The FAA has banned the practice of "taxi into position and hold".http://www.airliners.net/articles/read.main?id=100Dave FisherCYYZP4 Prescott 3.2e 478p 800mhz 1mg CPUP4P800SE Asus Motherboard2.5 gig PC3200 DDR RAM 400MHZGeForce 7600GT/512 OC'dMaxtor 80 Gig ATA 133 HD x2WDC WD800 80 Gig HDAntec 500watt true powerSharp 19 inch LCD MonitorLogitech Extreme 3D pro Joystickhttp://fs2crew.com/linepilot.jpghttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannersupporter.jpg

Yeah they banned this a few weeks ago.

Well I flew this past Sunday the 22nd IRL @ KFRG and the atc used position & hold with the a/c behind me.

Yeah that happens sometimes when they switch over to a new operational rule.

Hi.For

The FAA air traffic controllers are not a happy bunch as of late. A recent poll conducted amongst themselves showed that only 17% of them "liked" their job. Their frustrations are mainly due to scheduling of work loads. A lot, not just some, are complaining about burn out. If that's true then air safety in the U.S is going to suffer.The argument on the other side is that with all the automation now available in both aircraft and ground instalations that there will be less need for air traffic controllers to perform certain mundane functions in the near future. By doing this you they are going to reduce the number of controllers in both the tower and center positions. The day is coming when we will be vectored to and from our destination by a computer with very little human intervention , much like we are doing when we "fly" flight sims. When you create such a system it's going to be hard to have " taxi and hold " instructions since they require a "human eye" to moniter the aircraft's positions. Some people laugh at this idea, but take a look at our short history. At first we had a pilot,co-pilot,flight engineer and navigator on most long range flights. Then we combined the flight engineer and navigator duties and had a three man cockpit. Now it's just a pilot and co-pilot. It won't be long before we will have just one pilot on all flights....make that a "flight manager" as some are already calling us. All this is possible because of automation.Maybe those of us running virtual airlines will be doing it for real before we know it.John M:-)

>It won't be long>before we will have just one pilot on all flights....make that>a "flight manager" as some are already calling us. All this is>possible because of automation.I don't think we'll ever see just one pilot in airliners. I agree on the rest though.Marco

1 pilot may be fortunate.... http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/briefs/Unm...r_194033-1.htmlhttp://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

I agree that we probably will not have single pilot operations on major air carriers in the near future. However, I'm sure that not too long ago they said the same about train engineers. But the fact is that many trains in all parts of the world run on fully automated systems. The "engineer" is only onboard to monitor that things are going according to plan.I learned a long time ago to never say "never".John M

The day is coming when we will be vectored to and from our destination by a computer with very little human interventionLet's just hope they don't give the contract for creating/ coding the automated ATC system to Microsoft.

:-lol :-beerchug John M

>I agree that we probably will not have single pilot>operations on major air carriers in the near future. However,>I'm sure that not too long ago they said the same about train>engineers. But the fact is that many trains in all parts of>the world run on fully automated systems. The "engineer" is>only onboard to monitor that things are going according to>plan.>>I learned a long time ago to never say "never".Passenger windows are a disadvantage for an aircraft. Without them, an a/c would be lighter and structurally stronger. But engineers are forced to use them, because very few people would ever travel on a windowless aircraft.Similarly, very few if nobody, would ever fly in a pilotless aircraft.Even when the full capability will be there, it doesn't mean the thing will happen (luckily?) :)Marco

I hope so. On the other hand it all has to do with perception and marketing. One of the things they are touting with the pilotless plane is that it would not be able to be hijacked. If the public perceives or buys that the aircraft would actually be safer it could happen. The EC is spending $691 million on the pilotless airliner project-that sounds fairly serious.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Imagine piloting a plane from the US to the UK alone, it would be unbelievably lonely!Just sitting there, humming to yourself, "dum doda dum de de......YAY Heathrow!"Anyway, thats enough sugar for me tonightDave

>I hope so. On the other hand it all has to do with perception>and marketing. One of the things they are touting with the>pilotless plane is that it would not be able to be hijacked.>If the public perceives or buys that the aircraft would>actually be safer it could happen. >>The EC is spending $691 million on the pilotless airliner>project-that sounds fairly serious.>http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgAnd if there were to be an incident we could no longer blame it on "pilot error".John M