[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

I haven't filed a flight plan in almost 20 years (yikes!) but the whole NOTAM system was never a real issue in flight planning...all paper in the early days of my career.

With ATIS and enroute control, I just didn't understand the shutdown....but it has been a while

You should see things these days. I retired a year ago but still do contract work for flight departments. Its running about 75% these days for pilots who never have a piece of paper in the cockpit, instead scribbling on an I-pad (which I hate) to save things. We then power the jet up with the APU, log onto CPDLC via KUSA and that downloads our IFR clearance and complete routing into the FMS's.

Taking off is normal but often when using CPDLC we never even talk on the radio, as a freq change is pushed to us while in the air, we just hit the transfer button and hit "accept" so that they know we are on the new freq. Head down the line a ways and another data-link MSG comes across "change to freq" and its done.

Same once going "feet wet" and we almost never talk on the HF anymore, its all satellite datalink/CPDLC these days.

Some of these kids rarely look out of the window and do not have a clue what to do when the cockpit goes dark in flight...