ATC by text
 

I'm a Radio 4 fan and tonight @ 21:00, Leading Edge is, among other things, going to report on a trial of ATC by text message.

Isn't this what mode S was supposed to do for us? I'll give it a listen later.

My understanding
 

From what I've read in the write up the experiment (carried out by Nottingham University) was to completely replace spoken interaction with ATC with text interaction. The idea was to keep the airwaves clear for emergencies.

The conclusions
 

The researchers speaking to the programme came to the conclusion that in low demand situations using a text system to replace radio is beneficial but during take off and landing voice is still better.

They also quoted that the airspace was divided into sectors with one ATCO per sector to deal with ALL the RT, phones Etc. Maybe they should have spoken to someone who knows something about LACC operations. There are Two ATCOs and One ATSA per sector/Sector group. There were several other small errors as well. If a Uni is going to do research do not speak to NEMA TWR/APP ATCO about area ops unless he is current.:\