Flying free flight: pilot perspective and system integration requirement

What does "free flight" means to the pilot and what are his/her expectations operating in a free flight environment? The extensive experience accumulated during the Mediterranean Free Flight Programme (MFF), in this paper, summarized and logically arranged to highlight what is efficient, what is desirable for the crew and what level of avionic integration is actually required to allow real life, everyday, widespread free flight operations. Impact on safety, flight efficiency, workload, regulations as well as training and crew-ATCOs interaction variables are taken into account to solve the "free flight equation".