Who gets the optimal altitude for fuel burn, auction? Pizza delivered, what about Southwest, scorching through the skies vs American plodding through the ether. Problem is the digital solution in an analog world is generations away, throw in Mother Nature and her pesky CBs, and who will determine if precip is light, medium, or heavy? Will the radar measure the average density of the falling precip, what if it isn't falling but going up in a CB and the computer doesn't have code for that recognization?
The airlines love it when the government, via the FAA and NASA try to solve economic issues for them, but this is like going hunting with a Hellen Keller Labrador retriever and Dick Cheney, it will be fun to watch, from a long distance. And given our latest German mass murderer, what if he was the guy in controll/monitoring of 10-12 flights from the ground?

 

And why was he "trusted"? Longevity has a few upsides, track record is one, this guy was new, really new, and wanted to fly so bad he tore up Dr's notes, be really interesting see what was wrong with him.
I have actually had passengers ask me if my F/O was old enought to drive? I have never had a passenger ask me if I was. So all the old guy/gummer haters, have another reason to hate us, our bichen cars, multiple houses, hot girlfriends, and now our track records. Toss in our astounding inability to care about spelling and/or grammar, should push many over, the already close edge.

 

Blah blah blah. Not going to happen.

 

To impliment "ground link" is incredibly expensive though. It can be done easily with modern technology, but not at a cost cheaper than the 3rd pilot. The 4th pilot on ULH flights may be on the chopping block eventually though, as that wouldn't require any self flying hocus pocus.

 

Your mom calls wind check.

 

OMG thanks for the laugh that was awesome!

 

You're overly-simplistic view on this reflects on your lack of experience as a pilot.


First off, if the automation fails, what makes you assume this will always be a single failure? Now you've got a guy hand flying and trying to troubleshoot. Good luck with that one.

Let's talk about the airspace in the Northeast. One guy gets deviated. With as close spacing as you are talking, this could have a ripple effect, affecting the "plotted trajectory" of thousands of aircraft.

How do you handle thunderstorms? How about moderate chop FL300 and above? All these aircraft have "plotted trajectories" and the system has just been kinked by environmental factors. Can you fathom the logistical nightmare that will be created? Throw in a failure and it is a nightmare scenario.

Oh, and what if there's a datalink failure? You've got 500 airplanes in a single sector with automation failure now. That's got disaster written all over it.

Last, you cannot do this without either completely eliminating or incorporating GA. Do you propose we ground every single 172 and Learjet to implement this system?

 

No kidding. If Karen Black couldn't hack it, and Charleton Heston had to be lowered into the cockpit from a helicopter...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQbj9uvYL8I

 

All problems that can be dealt with, plus you still have a pilot on board. This is not some fantasy, the i4D trajectory system is already in trial runs now. It is being sold as a solution to global warming. ATC will eventually be reduced to a skeleton crew, you won't be talking to them in the future.

SESAR | Partnering for smarter aviation