Just read this article.
All very well IF the a/c has a bluetoothed cockpit display. But if no cockpit display personally think it’s bonkers to have to read ATC instructions as enough to monitor in the cockpit already without looking on the phone/ swapping displays on the ipad etc etc
http://airsoc.com/articles/view/id/53c4b338313944a0698b456b/texting-takes-off-for-pilots-and-air-traffic-controllers?ev=10&evp=tl&utm_source=Premium+registrations&utm_campaign=4fb80c8572-Premier+regs+Enews+July+16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2806c17d03-4fb80c8572-95874809
On the face of it, I think it’s odd that ATC communication is still done primarily by voice on the radio – to me it’s the most glaringly unreliable part of flying. There are reasons for the continued primacy of voice communication for ATC, but I think change will come in this area. I’m sure it’ll take a while to figure out how to do it, and more generally how to get controllers out of the ATC loop, and automation in. Its an interesting human factors problem.
It is done over a completely different frequency band
That’s hardly the defining characteristic. In fact it is part of the problem, according to Patrick Ky of EASA [EASA On Air, Latest news from EASA – Issue 2: July 2014, titled “The Weak Link is the Data Link”]
I tried to look into it last year. It seems that aviation VHF band is used for the communication. Furthermore, I heard (read) rumours that a smartphone (Android, I suppose) loaded with a particular app and audio coupled to an aviation COM reciever (e.g. handheld) would result in texted ATC messages appearing as text on the smartphone screen.
Despite having the required remedies, I gave up very quickly because of my limited R/T technical confidence and because the set-up would never have been operationally useful anyway. Anyone else made it further – or maybe someone can kill the rumour?
As what next says CPDLC goes straight into the FMS so an instruction is issued and the pilots execute it. They still have voice as a backup. You hear them check in on the frequency say they are CPDLC then don’t speak again.
I am fairly sure I heard that ACARS can run over VHF, so maybe there are frequencies in the VHF COM (or NAV?) band reserved for that, for digital data?
And that airlines prefer VHF because it’s free or cheap, whereas over the open ocean they have to pay the likes of Immarsat which makes it expensive.
You can absolutely send data over short wave – radio amateurs (“hams”) have been doing it for years.
Also the AFTN has been run (in the 3rd world) over short wave (called “HF” in aviation-speak). There is stuff about this on the internet. Some airports in say Africa have been transmitting METARs and such over short wave.
It’s a real shame that airborne data in Europe can’t be done officially by individuals, other than by a satphone connection, which is unreliable or expensive or slow or all of the above.
I heard that ACARS can run over VHF
Yes, that is its normal mode of operation, though HF can be used, too.
There is a list out somewhere of VHF frequencies used by ACARS, some are geographically limited.
Decoding the data is apparently not rocket science, for an example see http://www.acarsd.org/
Found a list of VHF frequencies at http://www.acarsd.org/ACARS_frequencies.html
Some HF frequencies are mentioned at http://www.blackcatsystems.com/radio/hfACARS.html
