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Comment by BWStearns | Hacker News Reader

For folks saying "just make it text", I think you really need to consider the human element here. Pilot->ATC text would be an absolute no go since now you'd basically be muted if it's bumpy. Instead of being able to just talk and occasionally ask for clarification, now you have to mess around with a shitty $40,000 Garmin pager device while getting bumped around and missing the buttons and typoing a bunch. Oh yeah, and you gotta also fly a plane.

A slightly reasonable system where ATC->Pilots is text and Pilots->ATC is audio is now just making the whole thing more complicated with some slight reduction of "Say again"s. You still would need to ask for clarification if the instruction is unclear or unexpected but now also ATC has to develop new workflows and a mixed text/voice system seems likely to induce higher workload and produce more errors.

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the display would also need to show what's getting sent to other aircraft, because that's useful situational awareness for the pilots that would be lost if the messages were directed. accidents have been avoided by pilots noticing conflicting instructions being given by ATC

I agree it would get more complicated, but there are some nice things we could get with text.

For example, a “turn right heading 320” or “proceed direct BUXOM” could become a popup on the screen, which can then be pushed straight to the FMS with a single press. The plane could also report its active flight plan and mode (i.e., whether it’s tracking a course or following a heading) which would confirm whatever ATC expects the plane to be doing.

There’s a myriad of downsides to this, including bad actors sending instructions to pilots without ATC being aware, so in balance this might be overall worse than just keeping it simple.

I wonder how a fine-tuned STT model running locally in the aircraft could fair vs an experienced ATC operator listening over the radio. I bet we're at the point where the speech model is more accurate.

Totally agree, this would not work. The ideal thing about speech and hearing is that they're really easy to multitask with. There's so many moments in the cockpit where your literally wouldn't have your hands free.

A display for visual reinforcement of basic clearances would work I guess but more as a backup. Part of the audio of ATC is not just being aware of your own traffic but also the presence and intentions of others. Putting all that on a screen would cause a lot more to monitor visually and there's so much in the instrument scanning loop already.

Easy solution: use mouthpad [1] to control the plane and free the hands to communicate with the ground. :D

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38997930

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