Originally Posted by flyingchicken

TCAS does not relieve you of the responsibility of traffic lookout and avoidance planning. It is not a "fully automated system" by any means, and was never intended to provide primary separation, but as a "last line of defense" under IFR.

I'm not saying we should switch to TCAS or any other electronic gadget for primary separation. But these systems do provide a pretty good safety net when we make mistakes.

If all VFR aircraft are required to be equipped with and respond to TCAS, the amount of RAs issued would result in utter chaos.

I'll admit that I did not consider VFR separation. I'm sure VFR aircraft currently fly by each other with less that the required separation under IFR, and so whatever technology would have to be tweaked to avoid nuisance warnings.

Totally seperate argument. I must say though that I'm flabbergasted at your reactions to my "proposals".

Your ME proposal has merit, and in an ideal world, would eliminate a significant number of GA crashes, but I chose to bring up cost, since so many people mentioned that the cost of TCAS would be prohibitive. Likewise, an IFR only environment would likely be safer, but would be unlikely to happen. I wasn't disagreeing with you, just providing counter-arguments.