On Simulators as assist to IFR training.

Mike Ash writes:

My guess is that it's just limited by the technology. Air-band radios
use AM with not a whole lot of power output, and I imagine that's
limiting. If we could start from scratch with a nice modern digital
protocol I imagine it would be a lot better. But as with many things,
legacy rules. It doesn't help any that the aircraft radio market is
miniscule, so we don't get to benefit from economies of scale the way,
say, the cell phone market does.

The aviation market is also very heavily regulated, which slows change and
raises prices. (That does not mean that safety-motivated regulations are
bad--I'm just making an observation.)