Posted on 06/02/2005 1:21:28 PM PDT by bwteim
Digital SMS to revolutionise air safety By: Kashif Khusro June 2, 2005
The Mumbai Air Traffic Control (ATC) has installed a state-of-the-art facility which will slowly ease out voice communication with a pilot.
Instead, the ATC will contact pilots through digital text messages. This will ensure that the pilot gets all the commands and messages from the ATC without glitches, ensuring safe air travel.
The facility goes live on June 7 and after all the required testing of the equipment is done, Mumbai will be the first airport in the country to have it. ...
"The ATC can type in a message on a console and send it to the pilot in the cockpit. The message would be transmitted directly via satellite to the concerned aircraft," Kumar said. ...
"We can only communicate with aircraft which are compatible with CPDLC and as of now, only three airlines -- Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Emirates have the system," Kumar said. Kumar accepted that the new system was more expensive, but said that it could be the future of aviation communication.
(Excerpt) Read more at ww1.mid-day.com ...
Mumbai ATC: BABU! ASAP :-(0)
Pilot: WU? :-o zz
Mumbai ATC: 767 AHEAD U R GNG 2 DIE :@
Pilot: WTF :-<>
Mumbai ATC: JK GR&D (:-)=
All kidding aside, if language barriers exist, how difficult is it to then interpret text messaging?
Language Barriers Have Played Role in 10 Major Plane Accidents
Ken Kaye
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Feb. 23, 2004
archived only. see
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/LPRU/newsarchive/Art3522.txt
This is the most dumbest, stupid, foolish idea I have heard in a long time!
The person whoever came up with this. Should not only be fired but there ass kicked!
Just one more thing to distract the crew. And how do you “talk” back?
I think it a very good idea. A radio frequency can be broadcast into by ANY pilot and step on the controller's broadcasts. It happens all the time. Likewise, pilots step on each other's broadcasts. And even worse, since English is the international language of aviation, there are many people with a poor grasp of the *SPOKEN* language who fly. They would do much better with text.
Lastly, this system will guarantee that a message is delivered by requesting a receipt from the pilot's hardware.
If you flew in the left seat, you would recognize the advantages of a text based system over a spoken system.
You would text message back, I expect. I guess on one level it could prevent some miscommunication. According to the article, pilots were "crying" because they had so much miscommunication. But it just adds another layer of translation, IMO, to get at the message.
" there are many people with a poor grasp of the *SPOKEN* language who fly. "
TFDS & U MAY BE SME.
OTOH, WLD IT NOT ADD LAYR & D-LAY RESPONSE?
RX
It's not SMS, but check out
NYC-bound Virgin Air Flight 45 squawking Hijack code; being diverted to New Brunswick, Canada
ABC News | 6-3-5 | ABC News
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1415741/posts
>>>> If you flew in the left seat, you would recognize the advantages of a text based system over a spoken system. <<<
I do fly left seat as PIC.
This is a very bad idea. Not only do you need your head inside cockpit. But now you need to keep looking at some little screen to see if you got a message. Try doing that in Turbulent air. And then what. You take your hands off the stick to type a reply. How long is that going to take? And if your going to speak into a mike. What not just talk right to ATC to start with.
Howabout your PTT button has another button next to it: Acknowledged.
If you want to open a radio dialogue, you are still free to do so, but 50% of the communication is ATC or Ground Control "saying "DO THIS" and you saying "OK".
If you want a different altitute, etc. radio 'em up.
And if you can't keep your "head inside cockpit" by scanning one more LCD, then put an audio output on the device.
For busy airports where frequencies are incredibly congested, imagine how much better this will be.
Also imagine being able to scroll up to see what ATC just messaged. Did he say descend to 15,000 or 13,000? It's nice to have the ability to replay.
I don't think this sytem is designed to END radio communications, just to remove much of the simple communications off the radio....although I could be wrong....that happened once before.
jas3
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