Musk Proves He’s An Idiot. Shows ZERO Understanding of Air Traffic Control

Take a good look at the title picture – it shows the flight routes of a single commercial air carrier. Now imagine multiple carriers both passenger and cargo. Now that air travel has mostly recovered from the pandemic we are back to there being roughly 9,500 planes in the air at any given time. Sometimes more and most show up on the screens of air traffic controllers.  Second after second, hour after hour. It’s a LOT to look after to be sure.

Now consider Elon Musk’s world, one in which his Space X shoots off and tracks a single rocket at a time with weeks or even months between launches. AND that each rocket launch involves months of planning, including coordination with the FAA and other agencies (both domestic and international) to make sure the rocket and whatever it delivers to space doesn’t run into anything.  Yet Musk thinks his experience and that of his people at Space X is a match for what the FAA has been doing my entire life!

Rolling Stone has an article that’s worth your time that discusses both what Musk is up to with the FAA and the fact he doesn’t know anywhere near as much as he thinks he does about aviation despite having gotten a private pilot’s license a couple of decades ago. There’s no indication he’s spent much time in the cockpit, nor advanced beyond being able to fly some single engine two or four seat plane.  As Rolling Stone says, many will look at Musk and Space X and think it’s a good thing that such a technologically advanced company is swooping in to ‘save the day.’

However there’s simply no comparison between shooting rockets into space and managing thousands of flights at any given moment. Oh, and while managing everything in the AIR controllers at even regional airports have to manage the planes moving around on the GROUND to avoid collisions!  Still, with Trump’s blessing Musk and DOGE will be bringing in Space X folks to supposedly show the FAA how to do things. From Rolling Stone:

That might reassure some people impressed by videos of SpaceX’s rockets, but on Tuesday afternoon, Musk, who did qualify for a private pilot certificate in 2002, seemed baffled by some of the basics of air travel. In a post on X – the misinformation-heavy social media site Musk shaped from the remains of Twitter, after buying the platform for $44 billion in 2022 – supply chain company CEO Ryan Petersen shared a screenshot of the projected flight path of a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Houston, which hewed close to the southern U.S. border with Mexico. “Why is this plane not flying in a straight line?” Petersen wondered. Musk replied, “It should be.”

I don’t know about you but it sounds pretty crazy to me. I won’t bore you with the details about how I became an aviation buff more decades ago than I care to admit.  I’ll just say I know more than the average person.  So, when I learn about an exchange between Musk and one of his associates the route of a specific flight I cringe:

supply chain company CEO Ryan Petersen shared a screenshot of the projected flight path of a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Houston, which hewed close to the southern U.S. border with Mexico. “Why is this plane not flying in a straight line?” Petersen wondered. Musk replied, “It should be.”

Well Mr. self-professed genius I can think of a number of reasons off the top of my head. Airports and airlines have schedules to keep, and changing course to avoid worse than expected headwinds or take advantage of tailwinds comes to mind. Weather systems vary and sometimes course is altered to avoid the worst of it. Or how about traffic patterns in the airspace of major airports?  It’s not just what you can see from the terminal or on the ground.

At any given time you have hundreds of planes entering or leaving a radius that extends out a hundred miles or more so flight plans are developed to avoid getting any closer than necessary. Sometimes airspace is restricted. Try flying over Area 51 and see what happens! Or anywhere a VIP, say a President happens to be giving a rally. On any given day things come up that require route adjustments.  In other words Elon it’s not like flying your little Cessna at less than 10k feet over some mostly uninhabited area of farms and small towns, in and out of some tiny airstrip with no control tower because one isn’t needed.

I really recommend taking the time to read the linked article.  It extensively cites an expert who’s had dealing with Musk. Who by the way describes another incident of Musk’s cluelessness. Remember how Musk was all in a snit about his private jet being tracked and its location being posted all the time?

Sweeney notes that this isn’t the first time he’s found Musk to be somewhat unknowledgeable about aeronautics. When Musk contacted him about ElonJet, he says, the SpaceX CEO didn’t understand how he was able to follow the movements of his private plane, and claimed that air traffic control data was “so primitive.”

“He acts like he’s a genius, but he asked me how I was even able to track it,” Sweeney recalls. “He didn’t know that I could directly identify the tail number,” of the jet, he says. “He was like, ‘Are you just looking for the type of plane?’ No, you know, it’s right there.”

And, contrary to Musk’s Silicon Valley tendency to “move fast and break things,” Sweeney says, “sometimes you’ve got to be more careful.”

Again,  Musk is way the hell out of his league on this. While I think it’s likely some of his Starlink technology might prove useful if adapted for ATC use it’s way more complicated than just coming in, ripping out the old stuff and wiring in Starlink equipment and writing some new code.  THOUSANDS of flights in the air at any given time. This is a process, whether with Musk’s gear or someone else’s has to be done painstakingly and carefully. Musk doesn’t know jack about ATC or frankly being able to staff one of the terminals controlling a Space X rocket launch. And those people of his in control room have as I said spent months preparing for a given mission. They are trained and have equipment to monitor ONE thing in particular – and liaise with those who’s job it is to provide a clear corridor for launch and recovery.

I don’t see myself ever able to afford flying commercially again. Frankly with Musk running loose on the FAA I’d be afraid to. Starting right now in fact. Think about all the stress an UNDERSTAFFED set of air traffic controllers have been living with and NOW they are terrified that at any moment they’ll be out of a job!  If for some reason I do have to take a major trip thanks, but I’ll stick to a train or bus.

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