, only 23 meet or exceed their staffing goal
• Building — not even operating — a new control tower can cost well over $20 million, limiting the number of tower-controlled fields in the US to just 580 of our 4,200 public airports

The Solution

We’re building an AI safety net system to reduce controller fatigue, prevent and detect errors, and increase the capacity of our congested airspace. On a longer timeline, our systems will allow our nation’s controllers to be promoted into a role that pilots increasingly fill: expertly-trained managers of capable autonomous systems.

In the last month, we launched Yeager, the industry’s state of the art speech recognition model for understanding air traffic control audio. Yeager is capable of ~1% word error rate (WER) on real-world ATC audio, an 8x improvement over previous state of the art. It’s installed today alongside our sensor hardware at several airports in a post-operational role.

The high cost of today’s air traffic control solutions compromises passenger safety. Just 15% of America’s public-use airports have air traffic control towers. In other words, 4 million landings occur annually at non-towered fields, including 165 airports that offer commercial service. There is tremendous latent demand for air traffic control that will be unlocked by more efficient systems.

America’s airspace is due for an upgrade. When AI augmentation brings more airspace under positive control and relieves us from personnel shortages, aviation will become safer, busier, and more reliable.

Follow us on X, or send a note to founders@enhancedradar.com