Pilot error brought down the Armies Watchkeeper
The drone was doing its thing up until human intervention scuppered it
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/0...050_aberporth/ When it landed at Aberporth, WK050 "landed long", reported the BBC. This means that instead of touching down at the correct point towards the start of the runway, giving it a nice long distance in which to harmlessly roll to a stop, the drone was further along than it ought to have been – risking it overrunning off the far end, damaging the aircraft.Thus, the onboard computer followed its programming and "auto-aborted as it approached the end of the runway". The drone throttled up to full power and took off again, ready to fly itself around in a circuit and have another go at landing. Such things are a fact of life in aviation, whether humans or computers are trying to land.However, WK050's human operators seemingly became confused at this point – and cut the throttle. WK050 "glided over the road" at the end of the runway and "crashed into a tree" around 900 metres beyond the end of the runway."Had no action been taken by the crew the AV (aerial vehicle) would have completed its automatic go-around, from which it could have been commanded to conduct a further approach," the report said. |
The ongoing experiment with non-aircrew at the (virtual) controls of a fixed-wing aircraft would have made more sense if the Army had purchased a bunch of otherwise stripped-out, empty and suitably ballasted Hermes aircraft to play with & crash for the last 10 years or so. It would have saved quite a bit of money whilst providing similar operational effect.
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The ongoing experiment that sees RAF aircrew thinking they know all would make more sense if the 100+ year experiment was ended and the equipment given to the military branches of HM Forces. Have lost count how many times div, bde, pl, tp, section, range of mortar, etc has had to be explained to know-it-all-knobbers.
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Dear chap. Are you suggesting that RAF crews were at the controls, or am I picking you up incorrectly? |
Quite a rant there gijoe. When you’ve put your toys back in your cot (assuming you’re allowed toys), could you translate please so normal humans can understand? |
Originally Posted by gijoe
(Post 10544827)
Have lost count how many times div, bde, pl, tp, section, range of mortar, etc has had to be explained to know-it-all-knobbers.
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BBC Wales
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49158509
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cp...5838_drone.jpg This picture reminded me of flying "RPV'S" with my son, we never needed anything bigger than a bin bag to remove the wreckage and it went in the boot of my car, not on a flat bad |
Originally Posted by gijoe
(Post 10544827)
The ongoing experiment that sees RAF aircrew thinking they know all would make more sense if the 100+ year experiment was ended and the equipment given to the military branches of HM Forces. Have lost count how many times div, bde, pl, tp, section, range of mortar, etc has had to be explained to know-it-all-knobbers.
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Nice fishing exercise gijoe - a few bites. A few "whooshes" as well....!
Edited to add - we'll take the flying things, in exchange you can have the RAF Regiment and the RAFP :E |
Originally Posted by Just This Once...
(Post 10544817)
The ongoing experiment with non-aircrew at the (virtual) controls of a fixed-wing aircraft would have made more sense if the Army had purchased a bunch of otherwise stripped-out, empty and suitably ballasted Hermes aircraft to play with & crash for the last 10 years or so. It would have saved quite a bit of money whilst providing similar operational effect.
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Another lucid brown rant. I lost count of the number of times Rupert the donkey walloper failed to understand that the aircraft did not have to be parked on his front lawn for it to be effective at div, bde, coy ..........etc etc |
GIJ
Please, God, tell me that was a serious post. I’ll be genuinely gutted if I find out it was a phishing attempt. It made my day. Honestly. BV |
Edited to add - we'll take the flying things, in exchange you can have the RAF Regiment and the RAFP https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/evil.gif TTN (ex Rock) |
in all seriousness, this does raise questions about the quality and depth of the training being provided, and the airmanship (or lack of) being applied across the programme, The earlier WK crash as a result of deliberately flying the air vehicle into known icing conditions told me everything I needed to know about the lack of serious RPAS / UAV experience involved.
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"Pilot error brought down the Armies Watchkeeper" Just how many Armies do we have? Seriously though GIJoe does have a point, can you say with all seriousness that a RAF pilot has never fudged a go-around? I can think of serveral including a Tristar tail strike following a botched landing and go-around at Kandahar.
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Shouldn't the operators have known what mode the drone is in and what it will do next? Sounds like some operator's training issue to me.
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Originally Posted by AF03-111
(Post 10545541)
in all seriousness, this does raise questions about the quality and depth of the training being provided, and the airmanship (or lack of) being applied across the programme, The earlier WK crash as a result of deliberately flying the air vehicle into known icing conditions told me everything I needed to know about the lack of serious RPAS / UAV experience involved.
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Originally Posted by higthepig
(Post 10545842)
It wasn't the Army flying that, it was Thales
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Originally Posted by tucumseh
(Post 10545915)
Who issued the RTS, which is predicated on the correct training having taken place?
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Never mind the Army, htp. Are you saying that Thales is operating under its own RTS, or under no authority at all?
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Originally Posted by Chugalug2
(Post 10546137)
Never mind the Army, htp. Are you saying that Thales is operating under its own RTS, or under no authority at all?
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If memory serves, Thales were flying the one that crashed in icing conditions under a military flight test permit which had been issued earlier that year. Whilst the the SI was (rightly) critical of the choices made such as flying the sortie with a rather expensive and limited-availability radar on board, the officers singularly missed the obvious point i.e. you don't deliberately fly an unmanned system into icing conditions, even more so in a system designed such that the Remote Pilots have no means of 'direct' control.
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Originally Posted by pba_target
(Post 10546458)
Being a CFAOS organisation for watchkeeper I'd suspect, Thales would not be bound by the in-service RTS but would have their own (likely similar) document that may be more or less restrictive in various areas. If they were bound by the RTS it'd be pretty hard to do developmental test flying which, almost by definition, is doing stuff that is novel and untested and, therefore, not in the RTS...
Of course testing means going outside of the Military RTS but presumably not recklessly, so was this accident the result of systematically testing the boundaries of the aircraft or simple carelessness? What was the role of the MOD Duty Holder in what happened, if any? Thanks |
Originally Posted by Chugalug2
(Post 10546490)
Thanks for that, pba. Could you please say what CFAOS is, and what or who it is answerable to if not the MOD? AFAIK there are only two relevant Regulatory Aviation Authorities, the CAA/EASA and the MAA. Presumably Thales operates Watchkeeper testing under one or the other?
Of course testing means going outside of the Military RTS but presumably not recklessly, so was this accident the result of systematically testing the boundaries of the aircraft or simple carelessness? What was the role of the MOD Duty Holder in what happened, if any? Thanks |
Its easily done.I had to climb a 20 foot tree to recover my drone last week.
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Thanks for the links htp. The SI one won't open for me but perhaps it is protected? The CFAOS one does, and contains this intriguing RA4051(1) in the sample Ops Manual:-
RA 4051(1): Flight Testing of Aircraft Flight-testing and Airborne Checks (ACs) shall be conducted within the boundaries of the Release to Service (RTS). |
Chug: ‘flight testing’ is what’s done after maintenance activity, colloquially known as an air test. Operating outside the RtoS is ‘test flying’. |
Originally Posted by Easy Street
(Post 10547030)
Chug: ‘flight testing’ is what’s done after maintenance activity, colloquially known as an air test. Operating outside the RtoS is ‘test flying’. Thanks for the explanation though ES. |
Originally Posted by AF03-111
(Post 10546482)
the officers singularly missed the obvious point i.e. you don't deliberately fly an unmanned system into icing conditions, even more so in a system designed such that the Remote Pilots have no means of 'direct' control.
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Originally Posted by Bing
(Post 10547067)
Then how do you propose they test the icing clearance? Which was one of the major selling points over the original Hermes 450.
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Originally Posted by tucumseh
(Post 10547275)
I think a typical Icing section in an RTS will provide a good indication of what factors are considered; some of which are universal (e.g. icing deemed to exist in certain temperature/visibility conditions), others aircraft-dependant (e.g. engine surge margins). Modelling will have given a good indication of what to expect, and one then gradually expands the opertating envelope to verify performance. But one tends not to (deliberately) get to the stage where the testing is destructive. Although things are a little blurred by today's use of the term 'drone', which is a quite different thing to people of a certain age!
Not that I don't think the whole programme hasn't been a massive cluster. |
I've quickly scanned the recommendations in the two reports issued on the same day. Yep, seen them all before. Formal declarations made that the relevant regs had been met, when it seems much of the work hasn't started.
General Felton's rather pointed recommendations (WK043) amount to 'Now we've crashed 5 after the RTS was issued, let's think about issuing a legal RTS'. I wonder if he knows how many previous BoI/SIs have said this? DG DSA (who certainly knows) excuses much due to complexity. The need for endorsed Aircrew and Operating Data Manuals isn't complex. It's bloody mandated. Incomplete understanding of how sub-systems integrate? I distinctly recall one person who later headed UAVs saying 'If it works on the bench, it'll work in the aircraft'. RTS signed with no integration, testing, trials, training, pubs, etc. Four years later, Tornado ZG710, 2 killed. At least the death count is now lower. |
As Tucumseh said, quite a lot can be done with modelling but if it had been me making the decision, I would have insisted on LOTS of environmental chamber testing, including (if access could be gained) use of a Climactic Wind Tunnel. Beyond that, the process should have been incremental testing and "learning through experience" on training, test and operational flying, seeking to build a body of evidence over a period of time.
The problem with the "all weather" capability as marketed at the outset of the WK programme is that it wasn't something the manufacturer could actually deliver, and so they ended up trying to prove a capability that was in all likelihood going to result in the loss of the aircraft. The pressure to deliver may have been contractual i.e. the MOD insisting on it being tested to their satisfaction. It's bad enough being iced in a manned light aircraft, let alone a UAV that has positive 'pilot' control, and of course, WK is "point and click" so the operators could not intervene i.e. try to find a break in the clouds and get the hell out. Remember, the programme had already suffered an airframe loss due to water ingress / blockage in the pitot tube. To anyone with a decent amount of UAV experience, putting the aircraft into these conditions was a pretty foolish thing to do and it suggests that those making the decision to do so either did not appreciate the risk, or did so but pressed on regardless. |
Originally Posted by AF03-111
(Post 10548881)
As Tucumseh said, quite a lot can be done with modelling but if it had been me making the decision, I would have insisted on LOTS of environmental chamber testing, including (if access could be gained) use of a Climactic Wind Tunnel. Beyond that, the process should have been incremental testing and "learning through experience" on training, test and operational flying, seeking to build a body of evidence over a period of time.
The problem with the "all weather" capability as marketed at the outset of the WK programme is that it wasn't something the manufacturer could actually deliver, and so they ended up trying to prove a capability that was in all likelihood going to result in the loss of the aircraft. The pressure to deliver may have been contractual i.e. the MOD insisting on it being tested to their satisfaction. It's bad enough being iced in a manned light aircraft, let alone a UAV that has positive 'pilot' control, and of course, WK is "point and click" so the operators could not intervene i.e. try to find a break in the clouds and get the hell out. Remember, the programme had already suffered an airframe loss due to water ingress / blockage in the pitot tube. To anyone with a decent amount of UAV experience, putting the aircraft into these conditions was a pretty foolish thing to do and it suggests that those making the decision to do so either did not appreciate the risk, or did so but pressed on regardless. and it's boring for people to talk about risk without acknowledging that there is a concomitant opportunity. "Pressing on regardless" is not a bad thing - risks pay off (sometimes big) on a daily basis. |
Originally Posted by alfred_the_great
(Post 10549279)
"Pressing on regardless" is not a bad thing - risks pay off (sometimes big) on a daily basis. This wasn't a battlefield situation requiring flouting of the RTS (such as sending a rescue mission clinging to the outside of an AAC Apache into a fire fight). This was a commercial company carrying out test flying of an MOD aircraft in UK airspace. I've no idea what the costs are vis a vis environmental chambers and total airframe loss, but I'm damn sure no such costing had been assessed and consequent action authorised anyway. The scandal of WK loss rates out of operational areas needs to be fully investigated. Pilot error doesn't begin to address the fundamental causes. |
Originally Posted by alfred_the_great
(Post 10549279)
environmental testing may have cost more than a single airframe |
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