Pilotless Flight UK Airspace Milestone
Worth bearing in mind the computing arrangements for driverless trains. As a guy designing them put it to me "If a supercomputer is a 10/10 and your mobile phone a 2/10, the computing power on this train is a...0/10"
The more there is, the more that can go wrong.
Also;
1) humans are very bad at monitoring, as opposed to controlling
2) Even if they do take over at the correct point, how will they fly it with no practice?
3) Sorting out a complex computer failure with unreliable info and flying a plane takes a lot of skill, which is....expensive to hire. Anyone see a trend in aviation towards paying pilots what they're worth?
The only model I see working is a central control with a few highly skilled pilots for the rare emergencies.
Your gravestone will be marked 'Uplink failed!', or more likely
'Windows has encountered a problem and needs to kill your passengers.....'
The more there is, the more that can go wrong.
Also;
1) humans are very bad at monitoring, as opposed to controlling
2) Even if they do take over at the correct point, how will they fly it with no practice?
3) Sorting out a complex computer failure with unreliable info and flying a plane takes a lot of skill, which is....expensive to hire. Anyone see a trend in aviation towards paying pilots what they're worth?
The only model I see working is a central control with a few highly skilled pilots for the rare emergencies.
Your gravestone will be marked 'Uplink failed!', or more likely
'Windows has encountered a problem and needs to kill your passengers.....'
Coffman - the designer guy did the DLR controls. They are amazingly simple. each component is tested and it's failsafe. Same for the signalling. I happily ride at the front knowing this.
A chance to qask questions about pilotless flight
For anyone that's interested there's a chance to ask questions about the programme that resulted in this pilotless flight:
The Engineer Q&A: ASTRAEA autonomous aircraft project | News | The Engineer
The Engineer Q&A: ASTRAEA autonomous aircraft project | News | The Engineer
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit
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It won't happen until all security risks have been overcome, including a terrorist take-over of a ground station or the use of a jamming station that could take over control. Either scenario will cause a blood bath of biblical proportions.
Interesting, this post was made after pittextra's!
Interesting, this post was made after pittextra's!
Last edited by parabellum; 22nd May 2013 at 11:57.
Pittsextra, Hear, hear!
Ain't going to happen for a long time. In '89, I flew a new, very large, computerised aircraft. On a number of occasions (on the ground) we had to power the whole thing down and re-establish electrics just to reboot the on-board computers when they were acting up a bit. I can assure you that I will NOT be flying as passenger in an unmanned aeroplane. Just look at the computers in your day to day life; would you really trust them?
p.s. Prunetime is 40min slow so this may appear before the posting to which it refers - computers - eh?
Ain't going to happen for a long time. In '89, I flew a new, very large, computerised aircraft. On a number of occasions (on the ground) we had to power the whole thing down and re-establish electrics just to reboot the on-board computers when they were acting up a bit. I can assure you that I will NOT be flying as passenger in an unmanned aeroplane. Just look at the computers in your day to day life; would you really trust them?
p.s. Prunetime is 40min slow so this may appear before the posting to which it refers - computers - eh?
Last edited by Basil; 22nd May 2013 at 12:04.
IMO I don't think we will see this in our lifetimes without huge change been accepted by everyone else sharing its airspace.
One of the biggest problems is uncontrolled airspace where currently "see and avoid" ensures X doesn't bump into Y. When one also considers that, especially at this time of year, many GA pilots are resuming their flying activities after a winter break this uncontrolled airspace is also full of the rusty and/or inexperienced....
Secondary to this is the control of such machines in terms of airworthiness and airmanship. There are some great stories surrounding the operation in the US of Israeli made UAV's.
The CIA were given these UAV's to operate as it was thought that the asset had a better fit there than with the USAF.
Following some early losses it was suggested that the cause had been icing, which confused the CIA operaters as they couldn't square icing and the heat of Nevada.
Then of course who is responsible for the default system if the communication with its base fails? Again there is a story where Israeli made UAV's tried to return "home" from the US as whilst everyone believed there was a fail safe system nobody seemed to check where that home was..
So to suggest these machines are "pilotless" will never be entirely accurate.
One of the biggest problems is uncontrolled airspace where currently "see and avoid" ensures X doesn't bump into Y. When one also considers that, especially at this time of year, many GA pilots are resuming their flying activities after a winter break this uncontrolled airspace is also full of the rusty and/or inexperienced....
Secondary to this is the control of such machines in terms of airworthiness and airmanship. There are some great stories surrounding the operation in the US of Israeli made UAV's.
The CIA were given these UAV's to operate as it was thought that the asset had a better fit there than with the USAF.
Following some early losses it was suggested that the cause had been icing, which confused the CIA operaters as they couldn't square icing and the heat of Nevada.
Then of course who is responsible for the default system if the communication with its base fails? Again there is a story where Israeli made UAV's tried to return "home" from the US as whilst everyone believed there was a fail safe system nobody seemed to check where that home was..
So to suggest these machines are "pilotless" will never be entirely accurate.
BEagle,
The Air France incident would have had exactly the same outcome if flown by autonomous means. If the system (pitot) fails then the computer has false information and cannot do anything but react to it. You are right that the crew should have done a lot better in that situation but that is why we need people in the loop.
The Air France incident would have had exactly the same outcome if flown by autonomous means. If the system (pitot) fails then the computer has false information and cannot do anything but react to it. You are right that the crew should have done a lot better in that situation but that is why we need people in the loop.
How does Joe Public / SLF know there is a flight crew on their aircraft these days? With the cockpit door closed and bolted unless the cockipt has been spied through a gap in the airbridge the only contact the SLF have with the cockpit is the disembodied "Captain Speaking" voice. .
Flap62, The Air France incident would have had exactly the same outcome if flown by autonomous means.
).What if there was a fallback mode to fly Mach then AoA then GPS groundspeed/forecast wind then power/pitch ? Hmm could have got the aircraft out of the situation.
Perhaps Airbus will think about incorporating those modes.
What if there was a fallback mode to fly Mach then AoA then GPS groundspeed/forecast wind then power/pitch ? Hmm could have got the aircraft out of the situation.
Perhaps Airbus will think about incorporating those modes.
Perhaps Airbus will think about incorporating those modes.
But then what happens if (say) the AoA vane fails? Or the ECU which is inputting engine power to the flight control system? Or any one of the hundreds if not thousands of other data sensors on a complicated machine such as the Airbus? Writing software that could pre-empt and prioritise all of the millions of possible fail-permutations would be a Herculean task and even then the software would be full of bugs that might not be uncovered until too late.
