Few parts of aircraft have evolved as little as the communications capability. OK, we no longer use tubes in the radios but other than that, the VHF AM system is as legacy as they come. To add insult to injury, when the shortage of frequencies in the aviation band finally forced the industry to do something, instead of going for a modern and future proof solution, the channel spacing was split from 25 to 8.33 kHz. While partially solving the frequency problem, this solution did little more then perpetuating the shortcomings of the legacy voice system for decades to come. Who wants to think about yet another upgrade when the industry has just recently invested in 8.33? This sad picture in the voice communications arena is matched by an even bigger problem in air/ground data communications.
While the world has moved to high-speed comms en-masse, aviation is still stuck with ACARS (slow) SATCOM (slow and expensive) and VDL Mode 2 which offers the most, at least in continental airspace.
In the meantime, more and more airlines and aircraft types are offering truly cutting edge technology to enable passengers to send
email, browse the internet, watch television and (brrrr!) even use their cell phones in flight. Earlier attempts, like Connexion by Boeing were not a huge success but this has not discouraged airlines like Lufthansa from signing up with new contenders. True, these now offer much more efficient and reliable service, so the added value is there. In fact, there are several new offerings on the market, all competing to get on board somebody’s aircraft. Clearly, passengers’ thirst for maintaining their connectivity while airborne is an irresistible force for airlines and providers alike.
What seems to have been forgotten by the been counters, who seem to think that an aircraft ends at the cockpit door, are a few innocuous appearing words in the operational concept of the new air traffic management system in both Europe (SESAR) and the USA (NextGen). The aircraft will be a node on the air traffic management network using and being served by System Wide Information Management (SWIM). Of course everybody has signed up to the SWIM concept because its benefits are beyond a doubt…
But how will the aircraft, as a node on the network, communicate? Use all the legacy stuff already there while the passengers in the back are having fun watching the latest IPTV offerings?
Airlines will be investing millions in equipment to satisfy their passengers’ every communications wish (or whim if you like…) and apparently nobody is thinking about using this opportunity to finally improve communications in the cockpit by bringing it to at least to the level being offered to passengers.
This kind of proposal is usually rejected on the basis of the myth that it is not healthy to mix passenger communications and ATC communications in the same pipe. This is nonsense. On the ground, where many ATC units use rented bandwidth, bits and bytes of ATC and on-demand movies already flow in complete peace alongside each others and nobody bothers. You can compartmentalize the aircraft systems in ways that make incursions impossible.
In terms of bandwidth required, ATC comms between a single aircraft and the ground are but a fraction of what 300 passengers will be using when they all grab their PDAs and laptops.
Progress with the implementation of air ground digital link was often rejected or slowed because airlines claimed there was a lack of a credible business case. Fair enough but then why are airlines accepting the lack of a decision on how to recover their investment in in-flight passenger communications? They cannot even be sure that they will ever recover it and how long it will take… yet they bend over backwards to get the gear on their aircraft.
Ok, the passengers will most likely use the new facilities and they will also be prepared to pay for it. But the airlines have signed up for the new air traffic management system, in which the aircraft will be a node on the network. A node must communicate properly… Believe it or not, this is a need that is more important than the needs of the passengers. So why the different perception in importance?
Why invest in one and balk at the other? Most important of all, why not grab the opportunity to solve the issue of airborne communications in one clap where the aircraft could finally exchange digital data with the ground efficiently and securely, without having to consider the content of the data. Let on board and ground applications figure out what has to go to the cockpit and what to the PDA in Seat 32B.
This is not a dream, this is what modern communications methods can do and what is being practiced every day even in parts of the air traffic management system. We can of course ignore this fact and carry on with the legacy stuff in the cockpit while the cabin is stuffed full of fancy new gear. Gear that could have been made dual purpose if only somebody had seen the light.
But the day of reckoning will come, no question about that. The node on the network will need to communicate and the perceived lack of a business case will once again loom large, slowing or preventing implementation.
What a pity that most people will by then have forgotten how passenger communications started out the same way… Or how we missed a perfect opportunity to avoid this very problem.
