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Pilot text messages are saving you from flight delays
Using a new text-based communication technology called Data Comm, the FAA is helping speed up departures across the country. (www.cnet.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Seriously though, I always thought this would be a slick add-on in GA cockpits. With the efficiency of using EFBs paired with a GPS (via FlightStream or some other device), it'd be nothing to receive a message to the EFB and port the new routing over to the GPS navigation device.
Exactly. With foreflight you can send VFR and IFR flight plans. Shoot, you can even open and close VFR flight plans right from the app. It would be nice if IFR could also be done wirelessly like that. Commercial pilots can use ACARS and CPDLC to get ATIS and clearances and amendments, it would be nice for GA as well.
How we can port this efficiency to GA?
Easy...$$$$
Is it as obvious when a pilot is texting-while-flying as it is when a driver is texting-while-driving? ("Whoa: watch out for that E90; he's drifting out of his lane...")
Does this system update routing after take off? Is it automatically accepted? If this system updates while in flight then other factors need to be considered. In other words there still needs to be an agreement on the new routing. As a corporate pilot we have received new routes that were so far off our initial and current route of flight that they were not acceptable. I would hate to be locked into a route that added undue amount of time to what was already a cleared as filed clearance.
I don't know what the excact details of this implementation are, but the standard CPDLC for the A330/A380 over VHF Data Link in Europe works like a chat system:
Aircraft: "Air Berlin 3H is requesting FL380"
Controller: "Air Berlin 3H is cleared FL380"
(Aircraft displays message on CPDLC screen: "Cleared FL380 - accept/decline?")
So it's basically still like communicating over voice, just with text-based messages. Also, the A380 implementation can automatically execute the commands (for example update the FCU to the new altitude) or monitor them.
The system can also handle DIRECT TO messages. I've never seen that a full route has been updated, but I guess it's possible. The route can still be edited as usual or not updated at all.
Generally, if something is not clear over CPDLC, the pilots can ask the controller over "old-school" voice - or vice versa.
Aircraft: "Air Berlin 3H is requesting FL380"
Controller: "Air Berlin 3H is cleared FL380"
(Aircraft displays message on CPDLC screen: "Cleared FL380 - accept/decline?")
So it's basically still like communicating over voice, just with text-based messages. Also, the A380 implementation can automatically execute the commands (for example update the FCU to the new altitude) or monitor them.
The system can also handle DIRECT TO messages. I've never seen that a full route has been updated, but I guess it's possible. The route can still be edited as usual or not updated at all.
Generally, if something is not clear over CPDLC, the pilots can ask the controller over "old-school" voice - or vice versa.