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Old 19th Jul 2016, 20:44
  #21 (permalink)  
Gonzo
 
Join Date: Dec 1999
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Yes, but sometimes a human isn't the best 'thing' to do that. Humans make mistakes, and perhaps having a system that will alert the controller when he tries to clear an aircraft for take off when there's someone crossing it ahead of them is a good idea, or alert the controller when he tries to instruct an aircraft to route along a taxiway behind an aircraft to which he has just given a pushback clearance.

We have had TCAS for years.

Flight decks used to have navigators, flight engineers, wireless operators as well as pilots.

Would we really trust a human to monitor the thousands of parameters and data points of modern turbofan operation without any assistance, rather than multiple onboard computers, not forgetting the myriad computers back at Derby or the other real-time ops centres of the engine manufacturers doing the same thing?

And regardless of the safety nets etc, you can't deny that having a radar-like label being projected on to the window, or having an IR-augmented view, would help in LVP. That's the sort of thing digital tower tech can do.
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