you are pointing out that they prioritized that planes in the air could land safely over allowing more planes to take off. I'm actually quite reassured now.

Intentionally programming a system to ignore object history each time reclassification happens seems like a glaring oversight.

Sitting behind the wheel as a test driver using your phone seems like a glaring oversight.

I’ll continue with my rile until change occurs, cheers.

Yes, when the SHTF aircraft comms will work as designed, not even close to the same frequency bands, nor modulation techniques, nor power output levels. Not even a slight chance that cell phones will interfere.

In my minimal experience with airplane crashes[1], the aircraft's electrical system was kaput, and I relayed communications to/from ATC and Fire Dept. via ... wait for it, the pilot's personal cell phone.

[1] I ran an FBO at a tiny municipal airport during college (I re-fueled aircraft). I only participated in a few airplane crashes during my tenure there.

And we have a lot of controls around this! Congrats! You've discovered airline security!

> expected to not operate equipment on wrong frequencies that interfere with others

If I can build a small electronic device, that goes through no controls, and can cause catastrophic damage, that is a HUGE problem.

> Just because you can do something does not mean its ok to do.

lol, you missed the point. If it's that easy to do something, the system needs to change.

I think this is a good thing.

Well, I'm interested.

The obvious guess that comes to mind is that pilots are now incentivized to avoid communication with ATC, consequentially reducing ATC's effectiveness. Is there something more subtle going on?

More interesting question is why the WH thought it was a good idea. Who was lobbying for it? I was under the impression that whatever union or union-like organization is built around ATC folks is pretty adamant about promoting safety stuff, and would never tolerate something like this.

Er, no, that's not what I'm proposing.

I'm proposing a way to get the six pieces of complex information from the ATC onto a display which the pilot can read, to avoid the pilot having to remember/write down those six pieces of information in a potentially information-dense situation. I would have this in addition to the existing voice control as a backup. The pilot still does the flying.

Well. Then the real issue is that a single flight plan, erroneous or not, should not stop the full system. It should flag that flight plan for problem resolution and keep on working with the rest of the flight plans.

Would result in a slightly inconvenienced flight dispatcher, or worst case an inconvenienced flight, instead of a nationwide shutdown.

But the flight plan wasn't erroneous - it was perfectly valid. It just happened to have a weird coincidence of two identically tagged airports spanning the UK. If someone had put an extra waypoint in between the two, nothing would have broken (AIUI).

This is an argument against any change that involves unknowns. I see it often, and I absolutely hate it.

If you have an objection to this tracking, you'd have to take it up with the FAA. Because the legitimate interest is that the rules require airplanes to transmit this information any anyone is free to listen to it.

Which is a great thing for aviation safety, so I'm glad the rules exist.

So if you don't agree, you can't think critically. Got it.

Or maybe, we did think about it critically and simply don't agree.

There are various way this can be solved. We have modern encryption that could make this far, far safer then it is today. We have methods from data leaking. We have process to only allow data to be decrypted if required.

This would actually force us to really think critically about who has what access when. In planing this the airlines, unions, FAA should sit together with some technical experts and think of this critically.

This seems less complex to me then a modern high bypass turbo engine.

Do you think anyone is arguing against the existence of plane regulations?

What does this even mean?

There’s a meaningful difference between providing cover and reminding people that major systems like the one in question are in a different category than the average web app.

The fact that such a nationwide stoppage hasn’t occurred since 2001 speaks to the stability of these systems, and I’m not sure what you’re suggesting here.

> There is a reason this was broken and grounded flights nationwide. Providing cover for systems that allowed this to happen is not productive.

I’m not trying to sound snarky here, but things do tend to break for reasons. Are you suggesting that there is a cure?

As long as no one does something silly a decade from now when it comes to the networking on the plane/ship/factory.

There's no conflict there.

Now NSA meant to keep US infrastructure safe, and attack US companies/people is a conflict. But the FAA being responsible for both safety and ATC is far from a conflict.

I'd prefer the FAA moved slowly and got it right. This isn't an area where young-hip 20 somethings re-invented the tech' in the latest web-2.0 fad. This is an area where you want mathematically provable correctness and unit testing up the ying-yang.

Get it right slow, don't get it wrong fast.

Air travel is very safe because the entire world of aviation has focused on analysis and improvement rather than infighting and blaming. If anything, I worry more about how the aviation community worldwide seems to be fragmenting right now, and the effect that may have on safety going forward.

But then I do read stories about the FAA and EASA still cooperating very tightly and respectfully, realize most of the infighting is by armchair quarterbacks on the Internet and the pros are still doing the Right Thing, and I sleep a little better.

Not anymore.

    > so this was illegal.
    > In both cases a management
    > issue.

Those controllers were looking at a screen showing that two airplanes were about to crash into one another.

In most other western countries that person would have thought "well, fuck this!" and started yelling at them on the channel itself, implied procedures, stepping on toes, and pecking order be damned.