Originally Posted by
ExSp33db1rd
How ? Just a word on a display that one is not looking at at that time ? or maybe a warning light? maybe a horn? whatever, the eyes have to be taken off the job in hand and a computer screen scrutinised, buttons pressed, information read, understood and processed.
I believe EICAS warnings come with both aural and visual cues. Reading and interpreting the EICAS warning onscreen is the job of the PNF, so the PF just continues flying - no need for them to take their eyes off the job in hand.
Wot's esier than noticing a problem out of the corner of the eye and KNOWING INSTANTLY the problem whilst still controlling the task in hand?
With all due respect, the engine instrument cluster on the front panel of the 747 Classic would tell you *where* the problem was, but not *what* it is (or even what it might be) - you'd have to get the FE to look at their panel and try to make a judgement call before knowing what the source of the problem is. If EICAS (or ECAM on the Airbii) is doing its job properly - then the systems themselves will inform the PNF where the problem lies, what it is and in many cases (certainly in the case of ECAM) the correct drill to solve the issue. The PF doesn't need to stop paying full attention to flying the aircraft while that's happening.
40 years later I was teaching co-pilots, brought up on a diet of Space Invaders and Bill Gates' latest toy, who would fly an instrument let-down better that I ever could, or would ... then couldn't put a real aircraft on to the real Earth without assistance.
Again with respect, I think you're over-generalising. Certainly if blind pew's book is anything to go by, the ability gradient of FOs coming out of training has remained fairly consistent, and even back in the Hamble/Trident days (late '60s/early '70s) there were examples of cadets being fast-tracked into jetliners to recoup the company's training money as quickly as possible who maybe should not have been at that stage.
Originally Posted by
FGD135
Dozy, that makes no difference. In fact, it makes no difference whether the human subjects are pilots or not - all humans will have the same problems with tapes. This is because of how our brains work.
I suspect you're taking certain conclusions as an absolute when they should not be. If I read those reports right, the (marginal) difference between perception of a raw tape display and the round dial was due to the change in angle being perceived a fraction more quickly - as such the modern PFDs like those in the image I posted have the (angled) VS indicator right next to the altimeter tape to take advantage of this. It is the perception of angle change - not the round dial display itself - which humans perceive slightly faster.
Here is that bit about Boeing again:
Right.
"They lacked relationships that were used extensively by pilots in performing flight tasks."
As I said before, this phrase misses the caveat that those pilots had been used to round dial displays for their entire careers, which would skew the results somewhat.
Then "This perception was strengthened by human factors research, which also concluded that, in general, moving scale displays are not as effective as moving pointer displays"
I'd want to see that research itself before blindly accepting the conclusions as a given.
I linked to that paper because it provided the best summary I could find of the Grether study, but the paper itself I have issues with in terms of several of its conclusions. For one thing it ignores the point that while the Boeing study related to the 744, the 757 and 767 had been using CRT-based PFDs for several years by that point. Boeing's 744 development team would have been very aware that a move to PFDs incurred a greater level (and therefore cost) of conversion training from the 747 Classic, and that in turn would have caused a greater resistance to switching to PFD from some of them.
20 needles that should all be pointing in the same direction, combined with a human eye and experience, is to me the most optimum relationship that we can have between man and machine.
To you, yes. A pilot who has spent all or most of their career with modern PFDs would probably feel differently. What was interesting about the original 1949 Grether study was that the experiments used a control group of non-pilots - so if we look at the summary:
You can see that round dial type "D" and tape display type "G" are roughly comparable in terms of percentage error and interpretation time (in fact the tape display seems superior to the dial in terms of percentage error). The interpretation time is interesting to compare because the non-pilots interpreted both in the same amount of time, but the AAF pilots interpreted the dial marginally faster. From this one could argue that the pilots' prior experience with the dial might have skewed the results.
Look at that picture of the A330 PFD that Dozy posted. I have complained about the size of the tiny patch in the middle of the airspeed tape before, but the VS indication area is even more tiny! (On that PFD design, anyway).
If what I've read is true, size isn't really that important - what makes up for it is that the *proximity* to the ALT tape is much closer. What this means is that - in theory - a scan of the right-hand side of the screen will tell you your current altitude as well as whether you're climbing, descending or neither at a glance. What the photo does not convey is that the VS indicator, as well as changing angle, changes colour from green to amber to red depending on the situation. Similar colour changes affect the digital display of the altitude and the airspeed when outside of the acceptable range. And as I said before, the presence of the various bugs that scroll alongside both tapes allows for "at-a-glance" proximity perception - it's not just reading numeric data as is assumed in some of the studies.
Originally Posted by
oblivia
The history of commercial aviation to date is one of increasing automation, reduced cost and reduced real incomes for pilots. I don't think these things are unconnected and see no reason why further levels of automation would produce an opposite trend.
Right, but that situation is not faced by pilots alone - I'd go so far as to argue that it has, over the last 30 years, been the norm for almost all professions with the exception of management and finance. There's a widespread misconception that working in technology is a direct route to wealth and respect, and I can tell you as a software engineer of 14 years' standing that it is completely untrue. I know quite a few junior doctors that would tell you the same.
I can say to oblivia - as a techie with a fairly decent background education in the area - that pilotless airliners are probably not going to be a reality in my lifetime based on the current and projected abilities of technology. The claims regarding China and the developing nations are off-base too. If anything, China's population density would be a brake on that kind of development.
Going back to my previous point though, it's saddening that some pilots see technology as a threat in itself - it's not us tech engineers who benefit from daft corporate policy regarding use of automation and minimal training, in fact we're very much in the same boat as pilots (as are many professions which involve actually doing or making stuff). I'd point out that it suits management and "bean-counters" to have pilots see technology and automation as the enemy, because pilots' enmity gets directed towards us techies and not them.