Heads up – Sub-orbital flights are coming
On 28/10/2011, in The aircraft we fly, by steve
Curacao, Changi, Spaceport America, Zaragoza, Lelystad… What is common among these airports? Seemingly nothing but do not be misled by appearances. All these airports are getting ready to launch and receive sub-orbital flights in the not too distant future. While our industry is still trying to figure out how to integrate Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) into the civil air traffic management environment, private industry is throwing another challenge at us: sub-orbital vehicles.
Although sub-orbital flight may seem like the plaything of a few crazy bilioners, it is anything but. There is huge potential in this and it is not for nothing that so many entrepreneurs led by Richard Branson, as well as visionary airports, are getting on the band wagon. Even mighty KLM is involved, albeit only in a marketing capacity… for now anyway.
So what kind of aircraft or spacecraft if you like are we talking about and what do they mean in terms of air traffic management requirements?
A typical first generation sub-orbital vehicle is a kind of rocket powered machine that takes off from a runway and boosts itself to an altitude of around 330.000 feet at which space is commonly considered to begin. Skimming the top of the atmosphere the vehicle and all within it, experience a short period of weightlessness before it tips over and glides back to a runway to land. In a way this is reminiscent to what the Space Shuttle used to do but then on a much reduced scale.
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Air Traffic Control – Your Safety in the Air? Or something more…
On 13/09/2011, in ATC world, by steve
Back in the early 70s I was the vice-president of the Hungarian Air Traffic Controllers’ Association (HATCA) and we were busy searching for a good slogan for the association. In the end, we decided to use an adapted version of the slogan put out by the Canadians: “Air Traffic Control means you will have a safe flight”. The HATCA version became: “Air Traffic Control – Your safety in the air”.
Many many years later, when I was working in the airline Project Coordination Platform supporting the SESAR definition phase I introduced the idea of the “business trajectory”. This term referred to the trajectory defined by an airline, the one they wanted to fly and which best expressed their business intentions in relation to the flight concerned.
While the airlines really liked the idea, there was an immediate outcry from the controllers involved in the definition phase. How could I mention the term “business” in the same sentence with trajectory and air traffic control! ATC was there to ensure safety and business had nothing to do with it.
Recalling my time as HATCA president, I did not blame them. After all, when we were looking for the logo, we too highlighted safety as the aim of ATC and the word “business” did not cross our minds. We did this in spite of the fact that ICAO has been saying right from the start that the aim of air traffic services was to maintain a safe and efficient flow of air traffic.
Of course a lot has changed since then and while the importance of safety has not diminished, the relative importance of efficiency has grown tremendously. It is not an exaggeration to say that safety and efficiency are equally important if this industry is to survive. Concentrating mainly on safety is not enough by far… Our thinking must change so that the terms “safety” and “business” may coexist peacefully in our minds.
While the awareness to maintain safety is generally high in the ATM world, the business aspect still tends to be considered a necessary evil, even an affront to people anointed, after all, to uphold safety.
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Pioneering and progressing: Assessing the progress of SESAR with Florian Guillermet
On 06/07/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
The SESAR programme was launched on 3 June 2009. Now almost two years since its launch, It’s a good time to take stock of the status of the programme’s 300 projects, assess progress in the execution of the first SESAR release and the first project deliverables. In a short interview, Florian Guillermet, SESAR JU Chief Programme Officer, gives his evaluation of the programme and the first release, and looks at some of the challenges facing SESAR in the second half of 2011..
At mid 2011, what is the situation of the SESAR programme in general?
It’s almost time to celebrate the second anniversary of SESAR’s launch, and after two years of hard work we’ve made great progress: the ramp-up phase of the programme is complete and 85% of projects are now in full execution mode; the first concrete deliverables are arriving; all the programme management processes are now in place; and the programme delivery approach through SESAR Releases has been implemented. In addition, we are now fully integrating airspace users into the programme and they will directly participate in the execution of projects. Overall, we are on track…
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Aircraft turnaround made visible from a TBO/SOA perspective
On 29/04/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two concepts rather new to air traffic management (ATM) and apparently they continue to cause some head scratching when it comes to agreeing what TBO really means or how to define services in the ATM context. In this article I will attempt to explain a few relevant aspects of those concepts and will also try to visualize the concepts using the aircraft turnaround as an example.
Why the aircraft turnaround? Because we see that in spite of the original SESAR Concept of Operations having made clear that the trajectories of flights performed by the same aircraft are in fact always connected via the given airframe, some experts are now laboring to show that this is so and are trying to bring in new constructs to account for this “connection”. The trajectory does go through important metamorphoses during the turnaround and so using that phase of the operation gives us the opportunity to examine TBO and SOA in all their glory.
But first a few basics.
The concept of services.
“Service” is a word that can mean different things depending upon the context in which it is being used. In general, the context is based upon a consumer/supplier relationship. Further, a hierarchy of services can exist with, for example, a high-level service being made up of a number of lower level sub-categories of services. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that the nature, scope and detailed characteristics associated with each service are clear and unambiguous each time it is used, including defining who is supplying what to whom.
Services may be defined from a business perspective or an IT perspective.
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BLUE MED FAB Newsletter Number 2 now available
On 21/03/2011, in FAB News, by steve
BLUE MED is the Functional Airspace Block (FAB) being put together by the States in the Mediterranean Sea area and their naturally sunny disposition is amply reflected in their newsletters, of which the second is now available.
FABs are exciting because the idea pre-dates SESAR and when we created the SESAR Concept of Operations it was designed to work in a true single European sky and not in what is essentially a larger scale fragmentation of that European sky. The participants in the various FABs are doing a lot to harmonize their operations but harmonization between the FABs themselves is another cookie… It is on that scale that things were always derailed in the past so it remains to be seen how they will be handled this time round.
Another aspect to think about is that SESAR uses a trajectory based paradigm while FABs continue to be based on the legacy, airspace based paradigm. A lot of work will have to be done (and little or none of it is visible so far) to move the FAB concept away from airspace orientation and towards the trajectory based concept that is the only viable future.
It would be good to hear from FAB experts how they are approaching the above issues.
In the meantime, read the second BLUE MED Newsletter here.
DSNA CEO says SESAR CONOPS was built on FABs from day one…
On 12/03/2011, in FAB News, by steve
No Sir, it was NOT!!!!
If ATC Global Insight is to be believed, Mr. Maurice Georges, CEO of French DSNA, said in Amsterdam that “The SESAR operational concept has been built on FABs from day one.”
Well, I do not know which SESAR operational concept they use in France but the concept we wrote and which bears the text, inter alia, “…it is considered that the level of detail reached in the work and the degree of assessment performed are sufficient to give guidance on what should be contained in the SESAR Master Plan.” does not talk about FABs. This is of course WP2.2.2, Deliverable D3, the famous CONOPs, the only real concept of operations that reflects the discussions in the definition phase. That is “from day one” to use Mr. Georges’ words.
This document mentions Functional Airspace Blocks only once towards the end in the context of provision of meteorological information and the abbreviation of FAB is not shown at all!!!
That one lonely mention of the functional airspace block is obviously an editorial oversight because we were very careful not to mix a legacy concept like the FAB into a future oriented concept like SESAR.
Why was that?
To understand this, we must go back a little in history. For many years and through many programs like EATCHIP and ATM2000+, Europe tried to update its ATM system along continent-wide lines to harmonize things in an effort to make an end to the delay crisis. While some progress was made, States’ reluctance to relinquish even a little of their ATM castle mentality basically prevented any big breakthrough. When finally the European Commission got fed up with the obfuscation, the idea of Functional Airspace Blocks and the Single European Sky were invented in the hope that under the stewardship of the EC things would go faster. Fat channce…
In all the hoopla currently surrounding FAB implementation it is easy to forget that the FABs were not embraced with enthusiasm at first and the reluctant brides, the ANSPs had to be dragged to the altar kicking and screaming… causing considerable delay in FAB implementation.
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First concrete SESAR achievements in 2011
On 08/03/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
At the biggest international Air Traffic Management exhibition, ATC Global being held this week in Amsterdam, the SESAR Joint Undertaking presents the first components of the future European ATM system. The aim of this first SESAR Release is to group projects and validation exercises and to start delivering together with the 49 SESAR members and associate partners tangible results at a reindustrialization stage as of this year.
“SESAR is set to modernize air traffic management in Europe. Recent projections predict for Europe a doubling of flights by 2030 compared to 2009 levels. This equals 16.9 million movements; everybody knows that the current air traffic management system cannot cope with such an increase. SESAR is prepared to address this challenge by presenting first benefits for the aviation community this year, just as planned.”, says Patrick Ky, Executive Director of the SESAR Joint Undertaking.
Periodic releases
With the commitment of the private and public partners involved in the work program, SESAR will deliver results through periodic releases.
The first SESAR Release is the outcome of a thorough status review of the approximately 300 SESAR projects to see where early results can be achieved to
quicker serve the aviation world. Projects which are included in the 2011 Release will have been verified and validated in an operational environment to allow for a decision on industrialization and subsequent deployment.
With the first SESAR Release, the European ATM modernization program reveals initial components of the future European ATM system. The validation exercises will cover the areas of efficient and green terminal airspace operations, the initial 4D trajectory, end to end traffic synchronization, as well as integrated and collaborative network management. Concrete benefits will be achieved for airlines, pilots, airports, air traffic controllers, pilots, passengers and the environment.
Improved procedures, tool sets, prototypes
Through simulations, prototypes, shadow mode or live and flight trials, the SESAR members will perform 29 validation exercises all over Europe, the first of which have already taken place in February.
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Do you really understand – Trajectory based operations (TBO)?
On 04/02/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
There is a misconception in some air traffic management circles that trajectory based operations is simply business as usual except that the current, notoriously imprecise ground generated trajectories are replaced by more accurate, 4 D trajectories and that is all there is to it. Some will add that parts of this 4D trajectory might be sourced from the FMS or an airspace user ground system… While there is truth in all this, TBO is much more. Much much more and significantly, if the other aspects of TBO are not considered, the potential for benefits inherent in TBO is reduced significantly.
So, what is trajectory based operations?
First and foremost we must look at the basis of the existing operation. Air traffic management has grown historically along an airspace based paradigm. Airspace as such was a given so it stood to reason that early ATM experts set out to define airspace volumes which they thought would best fit the traffic they expected and established air traffic control units to fit the task foreseen in those volumes. When aircraft arrived, they were obliged to fly within the confines of the defined airspace and if their needs differed from that envisaged, the aircraft trajectory was bent to fit the picture. Of course this is a bit of an oversimplification but to this day, ATM is being done on this basis.
The end-to-end trajectory played almost no role in this game. To illustrate the point, juts consider that until recently the Central Flow Management Unit calculated expected sector loads on the basis of a trajectory the vertical dimension of which was famously inaccurate while ground ATC systems generated their own trajectories for their own airspace and these often did not tie up with the trajectory dreamed up by the neighboring unit. All this time however scores of experts everywhere worked furiously on airspace design and organization… Only a blind person could fail to see that this legacy, airspace based paradigm had to go if the volume and efficiency demands of increasing traffic were to be met.
Things were not helped at all by the fact that controllers were handing flights as if they were born just outside their sector boundary and went into the big blue yonder when they exited their sector. In other words, they only ever looked at a small part of the trajectory with little regard to what was or was not happening further downstream. Conflict free handover was the almost the only aim.
Because of the way airspace was used in the past, popular ATM wisdom came up with the notion that airspace was a scarce resource and it had to be organized better to save the day. This notion was a dangerous one because for a long time it did divert attention and effort from looking at the real problem. Trajectories…
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Trajectory based operations (TBO) – Still not properly understood in SESAR? Take 2.
On 18/01/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
You may recall that a while ago I had written an article with the same title, expressing concern that this all important element in the SESAR Concept of Operations was apparently still not properly understood by some of the “experts” working on the subject.
Recently another paper dealing with trajectory management crossed my desk and on reading it I started to wonder: have these people not read the CONOPS at all? Mind you, the paper comes from a major SESAR partner who should know better… But apparently they do not.
The paper is entitled “Use of the SESAR RBT in ATM Systems”. RBT in case you did not know stands for Reference Business Trajectory and this is the trajectory that “the airspace user agrees to fly and the ANSP agrees to facilitate” to quote the relevant part of the SESAR Concept of Operations (CONOPS).
The purpose of the paper, by its own admission, is to prompt discussion of the trajectory issues within the SESAR program and in particular to ensure that they are addressed by Work Package B. In other words, the paper is arguing that alongside the RBT, the various other types of trajectories that exist in local systems must also be recognized and treated in SESAR. Since the CONOPS already contains references to all those “other” kinds of trajectories, one cannot but wonder: what do the authors of the paper have in mind? Why would SESAR ignore the CONOPS references to those other trajectories? Or have the authors not read the CONOPS and are now thinking that they have discovered a gap in that document?
I will not even attempt to figure out this aspect. There are many other elements in the paper that should make anyone familiar with trajectory based operations want to cry.
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Trajectory based operations (TBO) – still not properly understood in SESAR?
On 26/11/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Following Henning’s article about the fate of the original SESAR Concept of Operations (CONOPS), I received a slew of mails basically confirming his point of view and worries. Of particular concern seems to have been a document dealing with trajectory management…
People who had seen this document were of the opinion that it was little more than a reiteration of the legacy way of working with no visible attempt to bring things in line with the spirit, let alone the words, of the CONOPS.
Why am I not surprised?
During the definition phase we had a very hard time getting people to understand why the legacy system, based on managing airspace and massaging individual aircraft left and right had to give way to something else that took a broader view than is the event horizon of a controller working his or her sector.
The concept of trajectory based operations (one of the mainstays of NextGen also) does exactly that. The system is run on the basis of managing trajectories end to end with situational awareness shared by all concerned and hence both strategic and tactical decisions being aligned, safety permitting, with the business intentions of the owners of the trajectories. Airspace is shaped to allow the undistorted inclusion of the trajectories rather than trajectories being bent to fit the airspace.
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Are ATM operational concepts the cause of failure?
On 03/09/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
I have known Jean-Marc Garot, the former director of EUROCONTROL’s Experimental Centre in Paris for a long time. A forward thinker and in many ways a visionary, he retired from EUROCONTROL in 2005. He has now published an interesting article in The Controller magazine with the title “What is an ATM concept?”
I think everyone in Europe and in the US who has ever been involved in the development of operational concepts for air traffic management should read this article. Not because it is so good or so full of revelations from which we can learn but to see just how poorly we have communicated our efforts and how completely things have been misunderstood on various levels of the ATM world and at different ATM organizations.
The article starts off with a nice and even funny summing up of how, it is claimed, experts for concept work are/have been selected. There is indeed some truth in the description and it is also true that there have always been people on the concept groups coming from airlines, ANSPs, industry and what have you who could only think in terms of their own particular activities with little regard for anybody else’s. But those were always a minority. Troublesome yes, but hardly determinant for the final product.
The overwhelming majority of experts in concept work knew what they were about and it was quite common to have airline reps with an ATC background as well as the other way round with ATC folks who were flying on the side.
The article correctly points out that some of the documents produced were indeed overly voluminous… It is a pity that in the very next paragraph 4D Trajectory Management, System Wide Information Management (SWIM) and even air/ground digital link are listed as mere hypotheses, ambiguous descriptions that everyone can agree to and which therefore assume the status of certainties, no longer questioned and on which benefit expectations can be built… without much justification.
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Continuous Descent Operations (CDO) Manual from ICAO now available
On 26/02/2010, in Bookshelf, by steve
ICAO has made available an unedited, advance version of the Continuous Descent Operations (CDO) Manual as approved, in principle, by the Secretary General. Although the final, edited version may still undergo editorial alterations, the substance should stay the same.
The purpose of this Manual is to provide guidance and harmonize the development and implementation of continuous descent operations (CDO). To achieve this, airspace and instrument flight procedure design and air traffic control techniques should all be employed in a cohesive manner. This will then facilitate the ability of flight crews to use in-flight techniques to reduce the overall environmental footprint and increase the efficiency of aircraft operations.
The generic term “continuous descent operations”, has been adopted to embrace the different techniques used to maximize operational efficiency while still addressing local airspace requirements and constraints. These operations have been variously known as, continuous descent arrivals, continuous descent approaches, optimized profile descent, tailored arrivals, and 3D/4D path arrival management forming part of the business trajectory concept.
Continuous descent operations (CDO) is one of several tools available to aircraft operators and air navigation service providers (ANSPs) to increase safety, flight predictability, and airspace capacity, while reducing noise, controller-pilot communications, fuel burn and emissions. Over the years, different route models have been developed to facilitate CDO and several attempts have been made to strike a balance between the ideal fuel efficient and environmentally friendly procedures and the capacity requirements of a specific airport or airspace.
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U.K. airspace “developments”?
On 26/11/2009, in Viewpoint, by cleo
A short article in Aviation Week and Space Technology caught my eye the other day. “Restructuring U.K. Skies” was the title and it announced that the U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was beginning the process of defining airspace out to 2030, with industry-wide dialogue to begin in 2010. I counted the number of times the word “airspace” appeared in the item: six. I also counted the number of times the words trajectory based operations appeared. ZERO.
I think it is fair to assume that the editors of Aviation Week would have used the term “trajectory based operation” if they had seen it in the CAA’s press release or the “Airspace for Tomorrow” guidance document. So, its complete lack can be safely taken for an indication of its absence in the CAA’s material.
The United Kingdom is part of SESAR and experts from NATS have been involved in the writing of the SESAR Concept of Operations. So what gives?
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Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) – what is this?
On 16/11/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
We have all grown up with the idea that airspace was the most important single thing aircraft needed. While it is true that aircraft need both air (in which the wings can generate lift) and space (the room to move around in) but airspace? This word has grown over the years and held us hostage to an air traffic management (ATM) paradigm that is one of the main causes of inefficiencies and scarce ATM capacity to-day.
If we look around, we will see plenty of instances where the term “airspace” is used in ways that mask much more essential things, things that need to be considered first and foremost before we think about the space in which those “things” exist.
States have their sovereign airspace, airspace management is an element of the global ICAO ATM operational concept, EUROCONTROL has an Airspace and Navigation Team, and there is the concept of flexible use of airspace… Even the quarterly publication of CANSO, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization is called “Airspace”. Air traffic control centers have their airspace… Airspace is the magic term we all grew up with and think we understand.
We also tried to solve ATM problems by “improving” airspace. When those efforts did not quite work out the way we had hoped, we pronounced airspace to be a scarce resource almost saying that it was airspace that actually put a limit on how many aircraft there may fly around at any given moment.
In fact, airspace is an almost limitless resort. It appears to be limited only because of the way we use it.
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Military accepts the idea underlying the business trajectory
On 05/11/2009, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
One of the most important paradigm shifts in the SESAR air traffic management operational concept of the future is the move from an airspace based approach to a trajectory based one. It would be a bit lengthy to explain the difference here (there will be a blog article on the subject soon) so let it suffice to say: trajectory based operations are the key to the required predictability and efficiency of the new system.
During the creation of the SESAR Concept of Operations (CONOPS) our military colleagues at first had some difficulty in accepting this new approach. After all, most military operations tend to require a huge piece of real estate that equates to airspace rather than trajectories.
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New directions for Airport Collaborative Decision Making (CDM)
On 07/10/2009, in CDM, by steve
What exactly is CDM?
Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is not a new concept. It is being practiced to a certain degree both in the US and in Europe, focus being on en-route in the former and airports in the latter. Mature as the concept may be, surprisingly we still see experts who seem to believe that CDM is little more than a few wise men sitting together and deciding things for the benefit of the community… Little wonder that they see a role for CDM that is strictly limited to the strategic planning phases. They seem to hang on to this view even in the face of actual CDM implementations at some airports (e.g. Munich) which are anything but limited to the strategic phase. So, what is CDM?
The concept of CDM is very simple. Decisions on all levels must be made not in isolation but based on a shared, common view of the state of the ATM network with full awareness of the consequences of the decisions on every aspect of the operation. Collaborative in this context does not necessarily imply people sitting together or working together remotely. A single person can also make a collaborative decision if the decision is based on the shared information provided by the partners and if it takes into account the impact of the decision on those partners and the ATM network as a whole.
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(Before) all else fails… read the Concept! Part 3.
On 24/09/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
What is TMR?
The abbreviation of Trajectory Management Requirements and an item that has been misunderstood in several ways (some quite surprising). Obviously, the CONOPS did not do a very good job of explaining this simplest of elements (mea culpa…). An aircraft flying its 4 dimensional trajectory will do so with an agreed precision and the trajectory to be flown will not deviate from the one agreed by more than prescribed limits. The aircraft system does not need to re-publish its trajectory as long as any deviation that may occur remains within those limits.
TMR is nothing more than an automated instruction to the aircraft containing the applicable limits. In other words all TMR does is set the triggers for re-publishing the trajectory. An aircraft may be given different limits as it flies, depending on the changing requirements along its trajectory, resulting in several TMR messages.
Restricting the number of instances of trajectory publishing to that actually required saves bandwidth and processing resources.
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(Before) all else fails… read the Concept! Part 1.
On 22/09/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
The birth of the SESAR Concept of Operations (CONOPS), perhaps not unexpectedly, was not an easy process. Although SESAR is claimed to be a user-driven project, when the airspace users tried to drive the development of the CONOPS, the road proved to be anything but smooth. Plenty of natural and artificial obstacles had to be negotiated before the final product was crafted and pronounced airworthy. In the end, the CONOPS had turned out to be much more than the usual representation of the smallest common denominator, agreed and supported by most, criticized by others.
Now, some two years after version 1 of the CONOPS saw the light of day, we still see a worrisome degree of misunderstanding, hesitation and claimed or actual ignorance persist around the concept. Apparently, some people just continue with legacy thinking, pleading ignorance that there is any direction being set that is relevant to them. Ignoring the guidance encapsulated in the CONOPS or giving it a new interpretation not in line with what was originally intended represents a grave danger to the effectiveness of the new air traffic management system and the SESAR project itself.
In this article, I will try to clarify a number of issues still burning around the CONOPS, answering also questions which have been put to us in recent months. Some items may appear trivial to those who have been involved in the SESAR definition phase but will be useful to our worldwide readers many of whom are innocent when it comes to any phase of SESAR.
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Trajectory ownership: dogfight or guiding principle?
On 13/09/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Few elements of the SESAR Concept of Operations (CONOPS) have generated more controversy than the idea of trajectory ownership did. Regrettably, the controversy still boils. Some experts dismiss the whole thing as a “political dogfight”, others conduct lengthy debates on how trajectory ownership will work (or not work) in daily operations. They are both on the wrong track, revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of what the CONOPS is trying to say. It is time we put the matter out of its misery and recognize trajectory ownership for what it was always meant to be: a strategic guiding principle with a fundamental impact on future air traffic management.
First and foremost, we must realize that, except for the smallest and lightest aircraft, almost all flying machines are in fact business tools of differing sophistication. From rented aircraft to the most modern airliners, they fulfill a mission and are meant to generate revenue for their operators. The Sunday leisure flyers apart, this is true of business jets, crop sprayers, airline transports and even the military.
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