Avionics
Start of datalink test buoys ATC modernization efforts
Maneuvering over Southern Florida and through busy Miami airspace on a classically warm and convective Thursday in March, an FAA test airplane spent severa

Maneuvering over Southern Florida and through busy Miami airspace on a classically warm and convective Thursday in March, an FAA test airplane spent several hours aloft exchanging more than 100 routine messages with ATC–all without the pilots or controllers having to utter a single word.

The flight trial was the first demonstration in crowded airspace and under actual ATC operating conditions of controller-pilot datalink communications (CPDLC), an FAA modernization program intended to replace voice communications between pilots and ground controllers with two-way text messaging.