Big Beer Belly said:
You seem like a pretty good guy, but you flatter yourself that efficient arrival operations could not be conducted with far less intrusion by Air Traffic Coordinators. In the USAF it was not uncommon to have 14 T-38's flown by STUDENT pilots (all doing 300 kts) in the overhead and extended pattern to the same runway simultaneously ... and all being minimally "de-conflicted" by another (gasp!) pilot ... not an ATC "specialist".
You do realize there are many aircraft operating across oceans and in various parts of the world that DO NOT communicate with ANYONE (including the tanker(s) they're rendezvousing with)... let alone an FAA certified ATC specialist and yet they successfully complete their missions "quietly" every day.
As I mentioned in my previous post, someone (a UPS pilot ... gasp!
) began to think ever so slightly "out of the box" and came up with a continuous idle VNAV/LNAV arrival into SDF from cruise altitude to the FAF. Bottom line, more aircraft arrive within a shorter time frame, burn less fuel, and produce less noise than previous ATC "specialist" directed speed up, slow down, extended 30 mi. finals.
Beer Belly,
You need to get out of the military and into the much larger world of civilian flying - well, when you "flight control manipulation technicians" and "meat autopilots" are RIFed and replaced by UAVs, you'll find out (see I can denigrate your role, too). Or when the AF buys Airbus tankers that override your inputs when you're f-ing up. <------just kidding, folks. Well, kinda.
Each situation you described above involves similar type aircraft, all flying for the same company, all flying carefully choreographed procedures where everyone knows their role and everyone plays the game. All your students queuing up to land in their T-38s work just fine, because if they f-up and cut each other off, they will mess up their chances of passing the program big time. Ever been on an aircraft carrier? I have. Things work there as well as they do because everyone plays the game to the same rules to a very tight standard. UPS can do their thing because they are vampires - they hub in the middle of the night with no other traffic to contend with.
Out in the larger world, it does
not work that way. Go down and read the "regionals" topic. They're all out to cut each other's throat. You think they're going to play nice? "No, Mesa, you go ahead and land, I'll wait out here". Baloney! And the thing is, I've seen it. My favorite was the DC-9 driver who knew,
just knew he could beat the ATR-42 I told him he would be following. He canceled IFR, aimed at the numbers, and dived for it. And arrived on a three mile right base with a 120 knot overtake on the ATR-42, which was on a two mile final. Sorry, you lose. Crank it back out and fly a downwind for a while. And that was only two airplanes. Let's throw a Cherokee, a Baron with a busted transponder and a P-3 that wants multiple ILSes into mix. And, oh, there's a Lifeguard Kingair and couple of 737s. It'd sound like a Prisoner rerun if you left them to their own devices:
"I am Number 2."
"Who is number 1?"
"You are Number 6."
Try this one: uncontrolled airport near the Canadian border. Aircraft calls for IFR clearance, gets it. #2 calls, told to standby until #1 departs. #2 says, "Hey, we're at the runway, he's behind us, we are #1". Controller says have him come up on frequency so I can cancel his release. A few minutes pass, and #3 calls for clearance. Controller says stand by, waiting on the first two to call back. #3 says "I think it will be a while, they are out of the aircraft fist fighting on the taxiway". True story. I've got lots more.
So while your ideal world would be nice, it ain't gonna happen. Not in your lifetime, not in mine. So we'd better all get along, because it is the way it's going to be for a while.
