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[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

From what I have heard the latest Boeing is more towards an A320 set up than the 737.... (not sure if that's correct!)

Yes your right it was a designed by engineers but it was designed by engineers towards an airlines requirements rather than the pilots, so don't come out with the "engineers don't know this, that etc..." talk.

Its a proven concept and while I understand pilots might find an Airbus boring to fly the airlines like them and there the people who buy the aircraft ...

I know you're an engineer, and mine wasn't a take at the category (one of my best friend is a materials engineer for Airbus), my point was that the philosophy of Airbus is one of selling a product that meets a specific requirement: abating costs of all, pilot training as well.
Back in the days every machine had its quirks and syllabus, and getting a rating for a pilot was often a costly business: Airbus thought of a modular integration of the same systems on all their machines, with the intent of a cheaper training and an easier pilot type rating, so that an airline company can use their pilots' organic in a more cost effective manner.
There's nothing wrong in this, but they had to take certain shortcuts that are potentially very dangerous.
As I said before, the ultimate decisional power should stay with the pilot, not with the aircraft, because no matter how "smart", flight computers and their integrated systems lack of a very important thing: a complete situation awareness.

Agreed... but a mute point as several accidents have shown that if the aircraft had an "Airbus" system the accident might not have happened... unfortunately there is no fool proof system its entirely situational as to which one "Trumps" the other ....

The accident of the Air France Airbus is a typical example of a chain of events which is all peculiar to Airbus.

The 737 holds probably the saddest record in aviation: it's the civilian aircraft with the highest number of unexplained air accidents. A study made by the FAA in the late 90s estimated that the majority of the inexplicable accidents were in fact caused by the crew, not by the aircraft. As you know, any structural issue found on an aircraft nowadays almost immediately grounds all the same models in the whole world until a fix is found. Considering the longevity of the 737, it is safe to assume that virtually pretty much every aspect of fatigue and design flaws has been monitored and fixed, so what really makes it a dependable aircraft is its operational life.

The weak link is not the machine per se then, but the quality of training and pilots. Taking decisional power off the crew though is not the way forward.

What emerges from the black box of the Airbus flight is scary not only because of the content per se, but because it emerges that the flight computers were following a cycle of action and none of the three trained pilots were situation aware, they did not understand what was happening.

[bongodriver]

<tin foil hat on>

I am almost of the belief it's the intention to design these things to be beyond the comprehension of the pilots so they can be blamed for anything that goes wrong and therefore may be eliminated....

<tin foil hat off>

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

<tin foil hat on>

I am almost of the belief it's the intention to design these things to be beyond the comprehension of the pilots so they can be blamed for anything that goes wrong and therefore may be eliminated....

<tin foil hat off>

lol you know what's the first procedure in case of computer malfunction on startup in an Airbus? Reboot.

Last time I've read something so sadly funny was on the Martin-Baker ejector seat instructions on the Hawk: to eject pull ejection lever, if ejection fails re-pull... well thanks for that!

Nope, not a fan of modern stuff

[David Hayward]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

Nope, not a fan of modern stuff

Like the internet?

[Madfish]

The first procedure for human malfunction is often to collect leftover parts and look for the black box.

Airspace is a controlled sphere. Comparing flight to cars is futile e.g. There aren't many kids or streetracers popping up unpredictably. Most things up there happen in ballistic curves. And unless the pilot is a math genius with a quantum computer as a brain he'll be only second best in many cases.

Also there's a lot of automation going on anyways. In space travel obviously - the human margin of error is very expensive and deadly up there. But I also expect cargo flights to be automated soon.

As for passenger planes they might keep some puppets just for fun and giggles. On the other hand side it's questionable how much authority a pilot will have over his plane in 20 years or so.

Pilots are supposed to be the safety net if the machine fails - but in many cases the pilot is not capable to comprehend what's going on anyways. In fact it's doubtable that a "pilot" who's literally just a passenger 99% of the time is very helpful as his "flight exerience" is mostly just sitting there and drinking coffee.


So I'd estimate this order of automation:
Cargo planes with almost full automation: soon
Passenger flights with almost full automation: will take a while
Cars which can navigate and drive almost autonomously: will take a while



In the end it's not about if anything can happen. That's always the case. The real problem the industry faces is that they need to offer something that can be sued IF anything goes wrong. (Something other than their company)
A pilot was a good thing to have: if he messes up and survives he can be sued. And if not he's dead anyways. A computer? Not so much. The value of it's destruction is not important.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

I know you're an engineer, and mine wasn't a take at the category (one of my best friend is a materials engineer for Airbus), my point was that the philosophy of Airbus is one of selling a product that meets a specific requirement: abating costs of all, pilot training as well.
Back in the days every machine had its quirks and syllabus, and getting a rating for a pilot was often a costly business: Airbus thought of a modular integration of the same systems on all their machines, with the intent of a cheaper training and an easier pilot type rating, so that an airline company can use their pilots' organic in a more cost effective manner.
There's nothing wrong in this, but they had to take certain shortcuts that are potentially very dangerous.
As I said before, the ultimate decisional power should stay with the pilot, not with the aircraft, because no matter how "smart", flight computers and their integrated systems lack of a very important thing: a complete situation awareness.



The accident of the Air France Airbus is a typical example of a chain of events which is all peculiar to Airbus.

The 737 holds probably the saddest record in aviation: it's the civilian aircraft with the highest number of unexplained air accidents. A study made by the FAA in the late 90s estimated that the majority of the inexplicable accidents were in fact caused by the crew, not by the aircraft. As you know, any structural issue found on an aircraft nowadays almost immediately grounds all the same models in the whole world until a fix is found. Considering the longevity of the 737, it is safe to assume that virtually pretty much every aspect of fatigue and design flaws has been monitored and fixed, so what really makes it a dependable aircraft is its operational life.

The weak link is not the machine per se then, but the quality of training and pilots. Taking decisional power off the crew though is not the way forward.

What emerges from the black box of the Airbus flight is scary not only because of the content per se, but because it emerges that the flight computers were following a cycle of action and none of the three trained pilots were situation aware, they did not understand what was happening.

+1 I agree it is shocking.

P.S.

I was under the impression that they could have survived once they eventually realized what was happening but then one of the pilot started to pull up again?

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by Madfish

Pilots are supposed to be the safety net if the machine fails - but in many cases the pilot is not capable to comprehend what's going on anyways. In fact it's doubtable that a "pilot" who's literally just a passenger 99% of the time is very helpful as his "flight exerience" is mostly just sitting there and drinking coffee.

EERRR.... if it wasn't for experienced pilots a lot of recent aircraft incidents would have become major aircraft accidents FACT!

Originally Posted by Madfish

So I'd estimate this order of automation:
Cargo planes with almost full automation: soon
Passenger flights with almost full automation: will take a while
Cars which can navigate and drive almost autonomously: will take a while

Space Cargo is already automated, but its going to take a lot to convince me that we will see any of the others any time soon (Luckily).

[Madfish]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

EERRR.... if it wasn't for experienced pilots a lot of recent aircraft incidents would have become major aircraft accidents FACT!

It's easy to say something is a fact but sadly it's not like that.

What you're doing is like comparing the number of fires put out by firemen to those of automated systems when it's a real fact that not every area, object or building is even outfitted with automated systems to begin with.

Planes today aren't even designed to compensante for many of the incidents you speak of. Not to mention that many of these incidents would've still ended up as crashes if it hadn't been for the support through computers and modern systems or even just the improvements in design and building quality.

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Madfish

It's easy to say something is a fact but sadly it's not like that.

What you're doing is like comparing the number of fires put out by firemen to those of automated systems when it's a real fact that not every area, object or building is even outfitted with automated systems to begin with.

Planes today aren't even designed to compensante for many of the incidents you speak of. Not to mention that many of these incidents would've still ended up as crashes if it hadn't been for the support through computers and modern systems or even just the improvements in design and building quality.

So do you think the airbus in the Hudson would have had a happy outcome without pilots?

[JG52Uther]

Noob questions: Just how 'flyable' are modern passenger jets, given all the computerised systems?
As in, if everything went wrong, can a pilot take over and fly completely manually, or would he/she be fighting against the computer?
Have pilots become far too dependant on aircraft systems, rather than just flying?
Got to admit, I have always felt safer in a prop plane than a modern jet airliner!