25 nations for an aerospace breakthrough - IFATS - Innovative Air Transport System

Kurzfassung

IFATS – Innovative Future Air Transport System The IFATS project was launched in July 2004 to study what would be a revolutionary air transport system in the long term: no more pilots or controllers, both replaced by automated controls running the overall system and ground operators planning and monitoring it. This full automation of the air transport system is expected to be efficient to face the limitations: conflict-free flight plans followed with high accuracy, automatic take-off and landing whatever the weather, automatic taxiing on the ground, etc. This visionary system will be presented to show that it could increase flight safety, as most accidents today are due to human error. Another benefit of the system is security, as it will not be possible for potential terrorists to threaten the crew to divert the flight. Moreover, this fully automated system would have ‘collateral advantages’, such as the very easy integration of UAVs into the traffic.