Airplanes live for decades (probably a fair amount are going to pass the 100 year mark) and so backwards compatibility is a huge issue for adding any tech into

Airplanes live for decades (probably a fair amount are going to pass the 100 year mark) and so backwards compatibility is a huge issue for adding any tech into the system. Radio works pretty well and it's flexible. Imagine some asshole is flying a drone around on short final. It's easy enough to say "Hey heads up everyone, there's a DJI buzzing around at 200'", but with a more streamlined system there might not be an easy way to communicate that, and if you have the new system and radios then you still need to commmunicate everything on both while everyone adopts the new system.