The latest Wired and last week's news reports covered the FAA decision to sloooowly move from the current Positive Control ATC system to one called Free Flight in which aircraft pick there own routes and separation is maintained by GPS, computers, and telecommunications. Collision avoidance telecoms as opposed to collision avoidance radar. Every plane knows where it is in 4 dimensions (don't forget time) and knows its performance capabilities. They communicate with each other and the ground to keep away from each other. The question is why? Why abandon a central command and control system with defined airways and checkpoints, orders and acknowledgements? Is this some sinister triumph by free market ideology creeping into the ATC system as it did into New Zealand's Labour Government of the 1980s or even into the Chinese Commies brains? Not quite. It is simple. The system was breaking down already even before the 40-50% traffic growth projected over the next few years. Even if the FAA weren't totally incompetent as a computer buyer, a centralized system suffers from real congestion problems as growth occurs. Trying to cram more traffic down fixed routes is a real problem. Likewise finding enough commanders to seize and hold the high points of the ATCS. The change has been proposed because the system would collapse without it. Freedom is their only chance. Note the same effect in the future as trade, travel, data flows, etc. double and redouble. At some point on the growth curve, free flight becomes the only possibility. DCF "What *was* Vince Foster doing on November 22, 1963"?