Bik
Chill out man!! I think that your inflammatory posts are getting people's backs up. On the one hand you say "that's your opinion" then you jump on anyone proffering an opinion that differs from yours. Calm down dear, it's just a forum.
On the subject of datalink, I don't think that anyone can be in any doubt that it IS the future. Whether we like it or not, eventually all controllers will no longer fill the role that we have now, but we will act as system monitors and only intervene when things get out of hand. I'm not talking about next Wednesday, but in the future it will happen, it has to. How else are we going to reduce controllers workloads sufficiently to accomodate the massive predicted increases in traffic?
Datalink will remove a lot of "chores" that do not have massive safety bearings (initial flight plan clearances, changes in routings etc.) and allow controllers to concentrate on keeping planes apart. WHEN the technology allows then maybe we can start to let it take over a bit more but there remains a lot of work to be done.
So BIK, enter into the swing of things. Casting aspersions on someone's ability to keep planes apart ain't professional (unless it is Jerricho, widely known to be useless
). If you re-read the chaps' post it was a FALSE RA anyhow.
P7