Poose
"I've spent the last few years working in the design and development of a large aircraft, which means routinely understanding and justifying the rationale of many flight limits of a large aircraft to Test Pilots and Observers for Flight Trials."
You say this, but earlier you also said this:
"Would a computer not have obeyed the 'aerodynamics of flight' and maintained a perfect glide speed... Only to land short in the built up area just outside Heathrow's perimeter. The crew in that instance, broke the rules and somhow 'stretched' the glide."
Statement 2 demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of basic aerodynamics. Very unlikely in anyone with any real involvement in design and development beyond making the coffee for the geeks. Also, for someone as excited by minutia
"Just passed the first eight ATPL exams... they go nice with my engineering degree" you are strangely vague about your role in the design of this aircraft.........?
By large aircraft, do you mean 1:72?
" A pilot is far better equipped to deal with the 'unimaginable' or 'one in a million' disaster scenarios "
Hurray! A statement I can agree with.
However, these scenarios are both very exciting to the media and insignificant, because they are a vanishingly small (erm......about one in a million, in fact) proportion of disasters.
Pilots are, however far worse at dealing with mundane tasks like lowering undercarriage before landing.
Trying to justify having a pilot because he is better in that one instance, whilst ignoring the 50% of the time that he caused the accident is cretinous.
"Why are certain elements so determined to remove pilots from aircraft? My hunch is that it's the same sort of people who think that because they've played 'Call of Duty' or 'Flight Sim' that they are experts on the Army or flying... Yet, strangely and conspicously never try to do it for real."
Erm, slightly strange argument.
So let me get this straight.
You, who has flown ppl and, to be fair, probably some pretty gnarly Stormovik etc are accusing me, a military pilot who has "done it for real", whatever that means, of having an unjustified opinion?
Am I missing something?
"The simple facts are: A pilot is the best form of redundancy there is for automation."
Disagree entirely. Some modern Fast Jets ( I believe Typhoon?) now monitor the pilot, and if they decide he has blown it/is about to depart, take control away from him, and give it back later once they have sorted it out.
"Computer's fail... fact. 'Real' pilot's know that."
Of course they do, but as every "Real" pilot knows, we make mistakes every time we fly too, and as I keep saying, pilot error is the major factor in accidents where the type of pilot makes any difference.
Driverless trains have a far better record than manned ones. I know it is an order of magnitude more complex to fly in three dimensions than drive a train in effectively one, but it is just a matter of degree, rather than of concept, and the pace of technological change only accelerates.
"It's not broken, why fix it?"
Here is the crux of the matter.
The simple fact is that as airframes and avionics have improved, the pilot becomes ever more the weak link.
He isn't broken, but he is certainly limiting future improvement.
His life support/cockpit takes up a vast amount of the weight and volume of the airframe limiting range/payload etc.
His weak body is increasingly becoming the limiting factor in manoevering.(10g max-ish?)
His fatigue limits sortie length even with clever drugs.
The flood of available info to a pilot is fast outgrowing/has out grown any humans ability to assimilate it effectively. Even Air Traffic Control, with effectively unlimited manning is moving slowly towards computerised (Free Flight
Is it time to give airliners the freedom of the skies? - 13 July 2002 - New Scientist etc) control, because of the vast advantages a processor can have when it comes to smooth integration of large numbers of aircraft. The average human mind simply cannot visualise more than 8 interacting objects (
Brain can juggle eight balls at once - life - 01 November 2007 - New Scientist) Not really that impressive.
The speed of modern warfare is fast leaving the human behind. How many DAS fits now require anything from the pilot? He simply cannot react fast enough. How many missiles are now human controlled after launched? Again, he simply does not have the reactions.
There is only so much one pilot can be current on. A UAV can have a squad of people ready to step in as role/task changes.
The UAV pilot can be safe at home out of harms way (or non-existent), also reducing the logistics footprint in theatre, an important consideration twinned with not having to worry about those pesky IDFs whacking your expensive, and in my case dashing, asset.
In the current western climate, losing a pilot is just disasterous, UAVs whilst not by any means the cheap, throwaway items they are sometimes portrayed as are a vastly better option when trying to persuade some politician about the need for a high risk/high payoff strike.
"I do however, question the true misunderstanding and perhaps petty jealousy that envisages the elimination of the piloting profession as progress"
Again, a strange comment. Strange to accuse me of jealousy for something I possess.
The opposite of jealous perhaps?, as in "Mwaaahhaahaaa, I get to have fun but none shall have so in future"?
"I'm genuinely interested in this subject and spoke to a friend today who has a degree in computing. He pointed out that a computer is only as good as the programming and rules it is given to operate around."
"If the computer does not recognise the input, it can't give a meaningful output. A computer does not have the ability to be ingenious or imagine a scenario out of the impossible. You can't programme ingenuity into something."
First, and I apologise, a black cat.
I have two brothers with degrees in computing and one brother who studied artificial intelligence.
The first point they make is that the human brain is merely a computer. Very good at some things, but very limited in others. A good all rounder, but easily surpassable in most individual tasks.
They completely agree that they are only as good as the programming, but point out that this also goes for training in humans, and that computers dont have "bad days", plus you can parallell processors (whatever that means?) which humans can't in a single seat cockpit.
The "imagining a scenario out of the impossible" comment drew some laughter from them because they were not aware (though I have told them many times) that pilots were magical or possessed super-powers enabling us to ignore Newton.
I am sure the old Cavalry officers had lots to say about getting rid of the horses. They probably cited lots of circumstances where a horse would be ideal for the job on very rough terain, and these new fangled tanks and the like were just useless at jumping fences, chasing foxes etc. But do you suggest that we should have kept the horse and ignored the future just for those very narrow circumstances?
I am not saying we are there yet.
We patently are not, but we are certainly moving rapidly towards it, and Moore's law still holds for now.....Fact
...........does saying "fact" make things true?
I'm going to try it.
.......the RAF is abolished. Fact.
.................bugger.