Thank you BlueSkye for posting your experience. I worked many years ago on software for the printing industry. The printers said that nothing could replace hot metal and then along came Rupert Murdoch and Fortress Wapping. Now any youngster with Adobe can produce a document in minutes to knock anything the old compositors could do into a cocked hat. The railway signalmen (who did a job very similar to the modern controller’s job) said software could never replace them. Now most of the UK is fully automatically signalled. Even the pilots are disconnected from the control surfaces by fly-by-wire software. The space shuttle has a fully automatic landing capability and Harriers can now be recovered aboard ships by computer. ATC automation by comparison is relatively simple and the New Model asserts that no new discovery or development is required. It can be done now, fully involving the controller and with all the safety and redundancy margins that the modern world requires.
Anotherthing, I was last inside West Drayton about five years ago but I have associations going back to 1944 and I remember Linesman-Mediator. I’m sure you’ll say things have moved on since 2002 but I doubt if anything fundamental has changed. One of the New Model’s unique features is that it keeps up with events even if the controller is operating without reference to the advisories. NM is therefore there to help you and not to overload you when you are busy. PM me and I’d be happy to arrange a demonstration. NM meets ALL of NATS requirements for an FDP system and then offers an evolutionary path to almost any functionality that one might want in the future. An NM speciality is support for incidents and emergencies. No other tool addresses exceptions so positively. Variable spacing for wake vortex? Variable routes for reduced contrails? Fully variable separations according to navigation capability? VLJs with PPL/IRs on board? UAVs in controlled airspace? GCA calculation for the Kegworth accident or the Virgin flight that lost all of its cockpit displays? These are things the airspace users want now and they all become simple in the NM concept.
Automation with the controller in the loop is now possible. The capability to use that automation to improve trajectories (pilots at Farnborough in July told me that they were still not getting long distance direct routes) and reduce emissions means that this is something in which EVERYONE now has a personal interest. Anyone at all there to support BlueSkye?