TAA (Technologically Advanced Aircraft)

[bjornhall]

I'm just reading the Air Safety Foundation Special Report on Technologically Advanced Aircraft (TAA); http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/topics/TAA2007.pdf (not sure if you have to be an AOPA member to read it). A TAA is an aircraft with, at minimum, an IFR capable GPS, a moving map display, and an autopilot. Consequently, quite a few of us are already doing much of our flying in TAA's; I flew one solo during my PPL training, as do many others.

I totally agree with parts of the report, such as these bits:

“TAAs provide increased ‘available safety,’ i.e., a potential for increased safety. However, to actually obtain this available safety, pilots must receive additional training in the specific TAA systems in their aircraft that will enable them to exploit the opportunities and operate within the limitations inherent in their TAA systems.”

the existing training infrastructure currently is not able to provide the needed training in TAAs

The automation, however, is incapable of programming itself and at times will significantly complicate a basic flying task.

However, other parts strike me as downright scary:

Since pilots operating TAAs are required to function more as programmers and managers, it only makes sense to delegate much of the physical aircraft handling to a reliable piece of hardware. GA pilots need to view the autopilot as their second incommand, and use it appropriately.

Some hand-flying training is necessary in the event of an autopilot failure, but in many cases hand flying is indicative of pilots who do not have the requisite autopilot skills to properly manage high workloads in single-pilot TAA.

Contrast that with what you hear airliner pilots discuss all the time: How over-reliance on automatics leads to degrading of basic flying skills. Furthermore, consider that if an airliner pilot chooses to hand fly one out of 10 ILS approaches in actual IMC, he will still make quite a few such approaches per year. If an average PPL(IR) pilot does the same, he'd be (un)lucky to make one such approach per year. The degrading of flying skills would hit GA pilots even much harder than the airliner pilots.

If future TAA pilots (and nearly all newly delivered normal category GA planes are TAA!) learn to fly that way, I'm buying a very big and very sturdy umbrella. Because those guys are gonna come down!

Is it really true that a TAA is best flown on autopilot pretty much all the time? If it is, I do it all backwards whenever I'm up in the C172S or the Archer III. However, I do not believe it for one second. On the other hand, am I that much better a pilot than the folks at ASF? Obviously not, so what am I missing here?

Still, there is a lot to learn from that report, and I know there are things I will be doing differently now. For instance, I've been wondering whether it isn't actually a good idea to engage the autopilot before doing any kind of tinkering with the GPS; from now on, I will religiously do that. I already make sure I interact as little with the GPS in the air as is at all possible while still making the best possible use of it; using the OBI rather than the GPS unit to monitor my track, program it on the ground before taxiing, only use the most effective functions in the air (which does not have to be the most "basic" ones, for instance, I LOVE the OBS mode for VFR flying!).

Most importantly, making a conscious, determined effort not to look at the GPS, or anything else on the panel, for more than five seconds straight. The GPS is not going anywhere, I can look back down at it in 10 seconds, but the same can not be said for other aircraft...

I think the biggest eye opener in that report is that even a rather basic, modern GA aircraft is a TAA, that we need to look at them differently from "conventional" aircraft, and that different training is needed (although IMHO such "training" can be done by the pilot, alone and unsupervised, with the correct tools). Otherwise, the increased workload that I guess more than a few of us have noticed will make the TAA less safe and comfortable than more traditional designs.

But that a TAA should normally be flown on autopilot at all times is something I absolutely can not understand ... Anyone?

[IO540]

Here we go

What is safer of these two:

1) hand flying, with reduced brain capacity for monitoring everything else

2) autopilot flying, leaving maximum brain capacity for everything else

??

There is no doubt that reducing pilot workload is key to safety. The vast majority of pilot cockups would not have happened had the pilot had plenty of time to think about it beforehand.

If you take say a Cirrus SR22 (not significantly different to my 2002 TB20 except the new SR22 replaces a load of separate instruments with LCD panels) that kind of plane will rarely be hand flown for any great distance. The sidesticks don't lend themselves to hand flying anyway, but you won't be using one of these to fly from Lydd to Beachy Head; you will be doing significant trips in them. That is where the autopilot comes in.

I fly long trips totally on autopilot, and would not depart single-pilot on a long flight without the AP. In good VMC it is OK; I once got an AP failure climbing out of Corfu and had to fly by hand to Santorini and then back to the UK via Cannes. We had good weather, and TBH I had no choice.

IMC flight is far safer on autopilot, and that's what I do if going somewhere for real. On local practice flights I often go into IMC and hand fly, to keep up the currency. But any actual A-B stuff is on autopilot. Much lower cockpit workload and thus much safer.

Some of the wording is poor IMHO e.g. I wouldn't have quite said

Since pilots operating TAAs are required to function more as programmers and managers, it only makes sense to delegate much of the physical aircraft handling to a reliable piece of hardware.

especially as GA autopilots are hardly all that reliable, and skilled hand flying IS very much called for in GA, but

GA pilots need to view the autopilot as their second incommand, and use it appropriately.

is 100% true.

The debate you see elsewhere regarding "excessive automation" in airliners, following the two recent major crashes (Amsterdam and AF447) are not really applicable to GA. In the first one, the crew were not behind the plane; they were not even in the cockpit, and likely didn't understand how basic systems (e.g. the autothrottle) worked. In the 2nd one, we don't yet know but it sounds like the crew was hit with multiple weird systems failures, perhaps related to weird airspeed readings, or maybe they just flew into some muck, iced up the probes (which were known to be suspect for a long time), got trapped between Vs and Vmo or whatever, and broke up through loss of control / aerodynamic forces. IMHO airliner automation is now beyond the detailed understanding of any normal ATP (e.g. does he really know that the #1 radalt controls the autothrottle, in a specific 737 variant?) but this isn't applicable to GA, where a pilot should not get into a plane unless he does understand the avionics and the sensors.

[Rod1]

IO540

If I was flying to get from A to B then I would add an autopilot to my machine. I have a state of the art EFIS which will directly drive the servos, so the cost would be quite low. I do not fly as far as you, max normal leg would be 400nm, with two a day max. I have a very good knowledge of my aircraft systems, I built it. I do however have no intention of fitting an AP. The reason, I fly for fun, if I wanted to fly a computer I could do it in my study at 1000th of the cost.

Rod1

[gpn01]

So, if I understand the concept correctly...

Flying can be made safer by automating the process.

Eergo, biggest risk in flying is the pilot. Remove the pilot and everything becomes safer.

Next biggest risk is colliding with something else. Easiest way to overcome this is to not fly.

So, ultimate solution is to set up the autopilot on your flight sim. Sit back, relax and enjoy the non-flight.

[flybymike]

I am with IO540. AP goes on immediately in the cruise and only comes off again for the approach. If I want to throw it around the sky like Rod ( I often do) then I use the AP "off" switch.

[Cows getting bigger]

AP for long straightish bits. But it is second in command and I monitor it very closely.

[bjornhall]

It is interesting that those who comment on their use of autopilot use it in cruise, when workload is at its lowest. So do I, and I imagine most pilots who use one at all; to relieve the tedium of flying straight and level for long times.

But the idea in the special report is to use it when workload is at its highest. During departure and arrival, during IFR approaches, in busy airspace, and so on. I haven't busted an altitude (yet?), but the closest I've been is when climbing just after departure, "before I had time to engage the autopilot". When you don't have time for automation is when you need it the most, so I can see where they are coming from.

I also find it interesting that the idea of sophisticated avionics reducing pilot workload is rarely mentioned anymore (except in avionics marketing material and in pilot to pilot discussions). These days it is rather realized that such avionics bring the potential for increased situational awareness, if used properly, but a) that special knowledge is required to realise that potential, and b) that it comes at the cost of significantly increased workload. I agree.

The report claims that the workload increase is such that pilots should generally refrain from hand flying (I assume they mean mainly in IMC or while actually interacting with the systems, otherwise they have lost me completely). In effect, "operating the systems require so much of your attention that you have no time for manually flying the aircraft anymore". This is partly due to sensory overload and having to digest all that information, partly due to the work required to access and display the information. I think they are right.

Regarding the training and knowledge required, my guess is that most pilots flying such aircraft, especially on the rental scene, have little clue about the systems they are supposed to master. An obvious example: How many even preflight their autopilot and electrical trim, and how many even know there are critically important emergency checklists, with recall items, hidden away in section 9 of the POH? In my training, as far as emergency procedures go, I was only shown section 3. More than a few times has the VOR been written up as faulty, when in fact it was the NAV/GPS selector that had been left in GPS (surely the normal setting these days?!).

What I do not see in the report is any suggestion at all for how to help GA pilots avoid making the same type of mistakes airliner pilots made when similar technology was introduced there, a quarter of a century or more ago. Mode confusion, fascination, degraded manual flying skills, information overload, and so on.

GA pilots, with very few exceptions, have lower skills to begin with, and basic flying skills is the primary means of resolving situations that have developed due to the other problems mentioned above. They also have less opportunity to maintain and refine those skills, simple because most of them do not fly very often. Anything that results in degrading those skills further should set off a big alarm bell.

A final question: Avionics systems that are so workload intensive that the pilot has no time to fly anymore, but should depend on the autopilot -- how good an idea is that, really? Maybe the priority should rather be to redesign the systems so that workload is low enough that the autopilot is just a useful help, not a necessity?

Let's recall that almost every single normal category aircraft being built these days is a TAA, including basic trainers. This is not just something that concerns a rare few hard core IFR pilots in the Cirruses and Malibus.

[englishal]

I fly TAA's in the USA and most of the time I hand fly them....call me wierd but I enjoy it But I do also enjoy flying a complete flight like an airliner on the AP, slaved to the Nav and have the flight plan dialled into the G1000. It is pretty satisfying sticking the AP on at 800' then off again at 250'. Best to keep in practice with both I reckon because I prefer to hand fly in bad weather.

George does have his limitations though, and last week he was having problems coping with turbulence. Mind you I was also having problems at one point - it is interesting going up at 1250 fpm with power completely off to then come whistling down at 800 fpm on full power with the stall warner going off

[IO540]

But the idea in the special report is to use it when workload is at its highest. During departure and arrival, during IFR approaches, in busy airspace, and so on

If I gave that impression, it was not the intention. Anytime one is flying seriously e.g. under ATC control whether VMC or IMC, one should maximise the accuracy of the process by flying on the autopilot if one is available.

Hand flying in IMC has to be done for practice purposes (especially as most light plane pilots don't get enough IMC practice) but it should be done at a time and place where it is not going to mess up other stuff.

I have only skimmed the US AOPA report. It makes some points clearly, some not clearly.

I like the mention of the autopilot vertical speed hold being a potential trap - both in terms of stalling the plane when climbing, and flying it quite happily into the ground.

Some of the stats are totally duff e.g. the lower # of accidents in TAAs cannot be meaningfully attributed to the slicker avionics without also correlating with pilot intelligence, aptitude, budget, total time, currency/recency (these things all tend to correlate, for obvious reasons).

I suppose the question is how much training should be mandatory and at which point (in terms of equipment complexity) should it come in.

The current type rating regs go back decades and are totally inadequate now. You can get signed off to fly a highly equipped plane, as a purely VFR pilot, knowing very little about the equipment. And you can continue to fly it, still knowing very little about the equipment. Especially the more esoteric corners of things like autopilot modes, GPS course interception/tracking / HSI usage / waypoint sequencing.

One should never argue for more regs in this already grotesquely over-regulated business, but there is clearly a need to do something because the old "complex" rating is just meaningless. There is nothing remotely complex about a retractable gear or a CS prop - compared with the ways one can screw up with "nice" avionics.

In the UK, the situation is mostly self stabilising because the training fleet wreckage remains mostly in the WW2 era, and only a few pilots can afford slick new IFR planes. Maybe this will change but not for a while - European GA has always been pretty poor.

In the USA it's very different, with Cirrus heavily penetrating the 150kt+ market with aggressive lifestyle-type advertising and everybody else doing glass cockpits across the board. I suspect that the USA manages the situation because over there if you have a checkride or a BFR, the examiner has the right to require a demonstration of all equipment installed. This is quite brilliant and I wish the UK had the same rule for all checkrides.

Ultimately, I think one has to accept that while any monkey can fly a 1970 C150 along the coast, even if he/she tool 100hrs to get the PPL, that person will probably never be able to grasp something more advanced.

And it doesn't need to be a G1000 type glass cockpit, because you can load a 1970s tourer with separate avionics which do every bit as much (and are just as complex).

In a sense, "glass cockpits" are a distraction in all this, and the real change is that (in the USA, for now) they have enabled advanced technology to reach a lot of casual-type pilots who will never be able to properly comprehend it.

That said, I don't buy the idea that advanced avionics are a bad thing. Most IFR pilots can see where the cockpit workload resides and most would dearly like more powerful avionics - if only somebody else paid for the stuff.