Originally Posted by Gretchenfrage
Quote:
It was all meant to shout: If humans are on the flight-deck, they MUST be able to fly the aircraft. Really fly it. Oh, and be allowed to fly it.
Your words in gods ear!
The reality is that whenever the automatics are no longer capable of handling, due to invalid signals they need, they throw the aircraft back at the human.
- Perfect - It will be him screwing up finally.
Good for statistics and engineers.
Statistics here mean more souls staying here on Earth, well and alive.
There is a serious misconception repeated on this forum (as well as elsewhere) that pilots are reduced to be system monitors and all that nonsense. Simply monitoring would be much more comfortably done from the ground. Those guys/gals in front are there for a reason. They are there to command the thing and to handle all the situations which might arise. Not monitor - command!
I already wrote a bit about that in one earlier post:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...ml#post6582987
What's worrying is that aforemntioned misconception is taken as truth by some pilots flying those birds...
Originally Posted by Gretchenfrage
Second reality is that even when the automatics switch off autopilot and autothrust, it can still intervene with pilot inputs, through automatic protections, and therefore limit his authority.
Why on earth? ?
It had detected itself incapable of handling the aircraft, but still messes with controls.
Isn't that a paradoxon?
It's not. It only looks like a paradox for those who do not understand how those things work.
AP is completely different system than flight control computers. AP works on completely different abstraction level. AP directs airplane through the air. Flight control computers translate commands given to the plane into flight controls. So there is nothing paradoxical nor even strange that one function might work wile the other could not. For example partial loss of airdata does not prevent G-load-demand driving of control surfaces while it prevents automatic directing of the bird (i.e. AutoPiloting).
Originally Posted by Gretchenfrage
I am not entirely against automation and technology to improve safety. But the implemented systems must work flawlessly.
Otherwise I don't need them.
So before introducing even more protections, please fix the technology that's already on board.
Nope. It just must work better that humans performing the same tasks. And statistics, i.e. number of people still alive, shows that it works. If some pilot feels bad because of that, so be it, but those few hundred souls behind him/her might be still alive just because that damn electronics prevented his/her error altogether or just reduced it's effect to be much less significance.
Computers (and generally artificial devices, i.e. tools) are better (often significantly) than humans in many areas. Smart humans will take advantage of that and let the computers do the stuff they're good at while keeping doing stuff computers are bad at or even completely incapable of.
Originally Posted by Gretchenfrage
Concerning statistics, lots of contributors just love those, I am still missing a serious one about automation induced pilot errors. This would give a clearer picture than the one containing just plain pilot error. Not that it would excuse any such error, eliminating those should be just as noble a cause, but it would point back at the magic automatics that benefit from too big a confidence and a lack of genuine criticism, as it would mean responsibility (meaning doe) from you who I mean.
Such statistics would be meaningless without
automation prevented pilot errors. And that last one, while impossible to be known exactly could be pretty easy estimated. And the (estimated) result is that it simply dominates other statistics. Crashes caused by pilot error dominated (i.e. were more than 50%) statistics before FBW era. Now, total number of crashes of contemporary, FBW aircraft is significantly less the number of earlier crashes caused by pilot error. Thus either pilots are so much better now, or those new birds reduce possibilities of errors and reduce effects of many such errors to get them off accident/incident tables. This reduction comprises vast majority of pilot errors which had bring down older planes.