[terminalshort]

This is no different than the current ATC system. A plane or tower can lose power too. It's not particularly hard for the software to detect a plane that isn't in communication with the rest of the swarm / not obeying commands, assign it highest priority and GTFO of its way. The key is to have the software running on all planes (which you can do with commercial aviation) rather than rely on a centralized system with a single point of failure.

[rogerrogerr]

> The key is to have the software running on all planes

Yeeeeah… we just went through the ADS-B mandate. It took a decade or more, cost pilots thousands and thousands of dollars, still doesn’t have 100% compliance, and does weird stuff sometimes. And this was orders of magnitude easier than any kind of two way system.

Respectfully, do you have any time in the front seat of an aircraft or a tower/TRACON position?

[terminalshort]

I have none. Did the engineers who developed autopilots start out as pilots? Did the people who invented email start out delivering mail for the post office? The point is that the new system doesn't have to look like the old system. Automating ATC isn't going to be the current ATC system, just done by computer. That makes about as much sense as designing driverless cars with a humanoid robot as driver.