Originally Posted by
georgetg
RNP is part of NexGen ATC and you won't be able to fly an airliner without RNP in just a few years, thus the cockpit upgrades in the pipe for the Maddogs.
Personally, I'd prefer the US-made 717....
Cheers
George
Sadly, the powers that be have convinced everyone that airspace congestion is the root of all evil, when, in fact, it's runway congestion. The airspace thing is a complete red-herring.
You can have the greatest wizz bang 1 meter accuracy RNP system, but you can only squeeze so many airplanes onto a piece of concrete.
On departures you need at roughly 2 miles separation (at least in practice), and with 757/heavies, it's 5 miles. Ever wonder why the line creeps aloing in ATL, but not in DTW? Proportion of 757/heavies in the mix is far greater in ATL.
On landing, the minimum separation, in practice, is 3 miles. You need just so much time to land and clear the runway.
RNP isn't going to fix that, ever.
Even when a simple re-arranging of airspace would greatly improve traffic flow, places like Long Island have the poltiical power to stop it.
RNP isn't going to fix that, either.
Instead, we chase the RNP boondoggle because that money is out of sight, out of mind and we can spread the pain to the operators, as well.
Actually paying for land and having the bulldozers in plain sight building new runways is way more politically toxic.
Agree on your second point, though.
Nu