Originally Posted by
em3ry
not to beat a dead horse but that's exactly why they need to know what they are doing and that's why it needs to be able to run a simulation in real time with current conditions and look ahead to see what is going to happen so it can take the appropriate action.
Computers do what their manufacturers designed them to do. That is not a limit on computing that is a limit on what the manufacturer thought they could sell. There would be immediate pushback from the community here if someone gave the FMC more intelligence and reduced the role of the pilot. Similarly, to make the computer do more costs more and may initially be non-economic. Those limitations are rapidly disappearing.
Computers can do multiple simulations and select the optimal compared to the system optimization goals. Several years ago I saw just that kind of approach to sequencing traffic into a busy airport with multiple runways and all the WTC rules. With an hour of sequencing modeled in less than a second.
It is commercial pressure and risk that are the limits, not computing power or capability. There are multiple fast time simulations on the market that effectively 'fly' every aircraft in a center's airspace in accordance with their performance, fly them on routes and procedures, land them at destination and taxi them in then out for takeoff while at the same time sequencing and deconflicting for efficient use of the runways and taxiways and the airspace route structure. They will do that simulation in fast time with several hours traffic taking seconds on a relatively standard PC. They do that because that is what they were designed to do.
The FMC's that go into degraded mode and hand control to the pilot on some events, do that because that was what they were designed to do, not because they cannot cope with those events. It is just cheaper and (supposedly) less risk to use the flight crew rather than write handlers for exceptions.