AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2021 - 89

TECHNOLOGY /
Tech we wish
we had
Riffing on the future of aviation
BY IAN J. TWOMBLY
SOMET IMES IT CAN be fun to dream. Fun
to ask, " What if? " So, we did.
We posed a simple question to top people
in a few leading aviation companies and
asked-regulations, market impacts, and
investment aside-how can technology
improve aviation and what should be commonplace
that we don't currently have?
The answers were interesting, insightful,
and surprisingly consistent.
Connectivity
Our lives nearly depend on connectivity.
Work, communication, social interactions,
home management, and virtually
everything in our world rely on sharing
information with other people and other
devices. Except in the aircraft. With limited
exceptions our aircraft remain black
holes of connectivity. We have radios and
receive GPS signals, but until you get into
large business jets and airlines, other
communication and information sharing
is sparse at best.
Maybe because of marketing to business
jet owners, the first place most of us go
when we think of internet in the airplane is
the ability to watch Netflix or make cheap
and reliable phone calls. But these are like
the Candy Crush of applications-fun, but
frivolous to the point of masking the real
benefits of the technology.
" Once you have that layer of capability
you can build things you could never
imagine, " said John Zimmerman, the head
of Sporty's Pilot Shop's catalog division.
He gives the example of Uber. When the
inventors of smartphones put small and
cheap GPS chips inside, no one was thinking
of ride-sharing services. But the tech
laid the groundwork for innovative products
that use the capability.
ForeFlight Co-founder Tyson Weihs
is on the same frequency. " The first thing
I want in every airplane is broadband, "
he said. " I want the plane connected to
the same tech that's in our phones and
laptops. "
Both Zimmerman and Weihs turned
immediately to air traffic control, a constant
pain point in their travels to urban
airports and an area that hasn't changed
appreciably in decades. Weihs imagines
a datacom system with enough redundancy
and bandwidth that the airplane
and ATC computers can automatically
communicate and verify those communications.
He describes today's efforts to
modernize ATC as layers of technology
built on old technology.
" It's slow, it's messy, and adding
applications to that is really hard. " But
a system built on datacom could enable
voiceless air traffic control that would
be faster, more efficient, and reduce mistakes.
With communication tools in the
cockpit we already have, a clearance
could be issued and verified automatically,
the pilot would push one button
to accept it, and ForeFlight, the GPS, or
other connected device would load the
route automatically and the autopilot
would capture it-all without communication
and only one button push.
" The way we do it with party line
radio is so old-fashioned, " Zimmerman
AOPA PILOT / September 2021
89
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2021

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