Wingless Walrus,
I do not believe that your suggestions are feasible for a few reasons:
- The aircraft does not know what the intended manoeuvre is at any time. At the apex of a looping manoeuvre, how does it know whether the pilot is planning to fly a downward 1/2 loop or to pull onto a down 45 deg line then roll erect and pull out? The latter manoeuvre can be flown safely from an apex height considerably lower than that required for a downward half loop. Therefore, an automatic recovery system would either prevent the pilot flying a 1/2 Cuban 8 (1/2 horizontal 8 in RAF terms) or would allow him to crash from a loop. Similarly, if at, say, 500 ft a level high g turn was flown to roll out to the inverted and then an inverted pass flown, how would it sense that as being different to the top of a loop? In a barrel roll, you may be in a wings level inverted attitude at the apex but there is no safety gate to account for getting too steep nose down during the second half. You could never derive an infallible algorithm.
- Although the military tend to use fixed sequences for displays, this is not, in my opinion, always the safest option because it can result in a pilot feeling pressured into flying a marginal manoeuvre rather than changing the sequence and flying a safer one. Therefore, ground based observation is not infallible because the observer will not know precisely what the pilot is planning to do next. Also, assimilation of the flight data when off board takes time and by the time an unsafe manoeuvre has been identified it may be too late to implement a safe escape manoeuvre.
- Automatic initiation of a recovery manoeuvre or automatic ejection initiation could result in the aircraft being placed on a vector towards the crowd which, whilst potentially saving the pilot's life, may endanger bystanders whose safety is paramount.
Low level loops can be flown safely, as some Boscombe tps do frequently (fantom, PM me if you wish!!!). I am with dook that it is all about proper training and situational awareness. Automation in displays - I wonder how large the crowd would be for a UAV display?