Are we going soft?
 

As technology marches inexorably forward and cockpit automation becomes ever more capable (Garmin Autoland?), I suppose it's inevitable that piloting your average modern GA aircraft will become a lot less complex than it used to be. FADEC is available in many trainers now where the throttle levers of old are marked 'power' instead with comments like the one below (from discussion in another forum around the best time to go full fine prior to landing) perhaps understandably justified if your only goal is to train pilots for an Automation Management role in the cockpit of a fly-by-wire Airbus.. Am I the only one a little concerned by this trajectory?
"Obscene"? What "other things"?!?? Just push a button at the start of the runway and fly around Fat, Dumb and Happy, with our eyes firmly inside gazing on all the pretty colours instead of outside looking for traffic (that's ATC's job)? and with our ears finely attuned to a the latest Spotify playlist rather than the sound of the engines and airflow (or the radios) waiting for Garmin Autoland to bring the plane in for touchdown to the amazement of our passengers??

It seems to me that all aeroplanes, no matter how large or small, complex or simple, operate in the same parcels of air that can be everything from benign clear blue skies one moment to ugly storms and icing the next and to the same set of physics, yet the subtle message of cockpit designs like the Icon A5 (to pick but one) and the latest movies and TV shows is that "flying is easy - it's just like driving car!", breeding pilots of the present and future with very little skill or appreciation for the complexities of operating a fast-moving object in three dimensions if something (like a prop hub governor) goes wrong.

So what's the right amount of automation?

That depends on what automation you're speaking of and who you're talking to then, don't it? :}

Automation can actually increase your workload. "What's it doing now!"

Nothing like a 'smart prop' going from coarse to full fine without warning on final approach.... (looking at you DA40NG....)

Ahh this old chestnut, it's always the same tune with slightly different lyrics, not long ago people decried GPS as going to make a generation of Pilots that don't know how to read Maps, before that I'm sure it was probably the ILS will make a generation of Pilots that don't know how to land, the Jet Engine is far too complex compared to a good old fashioned piston, all these fancy instruments will take away a Pilots ability to feel the aircraft, blah blah blah.

Will new tech take away certain levels of skill proficiency? almost certainly, but the fact remains that no matter what tech, gadgets or whatever your Aircraft has it's the Pilots' ultimate responsibility to fully understand them and more importantly what to do when they don't work as intended. Instead of focusing on which specific skills may no longer be relevant or how it may diminish them and how that somehow makes a Pilot "soft" (honestly, such a laughable word to use in this context) how about focusing instead on making sure that this is still the way we teach Pilot's and ensuring that they all know exactly how their Aircraft work as this is what really counts.

There were "aids" to help a pilot fly the aircraft.

What is happening now is the pilot is becoming a systems manager, completely different.

A couple friend have just returned from NZ. Had an enjoyable ride in their mate's car, a Tesla.
Except on one trip. Up and over Arthurs Pass, no less that three "phantom braking" episodes occurred.
How long before we see a phantom missed approach?

You're comparing a Tesla, which doesn't undergo the same rigors of testing and is not held to the same safety standards as an aircraft, it's like comparing apples to oranges. Not to mention that we always seem to forget that Aviation is built on mistakes, things we didn't see coming but probably should have and ultimately will continue to be made on mistakes. Things like the Comets that broke up mid-air, early INS that got people lost and way off course are classic examples. Will there be issues with early fully autonomous Aircraft? Almost certainly, but like anything in Aviation we don't choose to not innovate because it might be risky, we innovate with this in mind and do our utmost to prevent it and mitigate it.

And ultimately a big part of that mitigation is having Pilots that fully understand the systems in place and what to do when they don't work as intended and making sure they perform those actions correctly and decisively.

Google Airbus Dragonfly.

It even makes the radio calls….

Fate is the Hunter and Chickenhawk
 

This is all fair comment and we older folk have a role to play in shaping the attitude of new pilots and ameliorating the inevitable risks new technology brings.

It’s in our power to champion Airmanship, Professionalism, a Respect for History and Lessons of the Past. We can do this by mentoring or just sharing a beer and ‘war story’. I like to recommend a couple of books to new or potential pilots; Fate is the Hunter and Chickenhawk are favourites. I’d also like to see the old Aviation Safety Digests reprinted and added to.

pithblot

Video just today of a young lad hand-cranking his prop-attached piston engine to life. There is a place for the old skills, no worries.

Though I am not entirely sure why the demonstration needed to be done while airborne.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comment...plane_mid_air/ (originally posted 2 years ago)

This post is not tangential. Nobody will complain about an auto emergency descent on an airliner when your own cheeks are strapped to s seat at row 1 or further aft.

Just make sure to understand what game and why are we playing.

You nancy boys with your new fangled rubbish! We didnt even have windscreens and had to weave our own wicker seats. And what about parachutes? You lot are soft! Pneumatic tyres, brakes, all sorts of modern rubbish! Radios??? Whats wrong with the good old reliable carrier pigeon?

There is definitely a lower level of basic navigation skills since GPS became widespread. Is that a problem? well obviously not now as GPS is everywhere some cockpits having the option of up to 10 devices with some form of GPS on them, from the regulatory approved to flight bags and the pilots phone. The funny part is that the Aus regulators seem to think it OK that the backup network of navaids are mostly NDBs, which if you've ever seen a newer IFR pilot attempt an ADF approach in IMC without GPS overlays or such will make you walk away from aviation. Hopefully nobody turns off the GPS network on a bad weather day...

As far as map reading I've been watching multiple pilots who fly with their map not even aligned to aircraft heading...

That's all true, but to actually do it we need to first understand how the new tech works.. B737 MAX, anyone?? Maybe I'm becoming a dinosaur, but I do find having the 'prop' control actually controlling the prop to be quite reassuring as opposed to a 'power' lever that kinda does it for you, unless it doesn't.

In his book The Care and Feedings of Round Engines, famed 1930s mechanic Uve Noideer would often lament that his apprentices couldn't even handle getting a long weight from the tool shop! These days even that would be on computer.

Except, of course, that the 'prop' control doesn't actually control the prop, it just kinda does (unless it doesn't) because it tells another (albeit mechanical) system to do it for you. I quite enjoyed the most recent video from Flight Chops in which he did a ground check-out in a Saab Safir, an aeroplane which actually has a prop control - that is, the control directly sets the pitch of the propeller, and it's up to you as the pilot to manually adjust that control to keep the RPM where you want it to be.

If we are going back in time then it's important to mention that single power lever piston engine operation has been around since prior to WW2. The Germans had the Kommandogerat system fitted to the FW190 and a few others where all power was set through one lever, prop, mixture, throttle, timing and supercharger modes. The US had simple interconnects on some fighters, but not a true single lever operation. Not sure what the FW190 in Australia uses, I'd assume traditional controls as it's not using the original BMW 801.

In any case I think most trepidation over single power lever ops is more to do with FADEC rather than the older hydro-mechanical mechanisms. Depending on how much control the FADEC has is where the problems can lie, ie automatic engine shut down if it doesn't like it is something, I don't like. Automatic engine controls have been around for ages from a mechanical point of view, and are very reliable. As said above a CSU prop is a simple mechanical automatic speed limiter. And most fuel injected aircraft probably have some form of simple computer involved.

​​​​​​​We had to send a carrier pigeon to the Flight Service Unit for our compulsory 30 minute ops normal reports, and they would relay the message to the next unit by pony express. People these days, they just wouldn't understand what we went through.

The Gypsy's on the dh Heron had single lever control, mixture and pitch automatic, only manual control the throttle (and feather buttons). :p

Aviators are a conservative lot, they refused to accept canopy's on aircraft when they were introduced as you no longer had the slipstream on your face thus isolating you from what the aircraft was doing, so the reasoning went.

Agreed. Pax can be a challenge sometimes, but I struggle to think of anything more distracting than the stupid plane either not telling you the entire story or trying to fix stuff for you in an emergency (and bleeping continually whilst at it just to make sure the problem remains front-and-centre in your mind as you head for the ground like a lawn dart. Yelling STFU might work on passengers but unfortunately not on computers!).

For reference, (a) QF32 needed one pilot 100% focussed on sorting the alarms out whilst others flew the plane and (b) you don't need to look far to find GA accident reports blaming excessive focus on the flashy stuff for killing people.

I have had a total electronics failure on a yacht, at night, coastal. That included GPS, moving map, autopilot, fluxgate compass, log (ASI). plus computed variable eg speed over ground, course made good (track), etc. By "total failure" I don't mean it went black, that's too easy. i mean that within a very short time none of the instruments agreed with each other. This can be terrifying as you can't tell whats true..

The length of your own period of confusion is a direct function of situational awareness and especially the time since your last recorded accurate position fix, fuel state, track, heading and velocity.

I confess to having a music input on my intercom and an associated iphone cable in the aircraft. I've never felt I had the time to relax and use it. The aviate/ navigate/ communicate cross check loop takes all my time.