The maths is definitely correct. It is also total bunkum.
The ATC structures with the wherewithal to employ or contract these boffins are the large busy ones such as LATCC, Eurocontrol, Rhine Etc. They also end up with the power delegations at the conferences and meetings that review theses things. Their research is the only research and as such their findings are accepted as correct for all airspace.
Because of their own interests they, quite understandably, look at extremely complex airspace, for example around FFM. Through flights, multiple airports, climbing and descending traffic all enter the equations.
They totally ignore the encounter time of the vast majority of air transport traffic spending the vast majority of its flying hours sitting in the damn cruise on a standard five mile airway well away from their intellectually stimulating little hot spots.
These potherbs need to spend some time on a flight deck somewhere over the surface of planet reality. A planet with mindboggling amounts of silent, empty upper airspace while all the traffic flies frighteningly accurately through the eye of a needle (thanks to mathematicians).
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Regards from the Towers
[email protected]
[This message has been edited by PPRuNe Towers (edited 26 November 2000).]