With the discussions of user fees and the economic cost of the FAA in
providing critical services (calculated as $22,600/pilot/year by
another user of this group), I've been thinking about just how
incredibly inefficient that statistic makes the FAA look in providing
service. Compared to an organization like USPS, where they've tried
everything from aircraft to optical character recognition to Regulus
cruise missiles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mail) to deliver
mail, and now have the delivery chain almost completely automated, the
FAA seems comparatively downright archaic in their operations and
technology.

It has been somewhat endearing and on many occasions beneficial to the
flight, for pilots to be able to speak to a real, live person while
flying. Now that they say they must charge user fees to support and
expand their inefficiency, it may be time to shine a floodlight on the
waste and determine ways to improve efficiency.

It would seem that technology similar to ADS-B could go a long way
toward providing similar automation and cost savings in air traffic
services as optical character recognition and the ZIP code has at USPS.
Primarily, ATC is in place to keep two planes from ending up at the
same place at the same time. With data link technology and highly
accurate positioning and trending information, it would seem that a
significant portion of operations could be automated in one way or
another. Conflict resolution and routing algorithms are available from
other technologies that have the potential to provide clearances on
instrument flights. VFR traffic could continue to provide their own
separation, aided with a realtime graphical display of surrounding
traffic.

Radio communication is another area that seems incredibly inefficient.
If you consider the possibility of errors in reception, stepped on
transmissions, the need to repeat clearances nearly verbatim to assure
proper receipt, and the possibility of transcribing a clearance
incorrectly, it would seem much more efficient to have a data link for
the majority of ATC information.

I'm sure this is evident to people who now have datalink weather, it is
much more effective to see the information in front of you than to
imagine "An occluded front at a line starting at the 270 degree radial
of X VOR and extending to Y" when read over the radio while also flying
and navigating. Having a device that allows clearance and flight
information to be displayed and acknowledged via a data link would seem
more efficient.

VFR flights could to be integrated into an automated system with an
inexpensive data link device. The device could alert potential traffic
conflicts similar to ATC calling "traffic is a MD80, 2 miles, 12
o'clock same altitude, climbing" and the pilot could acknowledge
traffic in sight, follow standard conflict resolution procedures, or
request conflict resolution with dedicated buttons for each of those
common tasks.

Considering the prevalence of airport surface incursions, an automated
system that would set routing during taxi, alert when a hold short
area is ahead, and show runway information (runway clear, landing
traffic, etc) could be useful. We already have much of this technology
available with GPS road surface routing. Implementing this technology
could reduce or eliminate the need for clearance delivery and ground
controllers.

I'm sure there are other areas that could be made more efficient as
well. I'm curious about issues and other ideas people have about such a
system. What areas should not be automated? Are the activities I've
outlined above not the root case of the inefficiency? If not, then
where should we be looking? What areas are redundant or no longer
needed?

Doug