Airbubba
17th Dec 2003, 22:59
The Pilot's Role Goes From Daring to Dull
By Don Phillips
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A01
A century after the Wright brothers launched the aviation era with a daring and wobbly 12-second flight over North Carolina, the work of a commercial pilot is, a lot of the time, about as exciting as that of a systems manager.
Pilots at the major airlines today are surrounded by computerized navigation and safety equipment that does much of their flying for them. They get loud warnings if their plane is on a collision course with another plane or the ground. Autopilot systems can follow a set course between continents and land on the center line of a runway thousands of miles away. Some of the best landings -- the smooth ones that leave passengers applauding -- are executed by "autoland."
Much of a pilot's time in the air is spent watching instruments, managing computers or just relaxing. On intercontinental flights that last as long as 20 hours, four pilots rotate with only one takeoff and one landing to hone their flying skills. So tranquil has a long-distance pilot's life become that airline officials have spent considerable money and time figuring out ways to keep pilots awake, alert and engaged.
"I think a lot of them are bored to death," said Curtis Graeber, Boeing's chief engineer for human factors.
During periodic training -- usually twice a year for captains, annually for first officers -- realistic cockpit simulators subject crews to many hours of the tedium of automated flight, with trainers assessing the psychological stress. It is rare, but to the consternation of the trainers -- and even though they know they're under surveillance -- pilots occasionally fall asleep in the simulator.
Today thousands of people will gather on the sands of Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, N.C., to celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight, and the genius and tenacity of Orville and Wilbur Wright. Today's pilots face different challenges. And a hundred years from now, at the bicentennial of flight, aviation experts say, airplanes may not carry pilots at all.
Critical Moments
Several times a month, United Airlines pilot Gordon Cohen roars down a runway at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in a Boeing 747-400 that is itself almost twice as long as the distance of the Wright brothers' first flight. On his nearly 16-hour trip to Hong Kong he will manage a cockpit of computers, marvel at the beauty of the polar ice cap, and perhaps talk to a Russian air traffic controller named Igor who always wants to know, "How are the Cubs?" or "How are the Bears? "
Cohen, who also trains other 747 pilots, said he has no trouble staying engaged in the cockpit because he loves to fly. He instructs his co-pilots not to read and tries to keep them engaged in conversation. He scans the instruments frequently. "Yes, the plane will tell you when something is wrong," he said, but there is no substitute for remaining constantly alert.
"There's always something going on," he said. "There are passenger problems. Not five minutes goes by without a call from downstairs. There's a city down there. You're also looking at the wonders of the world."
But Cohen's job satisfaction is far from universal. A 1999 confidential survey by Australia's Bureau of Air Safety Investigation found that 32 percent of the pilots reported that they had inadvertently fallen asleep in highly automated cockpits. And 36 percent said they were bored with the low workload at cruise level.
Yet that same survey showed that 48 percent ("higher than expected") had experienced abnormal or emergency situations -- flight control problems, engine failures, instrument malfunctions, hydraulic and electrical failures. These are the moments when a pilot must use every bit of training and expertise and manually assume control of the aircraft.
Some pilots never experience such a moment in a long career of flying.
Cohen had one last spring. As he was nearing Minneapolis toward the end of a Hong Kong-to-Chicago flight, he discovered that his plane's ailerons -- a critical flight control that allows the plane to turn -- had stopped functioning. Able to make only slight turns, he declared an emergency, giving him priority with air traffic control, and considered whether to try an unscheduled landing at Minneapolis-St. Paul. He prepared passengers for an emergency landing.
"Then I saw that I was conveniently lined up with Runway 14R in Chicago," he said. There would be no need to turn, so he went straight in for an uneventful landing.
"It turned out to be a nonevent, thank God," he said. "This is what they pay me for."
The Cali Crash
The greatest automation disaster -- the one now recognized as a turning point in automated cockpit safety -- occurred on Dec. 21, 1995, when an American Airlines Boeing 757 crashed into a mountain near Cali, Colombia, killing 160 people.
An investigation showed that the crew, flying on a moonless night with no lights on the ground, had programmed the wrong coordinates into the flight computer -- simple human error. The cockpit voice recorder showed that they had been discussing hotel arrangements in Cali at the time. The plane did what it was told, turning gently toward the surrounding mountains. By the time the crew discovered its mistake, it was too late
The Cali disaster was one of a series of crashes in the 1990s caused by such an error in the new automated cockpit. One tiny mistake can have disastrous consequences if the pilot isn't paying close attention. And surveys show that 60 percent of pilots refer to their paper charts far less in automated cockpits.
On Jan. 20, 1992, an Air Inter Airbus A320 slammed into a mountain ridge near Strasbourg, France, killing 87 people. Investigators quickly saw that the plane was descending far too rapidly in thick clouds, but they didn't know why. It turned out to be a simple programming error: Instead of typing in a 3.3 degree angle of descent, which equals about 800 feet per minute, the crew typed in a 3,300 feet-per-minute descent rate.
In each case, the crew would have punched in "-3.3." But first they needed to pick which mode -- degrees or feet per second. They chose the wrong one. Airbus immediately redesigned the display.
These crashes and others led the Federal Aviation Authority and NASA to consider certifying the way that pilots and technology work together in the cockpit, just as the FAA certifies all major systems on an aircraft. The first of several proposed rules -- on designing technology to prevent misunderstandings rather than to foster them -- is due to be published soon. Other rules will deal with training and flight operations.
"People are always going to make errors," said Kathy Abbott, chairman of the committee formed in 1996 to propose rules. "People are always going to mistype. You have to look at why they mistyped it."
Airlines have come up with a host of measures to combat fatigue, urging pilots to time their coffee consumption to when they need it most and suggesting certain sleep-and-rest cycles in off-duty periods that can help them stay alert in flight. Some airlines require their pilots to calculate the plane's position using paper charts, then compare it with the computer results.
Major airlines supply pilots on very long flights with a soundproof, humidity-controlled sleeping compartment to help them get real rest in their off hours.
One of the most effective fatigue countermeasures, used worldwide but not in the United States, is controlled cockpit napping, in which one pilot takes a 45-minute nap sitting in his seat. Studies have shown this to be of real value in fighting fatigue.
However, each time the FAA has proposed such a plan for U.S. airlines, the White House, Democrat and Republican, has quashed it for fear of a backlash from the flying public.
Evolution
A joke making the rounds in aviation circles:
Question: What will be the cockpit crew of the future?
Answer: A human and a dog. The human's job will be to feed the dog, and the dog's job will be to bite the human if he touches anything.
Airplane technology has advanced in bursts. The first pilots, like the Wright brothers, were more mechanics than aviators. "Everybody built their own airplane," said John Cox, executive air safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association.
By the time the jet engine was introduced in the 1950s, piloting had become a regulated profession rather than a loose-knit gang of barnstormers. When automation came around, it made pilots into computer jockeys who can pinpoint a landing site thousands of miles away.
"We now navigate routinely to a piece of concrete runway one meter square," Cox said
In the 1940s up to four crew members were required in the cockpit -- a flight engineer, a navigator and two pilots. Sometimes there was a fifth -- a radio operator.
Will the time come when one pilot is enough?
"I think at some point we'll probably get there," said John K. Lauber, vice president for safety and technical affairs for Airbus. "It'll be after I retire."
No pilot at all?
That's already happening in the military. The planes are called drones, and they have performed intelligence functions and dropped precision-guided bombs in Iraq. During wartime, aviation often takes great leaps forward that later filter through to the civilian world.
But many experts think the human element can never be taken out of the cockpit.
"I don't think in the foreseeable future this thing called airmanship will become obsolete," Lauber said. "It is not a perfectly predictable world out there."
"I still believe very much in the human ability to smooth over the bumps," Boeing's Graeber said.
But where will that human be? Some think it might be on the ground, in front of screens controlling aircraft like some video game.
"The fact that pilots are not on planes," said Abbott, "doesn't mean they aren't pilots."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6368-2003Dec16.html
By Don Phillips
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A01
A century after the Wright brothers launched the aviation era with a daring and wobbly 12-second flight over North Carolina, the work of a commercial pilot is, a lot of the time, about as exciting as that of a systems manager.
Pilots at the major airlines today are surrounded by computerized navigation and safety equipment that does much of their flying for them. They get loud warnings if their plane is on a collision course with another plane or the ground. Autopilot systems can follow a set course between continents and land on the center line of a runway thousands of miles away. Some of the best landings -- the smooth ones that leave passengers applauding -- are executed by "autoland."
Much of a pilot's time in the air is spent watching instruments, managing computers or just relaxing. On intercontinental flights that last as long as 20 hours, four pilots rotate with only one takeoff and one landing to hone their flying skills. So tranquil has a long-distance pilot's life become that airline officials have spent considerable money and time figuring out ways to keep pilots awake, alert and engaged.
"I think a lot of them are bored to death," said Curtis Graeber, Boeing's chief engineer for human factors.
During periodic training -- usually twice a year for captains, annually for first officers -- realistic cockpit simulators subject crews to many hours of the tedium of automated flight, with trainers assessing the psychological stress. It is rare, but to the consternation of the trainers -- and even though they know they're under surveillance -- pilots occasionally fall asleep in the simulator.
Today thousands of people will gather on the sands of Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, N.C., to celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight, and the genius and tenacity of Orville and Wilbur Wright. Today's pilots face different challenges. And a hundred years from now, at the bicentennial of flight, aviation experts say, airplanes may not carry pilots at all.
Critical Moments
Several times a month, United Airlines pilot Gordon Cohen roars down a runway at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in a Boeing 747-400 that is itself almost twice as long as the distance of the Wright brothers' first flight. On his nearly 16-hour trip to Hong Kong he will manage a cockpit of computers, marvel at the beauty of the polar ice cap, and perhaps talk to a Russian air traffic controller named Igor who always wants to know, "How are the Cubs?" or "How are the Bears? "
Cohen, who also trains other 747 pilots, said he has no trouble staying engaged in the cockpit because he loves to fly. He instructs his co-pilots not to read and tries to keep them engaged in conversation. He scans the instruments frequently. "Yes, the plane will tell you when something is wrong," he said, but there is no substitute for remaining constantly alert.
"There's always something going on," he said. "There are passenger problems. Not five minutes goes by without a call from downstairs. There's a city down there. You're also looking at the wonders of the world."
But Cohen's job satisfaction is far from universal. A 1999 confidential survey by Australia's Bureau of Air Safety Investigation found that 32 percent of the pilots reported that they had inadvertently fallen asleep in highly automated cockpits. And 36 percent said they were bored with the low workload at cruise level.
Yet that same survey showed that 48 percent ("higher than expected") had experienced abnormal or emergency situations -- flight control problems, engine failures, instrument malfunctions, hydraulic and electrical failures. These are the moments when a pilot must use every bit of training and expertise and manually assume control of the aircraft.
Some pilots never experience such a moment in a long career of flying.
Cohen had one last spring. As he was nearing Minneapolis toward the end of a Hong Kong-to-Chicago flight, he discovered that his plane's ailerons -- a critical flight control that allows the plane to turn -- had stopped functioning. Able to make only slight turns, he declared an emergency, giving him priority with air traffic control, and considered whether to try an unscheduled landing at Minneapolis-St. Paul. He prepared passengers for an emergency landing.
"Then I saw that I was conveniently lined up with Runway 14R in Chicago," he said. There would be no need to turn, so he went straight in for an uneventful landing.
"It turned out to be a nonevent, thank God," he said. "This is what they pay me for."
The Cali Crash
The greatest automation disaster -- the one now recognized as a turning point in automated cockpit safety -- occurred on Dec. 21, 1995, when an American Airlines Boeing 757 crashed into a mountain near Cali, Colombia, killing 160 people.
An investigation showed that the crew, flying on a moonless night with no lights on the ground, had programmed the wrong coordinates into the flight computer -- simple human error. The cockpit voice recorder showed that they had been discussing hotel arrangements in Cali at the time. The plane did what it was told, turning gently toward the surrounding mountains. By the time the crew discovered its mistake, it was too late
The Cali disaster was one of a series of crashes in the 1990s caused by such an error in the new automated cockpit. One tiny mistake can have disastrous consequences if the pilot isn't paying close attention. And surveys show that 60 percent of pilots refer to their paper charts far less in automated cockpits.
On Jan. 20, 1992, an Air Inter Airbus A320 slammed into a mountain ridge near Strasbourg, France, killing 87 people. Investigators quickly saw that the plane was descending far too rapidly in thick clouds, but they didn't know why. It turned out to be a simple programming error: Instead of typing in a 3.3 degree angle of descent, which equals about 800 feet per minute, the crew typed in a 3,300 feet-per-minute descent rate.
In each case, the crew would have punched in "-3.3." But first they needed to pick which mode -- degrees or feet per second. They chose the wrong one. Airbus immediately redesigned the display.
These crashes and others led the Federal Aviation Authority and NASA to consider certifying the way that pilots and technology work together in the cockpit, just as the FAA certifies all major systems on an aircraft. The first of several proposed rules -- on designing technology to prevent misunderstandings rather than to foster them -- is due to be published soon. Other rules will deal with training and flight operations.
"People are always going to make errors," said Kathy Abbott, chairman of the committee formed in 1996 to propose rules. "People are always going to mistype. You have to look at why they mistyped it."
Airlines have come up with a host of measures to combat fatigue, urging pilots to time their coffee consumption to when they need it most and suggesting certain sleep-and-rest cycles in off-duty periods that can help them stay alert in flight. Some airlines require their pilots to calculate the plane's position using paper charts, then compare it with the computer results.
Major airlines supply pilots on very long flights with a soundproof, humidity-controlled sleeping compartment to help them get real rest in their off hours.
One of the most effective fatigue countermeasures, used worldwide but not in the United States, is controlled cockpit napping, in which one pilot takes a 45-minute nap sitting in his seat. Studies have shown this to be of real value in fighting fatigue.
However, each time the FAA has proposed such a plan for U.S. airlines, the White House, Democrat and Republican, has quashed it for fear of a backlash from the flying public.
Evolution
A joke making the rounds in aviation circles:
Question: What will be the cockpit crew of the future?
Answer: A human and a dog. The human's job will be to feed the dog, and the dog's job will be to bite the human if he touches anything.
Airplane technology has advanced in bursts. The first pilots, like the Wright brothers, were more mechanics than aviators. "Everybody built their own airplane," said John Cox, executive air safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association.
By the time the jet engine was introduced in the 1950s, piloting had become a regulated profession rather than a loose-knit gang of barnstormers. When automation came around, it made pilots into computer jockeys who can pinpoint a landing site thousands of miles away.
"We now navigate routinely to a piece of concrete runway one meter square," Cox said
In the 1940s up to four crew members were required in the cockpit -- a flight engineer, a navigator and two pilots. Sometimes there was a fifth -- a radio operator.
Will the time come when one pilot is enough?
"I think at some point we'll probably get there," said John K. Lauber, vice president for safety and technical affairs for Airbus. "It'll be after I retire."
No pilot at all?
That's already happening in the military. The planes are called drones, and they have performed intelligence functions and dropped precision-guided bombs in Iraq. During wartime, aviation often takes great leaps forward that later filter through to the civilian world.
But many experts think the human element can never be taken out of the cockpit.
"I don't think in the foreseeable future this thing called airmanship will become obsolete," Lauber said. "It is not a perfectly predictable world out there."
"I still believe very much in the human ability to smooth over the bumps," Boeing's Graeber said.
But where will that human be? Some think it might be on the ground, in front of screens controlling aircraft like some video game.
"The fact that pilots are not on planes," said Abbott, "doesn't mean they aren't pilots."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6368-2003Dec16.html