OT?
I don't buy the protests that this thread has gone over the waterfall OT. If I shoehorn my size 38 keester into a size 31 seat and know from the getgo that if I lean my torso forward to brace for an indelicate flight conclusion that I'm more likely to break my neck than survive, I should not have to also worry that the person at the controls got there because his bank account or line of credit or papa's ego was bigger than the guy or girl with hands on ability and and not just knob experience. Accidents that hitherto may not have been regarded as related in cause are not out of bounds. We damned well better be learning from mistakes. Automation is very much on trial here, just as in any accident investigation, because automation is just another tool, and one that future hindsight may prove, like many tools before, to have been contributory to the outcome. It is increasingly clear that if automation gets to the point where it confronts a pilot with a choice between opposite actions, neither being particularly intuitive, to be determined in a matter of seconds by the pilot's best guess as to what the computer is thinking and where it may have erred, then you do have an automation/human interface problem. Even a hesitation at that point is contributory.
Someone wrote that automation has saved more lives than it has cost. The problem with that blanket approval is that many “advances” lengthen the cognitive decision chain when time is something one just doesn't have any more of.
Last edited by Leightman 957; 3rd Jan 2015 at 21:16.
Reason: margin errata deleted