Originally Posted by
Goldenrivett
@DozyWannabe,
Any comment on the 50% reduction of aileron authority once one wheel touches the ground during landing?
Ultimately, we're talking about two incidents in which a crew elected to proceed with an approach and landing in spite of the overall conditions being questionable at best. At the time of flare and touchdown there may have been no significant gust, but there was certainly enough adverse wind activity beforehand to destabilise the approach. To the best of my knowledge, LH is not an airline known to arbitrarily penalise crew for going around - in my book the Captain in this case let the aircraft and his FO get ahead of him. FBW or conventional, grabbing the controls without a proper hand-over as your aircraft is crossing the threshold (in any scenario besides one-on-one training) is a clear indication of having "dropped the ball"...
Given that in the Hamburg incident one of the wing fences contacted the ground (possibly as a result of summation of dual input) I'd argue that the reduction in roll authority in those circumstances was probably a good idea!
Originally Posted by
em3ry
Avoid an obstacle? Like a mountain?
Like anything, sir; but that's not what I was getting at.
The point I was making was that whether you're talking about Google, Tesla or whomever; the complexity inherent in dynamic autonomous guidance (or, in layman's terms, computers automatically driving in response to immediate outside situations) of a ground vehicle is at least several tens of orders of magnitude less than doing the same in a fixed-wing aircraft. Not only would the logic have to deal with a far greater need to scan and evaluate in the vertical (y) plane, but because aircraft controls (particularly thrust) tend to respond much more slowly than those of a car, the overall requirement for look-ahead, simulation and evaluation would be well beyond the scope of current technology (to say nothing of the technology - several generations behind - which is currently certified for aviation use).
You haven't answered my question - which recent accidents do you believe could have been avoided with the technology you describe, how, and why?
Originally Posted by
Uplinker
The answer is not to develop more and more computers to take over from the pilots
No-one directly involved with the tech side ever claimed it was. The notion that FBW/digital flight controls plus FMC/autoflight was the first step in replacing pilots was purely an invention of the press.
Autothrust, for example, removes the need to constantly monitor and adjust the aircraft speed.
That's not an especially new thing though - it's been a part of line flying since the '60s.
Then, one day, you get pilots who have not done 'proper' groundschool to fully understand their systems; have not practised flying with manual thrust;
You're talking about two different things there. Since the advent of the widebodies in the late '60s and early '70s, we're talking about airliners with a degree of complexity such that they're on the very limit of what human beings are capable of dealing with (case in point, a couple of years back I walked through the flight deck of a static B741 exhibit and the sheer number of switches, CBs and gauges blew my mind - those FEs got a silent salute out of me that day!). The reason that later aircraft systems design moved towards computer management and monitoring of those systems is because the complexity grew to such a degree that it was too much to ask of flight crew (and because that kind of work is something computers - when programmed correctly - are very good at).
Failure to require pilots to practice certain skills (e.g. flying with manual thrust), on the other hand, is a rather dubious practise of some airlines, and I don't think it's fair to blame the technology itself for that state of affairs.
...and fly with the autopilot engaged so often; that they literally sit and allow the speed to decay to 30 knots slow on approach without doing anything about it, and just watch as their aircraft crashes around them !
In all fairness, pilots have been "falling behind" their aircraft for far longer than autoflight has been around. If you're referring to Asiana into SFO, I think it's fair to point out that poor training and a series of CRM blunders were involved well before the automation mix-up came into the picture.
I think the answer is not to spend time and resources trying to build computers to replace pilots
For the reasons I listed to the OP above - among others - absent some kind of unforeseen leap in guidance or transportation technology, technology isn't likely to replace pilots until long after I'm pushing up the daisies!
