There's got to be a better solution surely?
Perhaps they type instructions? And hope someone reads them?
Perhaps they drag and drop vectors? Then what, a radial menu with emergency modal screens?
Or maybe they click some buttons, forcing the occasional look away from the screen?
Maybe AI could do it all?
For this, voice is perfect. We have been following instructions by voice since humans could grunt. We do not require anyone to look away from the screen (ATC) or look down from the window outside (pilot) for any reason.
We do not require rebroadcast because everyone can hear and take initiative if required.
By what interface, specifically, should someone required to fly an airplane interact with ATC while flying that airplane? By what interface should someone who needs to see where everyone is all the time be able to contact that pilot that cannot look away from the world outside ever and cannot use their hands for anything but flying at a critical time?
Chesterton's ATC.
This doesn't even begin to touch on the complexities that will come from full integration of drones and eVTOL into the national airspace, which will absolutely swamp a one-speaker-at-a-time analog FM comms system.
You raise good points but I would be very surprised to see digital data streams ever replace voice, and drone control is just a completely different problem. But as you say we'll see.
How about digital HD audio at least? In parallel with legacy analog audio.
The next step is visual alerts for pilots if the ATC tries to call _them_. You know, like our phones can do for nearly 150 years.
Edit: I'm studying for a private pilot license, and the difficulties in just understanding what the ATC and the other pilots are talking about is really a major stumbling block for me.
FWIW (and this may not be applicable to you, or you may already be doing it) I found that listening to ATC via LiveATC for my home airport during my car commutes really helped me with radio skills.
If you don't commute, I'd still suggest just listening when you're not in a cockpit and don't have to worry about flying.
Listening to specific airports I was familiar with really helped.
Here’s some ideas: 1. A data side channel 2. Use it to send originator for each message, have unique note on other end per sender so they don’t need to check visually, but also show on their display so corrupted or suspicious sender can be verified, in desperate circumstances (rather than the current case of “that cannot be done at all”). 3. Digital audio, allowing actual high quality audio, which we know does improve comprehension, which should not be optional in this context. 4. Take some lessons from modern coms systems on how to handle overlapping coms, plus the extra bandwidth from digital, so overlapping coms is handled gracefully (I realise the realtime nature prevents being too clever, but perhaps blocking all but the first to speak and playing a tone if you’re being blocked), perhaps with some sensible overrides like atc and anyone declaring an emergency getting priority. Currently overlap obliterates both messages and it’s possible for senders to not even know their message was lost. This has contributed to accidents, whilst basic direct radio transmissions cannot avoid this, smart algorithms with some networking could definitely reduce the failure cases to very rare and extreme scenarios 5. Let atc interact with flight planners on aircraft, show the aircraft’s actual locally programmed flight plan to atc, with clear icons if it differs from the filed plan atc has, and perhaps as an emergency only measure, allow atc to submit a flight plan to the aircraft (not replacing the active plan of course, just as a suggestion/support for struggling pilots, “since you have not understood my instructions 3 times, please review the submitted plan on your flight computer, note how it differs from what you programmed”) 6. Aircraft usually know where they are, and which atc they’re meant to be communicating with, have the data channels talk even when the audio channel is not set correctly. If incompetent pilots forget to switch channel, you can force an alarm instead of launching a fighter jet, or just have a button for “connect to correct atc” and a red light when you’re not on the correct one.
That’s just the ideas I’ve come up with just now. 4. Is probably quite hard to get right, and 5 could add load, so should be done carefully. But hard to believe the current system is technically optimal, or even vaguely close to optimal.
Admittedly, I know the real reason is that having 1 working system for everyone is better than a theoretically great system that is barely implemented and a complicated mess of handoffs between the 2. But with care they can absolutely improve things, but feels like things are moving a few decades slower than they should be.
If you want to listen in yourself.
I also note that the budget isn't infinite nor do these aircraft like running electron apps.
Also note that not all (if not most) aircraft are not brand new and so would need all to be retrofitted and re-rerated w/ any new system and every single pilot retrained.
This requirement also includes systems for general aviation pilots and both to be able to sync with each other.
Ah yes, I forgot, we never introduce new aircraft technology because it's too hard. Too bad we don't, it would be great to fit aircraft, with, say, anti-collision transponders and advanced ground proximity systems. Oh well, my mistake for even bringing it up.
I mean, I wouldn’t trust a literal iPad, but I’m not sure if I distrust an entirely figurative iPad.
It is generally faster to communicate orally and process communication aurally than by text message when the message is short enough and requires immediate attention. This is also why urgent alarms (such as those provided by the Gound Proximity Warning System (GPWS) or Traffic Collision Avoidance System[1] (TCAS) have such a component). Some stall prevention systems are even partially tactile based (making a pretty unmistakable shaking feeling (it is loud as well)).
It is incredibly slow to type and then process that visual information. In addition, it's also just much more reliable.
For time critical situations, it's not a viable option.
[1]: Yes, TCAS has a visual component and many alarms do too, but the RAs are auditory and give specific, to the point, instructions on what to do ("climb", "descend").
Now idle chatting with coworker Wendy about dinner will take you out of that situation and make you more dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan...
as the video says at the beginning, the audio is sourced from LiveATC, which is a network of volunteers with their own radio equipment [0] who tune in to ATC frequencies and then livestream them.
those volunteers are by necessity not at the airport itself, but some distance away. and the audio is compressed to 16kbps MP3 for livestreaming purposes.
this means the sound quality we're hearing is going to be worse (significantly worse, in some cases) than what the pilots and controllers actually hear.
> They're sending instructions by voice.
I get that it's 2025 and it's tempting to say "everything should be a text message". but remember that there's 2 pilots in the aircraft, the Pilot Flying and the Pilot Monitoring [1].
under normal circumstances, the PM handles talking to ATC (among other duties). but both pilots have headsets that allow them to hear transmissions from ATC. and crucially for the Pilot Flying, they hear those messages without taking their eyes away from actually flying.
modern aircraft do have a text message system of sorts [2] but there is a very good reason why the crucial ATC instruction in this case ("turn right heading 270 immediately") happens via voice and not an ACARS message.
also, it's important to remember that airline pilots in the US have a minimum of 1500 hours of flying time, and pilots flying an A330 on an LAX-Rome route probably have significantly more than that. we're watching a 5-minute video and going "oh it's a bit hard for me to follow this" but for actual commercial pilots this radio chatter is routine and something they have been practicing for years.
0: https://www.liveatc.net/faq/
1: https://skybrary.aero/articles/pilot-flying-pf-and-pilot-mon...
Besides, pilots don’t just blindly follow the waypoints on their computer. The pilots would have spent half an hour before they even got in the airplane reviewing the plan for the flight. This includes reviewing the published departure information for the airport. In that briefing they would have specifically noted that the direction they will turn after takeoff depends on which runway the tower tells them to take off from. They cannot necessarily guess which runway that’ll be in advance.
And in the case of a deviation, would it be faster to pick up a stylus, draw a new path in 3D space, click send, and wait for a message acknowledging that... or someone yelling "27 alpha turn right heading 270 immediately"?
For ATC environments the voice data is a series of pre-expected prompts. You could do something different but you would pretty much have to redesign the whole system from scratch without making things significantly more complex. Complexity is the enemy of reliability.
Aircraft have much better quality electronics than a $20 tabletop radio located some distance away by whoever is ripping the stream.
This is a field where they need more .9999s than Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NDqZy4deDI
JFK controller tries to communicate with Air China 981