Wingless Walrus,
Points related to yours above:
- It is highly unlikely that a database update of crowd positions and obstacles at the display site for loading into a display aircraft could be done in enough detail and within the required timescales for it to give the risk mitigation levels that you seek.
- Minimum altitude loss requires a wings level pull-out. If an automated escape manoeuvre had to achieve a specified ground track in order to avoid the crowd or obstacles then a turn would inevitably be required to achieve this. This would increase the overall height loss and, therefore, the algorithm to decide when to initiate the manoeuvre automatically would be, I suspect, too complicated to be feasible.
- If I fly on an erect down 45 line at a safe height and fly a 360 degree roll, the automatic recovery system should not trigger. However, if I stop the roll inverted and immediately pull full back stick the high pitch rates achievable by modern fighters would almost certainly be able to beat any recovery algorithm that actually allowed the pilot to fly even safe manoeuvres and a ground impact would occur.
- When would the automatic recovery mode disengage and hand control back to the pilot? What would the power setting be at that point? If the recovery was at the g limit and the pilot was not expecting it then he/she could GLOC. Even if GLOC did not occur the pilot could be very disorientated. Disengaging is one aspect that you have not considered and I believe would be a major safety concern which could result in the system causing an accident.
- The Tornado TFR system controlled to a maximum turn rate of 7 deg/sec and left the aircraft in an open loop climb after 2 secs. This is a very limited manoeuvre envelope and not analogous to display manoeuvres.
The comments regarding a 'safety pilot' in the rear seat of the F-15 display are interesting. Without knowing the CRM aspects of how this was flown, I suspect that the rear cockpit pilot was calling out airspeeds on the way up, altitudes on the way down, and may have confirmed correct engine performance. Having displayed 2 seat aircraft, this is what my navigators did and it was very useful.
Rgds
L