PAXboy: "Eh? Folks are manipulating themselves around the sky and NOT talking to anyone??? Sounds like they are manipulating themselves. Just amazing."
VP:
Pray tell, what do you think the ratio of cars on the roads to aircraft in the sky is?
Do you have a radio in your car? Do you use it to talk to the highway controller to determine whether the congestion level on your intended route is acceptable to allow you to drive down it safely? Surely, as roads are many thousands of times more congested than airspace radios and transponders should be mandatory, to reduce the all too apparent risk of collisions?
Get real! Thousands of us fly sans radio quite safely. We use exactly tha same safety device that you do when driving a car, our eyes. The major difference is that we are pretty unlikely to come close to another aircraft most of the time, unlike someone driving a car.
I think you also need to realise that there are literally thousands of aircraft with NO electrical systems, so they cannot be easily fitted with radios or transponders.