Blockla,
So what happens to situational awareness when CPDLC and other methods of passing information between consoles and cockpits is more commonplace?
Not really off-topic IMHO.
CPDLC comes with electronic stripping (or stripless control) which, as far as I understand it, means no more overall comprehention of the global situation, even for the controller.
That's the way things are meant to be : building control strategies is considered as a waste of time, thus productivity. "Anti-collision" is much more efficient when talking about capacity.
CPDLC should be implemented all over Europe before February the 7th, 2013. Who will care about pilot's situational awareness when the controller has lost it ?
Viking101, Just a thought about use of common language : controller and both crews were talking English over Uberlingen... where was situational awareness then? There are loads of exemples proving one thing and the contrary.
Very, very often, traffics are separated without even being on the same frequency (phone co-ordination between sectors). Who cares then whether controllers speak English, German, Spanish, French or Javanese ? The pilot won't have a clue anyway.
Pilots are there to aviate, navigate their own acft.
Controllers have the situational awareness in regard of the surrounding traffic, they assist pilots in their needs (including information about essential traffic and weather conditions in the appropriate language) and everything goes well.
Swapping roles only complicates things.
Meanwhile, I agree pilot's situational awareness is a must-be in non-controlled and/or non-separated areas.