Automation dependency stripped of political correctness.

[ExV238]

Plus of course even a cursory knowledge of the Apollo landing would show that the pilot (Aldrin?) nearly screwed it up by being human. He messed with the computer when he should not have according to SOP and caused it buffer overrun failures.

Yes indeed. And the human mission controllers made the decision that the landing could continue. I guess an automated system would have aborted.

No answer was given to the previous point that some situations cannot be foreseen and some situations require imagination to resolve. The Hudson river was mentioned, but I would also offer the example of the successful ditching of an RAF Nimrod in 1995. That was as a result of a wing fire, the progress of which was monitored by a human crew member who gave verbal descriptions of the damage as it progressed. The pilot decided to ditch although just a handful of miles from a suitable runway and later examination of the aircraft validated that decision. What would an automated system have done?

OK, so we can argue probabilities of such events. But to me, the key point is that made by Uplinker; that all systems are designed and built by humans and are subject to human error. There are stats for accidents caused by pilot error, but there are no equivalent stats for pilot 'saves'. No system could or ever will be designed and/or built to perfection, and removing the human pilot would remove the last chance to save the day.

Finally, these are complex, interesting and important debates and no one contributor should claim to have all the relevant experience and answers. So it's a shame to see accusations of ignorance and such like being thrown around.

[RAT 5]

Plus of course even a cursory knowledge of the Apollo landing would show that the pilot (Aldrin?) nearly screwed it up by being human. He messed with the computer when he should not have according to SOP and caused it buffer overrun failures.

Was Tommy Lee Jones (Space Cowboys) thinking he was really Buzz Aldrin? Shame on him.

Everybody keeps mentioning the Hudson. I guess it was the red carpet ride around the world's media. Time to make a decision, time to execute it. Everybody things it was a great day for human over computer perhaps because it was an Airbus. I wonder the reaction if it had been a simple basic B738.
Oh wait. The bird strike on short finals at CIA, B738, engine rundown, attempted GA by F/O PF, power loss on other engine, captain took control and planted it on the runway. Everyone survived, but no TV video. Damn. No time to think, just react instinctively.
Think what might have happened with another captain onboard. G/A over S.E. Rome, power loss on both engines. The smoking hole does not bare thinking about. Brilliant 'save the day' experienced human intervention. The captain lives in obscurity. Hundreds just live never realising.

[FDMII]

RAT 5;

The "Hudson" phenomenon is, by Sully's own admission, "what we do". He accepted the accolades graciously, gave a superb and timely presentation to Congress, (February 2009) decrying in part, the corporate treatment of airline pilots, but acknowledged that what he, his F/O and his crew did under extraordinary circumstances, was itself not extraordinary, and, in spite of digital/computerized flight control & the laws, was what professional crews do.

We might view Sully as the epitome of what represents the very best in airline pilots but, and I suspect you, Uplinker, numerous others here and in the profession know this already, many pilots and crews, with minor variations, could have and would have done the same thing. It's what airline pilots do.

Thirty-one other crews experienced a UAS event on their A330 and wrote it up in the log-book.

Every day, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of small and not-so-minor incidents in commercial aviation and, with a few exceptions noted here and in other websites, remain unsung as they should, out of the media and passengers, as you say, are largely unaware. The quiet examples are there by the thousands.

The best statement I've ever heard that captures this unique character of the profession of "airline pilot" was, "I earn a hundred-thousand-dollars-a-minute, but you'll never know which one; the rest is for free". It's old, and still relevant.

The notion of professional ethics and the old-fashioned notion of "address", (the forceful and competent imposing of high skill and long experience to an unusal circumstance or emergency), seems to have evaporated with the digital age; it most certainly has not evaporated from the principles of aviation, however.

We are showing here in this discussion that there are many circumstances in commercial aviation that are far beyond those typically imagined by non-aviators that cannot be addressed without active, immediate human participation and/or intervention.

[RAT 5]

FDMII agree whole heartedly. Not wishing to dilute any accolade. My comments were to support the human in the debate. I like the $100,000 per minute philosophy.

Brgds.

[Tourist]

Many on here insist on using the very best of human piloting as the standard to beat, but use the worst of automation as if that is as good as it gets.

Sully was not, as is demonstrated repeatedly "what we do"

The average airline pilot is currently awful.
Yes, they can follow the script, but as soon as things are abnormal, they/we are abysmal.

The only reason that the safety statistics have improved so much over the years is engineering brilliance.

The simple fact is that automation has already quietly replaced what used to be "what we do" to enormous benefit.

TCAS and EGPWS are a tacit admission that humans are not very good. In most aircraft the pilot is still in the loop when carrying out an RA or a "pull up".

This is not due to a recognition that the pilot helps the operation of these systems, it is merely a way of smoothing their entry into service.

The more modern aircraft coming into service have the systems integrated with the autopilot due to the recognition that the only effect that a human has on these safety systems is to add errors.

Automation has been coming into service slowly but surely for decades.

The upshot of this is a huge increase in safety.

Can anybody on this forum come up with a single automated system that has been added since the dawn of civil aviation that has not contributed to safety?

We are currently in an uncomfortable transition period which hold neither the best aspects of automation or human input.

Anybody that tries to suggest they have any understanding of automation by saying they have "10000hrs Airbus" is delusional.

The airbus systems are from the 70's
Remember cars from the 70's?
Mobile phones?
Televisions?

Due to certification issues, it is easier to just stay with that old dross for now.
That is not because they are any good, because they are dross.
Baby SEP aircraft have far superior avionics to an airbus now.

An average A380 has about 600 times the processing power in the passengers mobile phones alone compared to the computers running the systems.

Systems which, incidentally are not designed to be autonomous!

To say that without a human airbuses would be dangerous is missing the point. They were never designed to be autonomous so they are not. If they were, then they would be.


People keep using the Qantas A380 as an example of why you need human pilots.

They forget, of course that that aircraft was not carrying the normal crew.
With just 2 pilots, how would they have done?

At least an automated system could have run through the million ECAM pages in about 2 seconds.


The important metric is not whether an automated aircraft can beat a human pilot in all cases.

Currently, it cant.

The important metric is whether it has less accidents overall.

Due to the fact that the vast majority of accidents are human error, then I think that is easy to achieve.

People also keep saying that computers are programmed by humans so there will still be human error miss two very important points.

1. Each error will only be made once. After that, the scenario will be sent around and no other automated aircraft will ever make that error again.

2. It really doesn't work that way. There was a time when "hand made" was a symbol of quality. Nowadays, if you want something engineered properly and consistently you use a machine. That machine may have been programmed by a human, but it does not make mistakes like a human.


Some may think "ignorant" is a harsh epithet under the circumstances.

I disagree.
I have had these discussions with uplinker before. I have given extensive references/videos/NASA articles/TED talks to all the points raised.
I covered see and avoid, neural nets, learning computers,
At no stage has he rebutted a single one of these points with any evidence whatsoever beyond statements of opinion given as facts.

That, in my opinion is ignorance personified.


If any of you are interested, here is the link to a previous thread where most of this is covered.

http://www.pprune.org/safety-crm-qa-...article-5.html

I would be genuinely interested in debating any of the point if you think my references don't cover the points adequately or you have evidence that I am wrong.

I see no point though if the answer is "you are wrong"

[ExV238]

I don't think anyone is arguing that the development of technology to protect against (the inevitable) pilot error is a bad thing, or that such technology hasn't added to safety. But the point being made about human error in engineering is more about the design of such systems and the ability of designers to foresee and cater for all necessary scenarios than it is about discrete failures. Just as system design can mitigate pilot error, some way of mitigating design errors or omissions will be needed for the foreseeable future.

Technology has smoothed out some forms of pilot error in recent decades, but it's simply wrong to attribute all of the improvements in safety to automation. Developments in the understanding of human factors, decision-making and error management have also played a significant part.

For an automated system to respond to an adverse situation, that system has to detect and 'understand' what is going on. Hence my example of the Nimrod ditching, a few posts back. For sure, technology will keep moving on; to compare an 'Airbus' (a simplistic term) with a 1970s car or phone is disingenuous. Even the A320 family has been developed over the years, and is now significantly different to the early versions under the skin. An A350 is a very different animal altogether.

Yes, current 'automated' aircraft are a very basic representation of what will be achievable in the future in engineering terms. But they are also a lens through which to view the fundamental issues of how to cater for human limitations in aerospace, whether on the part of 'pilots' or designers. Those limitations won't go away and nor will the commercial and business imperatives that limit development and testing time.

Haven't got time to delve further right now; gotta go supermarket shopping. Now that's something I'd like to automate...

[RAT 5]

The average airline pilot is currently awful.
Yes, they can follow the script, but as soon as things are abnormal, they/we are abysmal.

with a caveat: usually, if they can read, utilise good CRM/MCC, and the non-normal comes directly under a QRH procedure they should be able to cope. It's when they need to use their (often lacking) experience to react (even be proactive) to handle a situation without a simple checklist. That takes brainpower in a variety of ways. Often then the human makes a bad situation worse and a descending spiral is entered way beyond their comprehension.

Automation has been coming into service slowly but surely for decades.
The upshot of this is a huge increase in safety.

I wonder/expect there are more approach/landing accidents that takeoff ones. The former might be more human influenced: bad decision making due to known technical non-normals or bad judgement due weather, or bad execution of an approach procedure. The latter technical first then human reaction make its worse.
In the modern a/c it could be that GPS becomes an absolute standard in all types, even turbo-props. That then brings in that PRNAV STARS to RNAV/ILS approaches is the norm. That could then lead to all normal approaches being autoland, even in the middle of nowhere. Technically it will come possible. How is that going to jive with the FAA stance that pilots should exercise more manual flying to retain the skill set necessary to save the day when HAL goes AWOL?

There will still be a single monitoring pilot onboard, but the role could become so rudimentary that a whole new training regime is required. I still wonder at the difference in applicant characteristics & qualifications for the different companies. The parameters in legacy carrier application forms is from the old days. Most of their pilots are so over-qualified as to be board stiff most of the time; and irritated like heck at the way they are treated. I wonder if the correct stuff is sitting in modern a/c these days, and will be in the future. The modern job is so different from 30 years ago, but the entry requirements for the old school legacy carriers seem to be still from that era. The LoCo's have perhaps gone too much the other way and made ability to pay, with reasonable aptitude, the norm.

Much to contemplate, but who is doing it?

[Judd]

Here the airlines come into play, some have a good culture in switching AP/FD/ATHR off, some not. A good culture encourages switching AP/FD/ATHR off, and has a basic understanding among pilots and some rules when it is appropriate to do so and when not.

Once you have been accustomed to it, it is really no big deal anymore. Your scanning capacity becomes so good, that is becomes a peace of cake to supervise your autopilot.

To improve confidence of pilots who are brain washed into automation dependency, you first have to go back to basic instrument flying technique.

That means scanning the full gambit of flight instruments whether manual flying or not. The only way to do this is to turn off the flight director. The flight director is a highly compelling instrument which because of its design- keep the needles centred and everything will be fine Bloggs - means concentrating on two needles often to the detriment of correct scanning of the rest of the flight instruments. Despite what some claim it is not possible to effectively "look behind" a FD. It has to be turned off to see the full ADI picture.

One effective method to increase pilot scanning skills is to climb, cruise and descend without the distracting influence of a flight director. If you cannot fly smoothly and accurately without using a flight director to tell you what to do, then you should not hold an instrument rating.

While there may be a regulatory side to flight director use, that would normally only apply to perhaps a take off and landing in certain weather conditions. Unless of course there is an airworthiness aspect that requires the use of an FD. For instance, can the aircraft be dispatched with an inoperative FD?

If the answer is yes, it implies the pilot should be competent to fly safely on instruments without the aid of a FD. Not every pilot is competent to do that; hence the occasional embarrassment seen in the simulator when raw data competency is supposed to be demonstrated during an instrument approach, including with a substantial crosswind.

If airlines ops management are serious about improving manual instrument flying skills - and according to the FAA they should be - then the first step is to improve basic instrument flying skills. You will never improve these skills while you are locked on brain dead to a flight director.

Once a pilot can confidently fly in VMC with the FD out of view, then flying in IMC without a FD will not hold the apprehension that seems to be prevalent in todays glass cockpits. By all means engage the autopilot and AT for complex SIDS and STARS, but switch off the FD and watch how the autopilot flies raw data. It should do it quite nicely. At the same time your own scan rate will improve greatly with exposure to all the flight instruments and not just an FD display.

Once your scan rate becomes professional, then your confidence in manual flying will slowly come back. You may even find yourself enjoying flying by hand. Try it for ten minutes or so at a time but pick the time and place to do so. If your company insists on the head in the sand approach to manual flying during line flying, at least they should heed the FAA warnings of the dangers of automation addiction and ensure each simulator recurrent training session should be equally split between automatics use and manual raw data flying.

[Willie Nelson]

There seems to be two issues here that while not unrelated are perhaps being somewhat conflated.

Automation dependency and autonomous flight are not the same issue and although they will inevitably merge at some point, we're a few years off.

Interestingly, I listened to a talk on ' ABC big ideas' recently by Professor Alan Finkel, Australia's new chief scientist who talked on 'Future shock again'. He didn't address aviation, however he did talk quite calmly about the approach of what computer scientists call 'The Singularity'

This is the time when computer processing power, whether it be defined as artificial intelligence or otherwise, overtakes human capacity for reason, and judgement. He talked about computers then being designed solely by other computers and henceforth being able to develop themselves much quicker than we can. It was an eye opening talk from someone experienced as an entrepreneur, electrical engineer and neuroscientist. Even still he talks of this being at least a few years off yet.

Nevertheless, it seems that that the main concerns that we face as professional pilots in the here and now are automation dependency and I think Others have already outlined the issues pretty well, what will be most significant for me is the fallout from QZ8501 and what may or may not change as a result. I think the writing has been on the wall for some time but whether or not anything is done form here is another issue again.

[Tourist]

Originally Posted by Judd

The flight director is a highly compelling instrument which because of its design- keep the needles centred and everything will be fine Bloggs - means concentrating on two needles often to the detriment of correct scanning of the rest of the flight instruments. Despite what some claim it is not possible to effectively "look behind" a FD. It has to be turned off to see the full ADI picture.

I quite agree, and in fact would go further.

Having gone back and forwards a few times between old school steam driven instruments and a variety of glass cockpits, I have come to believe that whilst some aspects of EFIS cockpits such as the map display/wind/drift etc are hugely beneficial to situational awareness, I don't think the actual flying instruments are as good even leaving aside the issues with FD focus for maintaining a scan.

The basic "T" I find leads to better flying, but it is of course possible that I am biased from having an old school upbringing in aviation.

When I flew Airbus for an Airline, I also used to fly an old aircraft as a sideline, and my airbus instrument handling was greatly improved by each time I flew something more mandraulic.

[safetypee]

Many posts and public discussions focus on the autopilot as being responsible for automation dependency, and thus erroneously conclude that more manual flight is required. The wider issue is the use of technology – consider manual navigation, manual terrain and traffic avoidance, flight with standby instruments, and unprotected stall avoidance. Most of these systems impact awareness, and thus may indicate that flight with degraded or reduced awareness or differing means of acquiring it is an effect of reliance on technology.

The DoT audit via RAT #77 (original document) objectives were “(1) determine whether FAA has established requirements governing the use of flight deck automation and (2) identify FAA’s process for ensuring that air carrier pilots are trained to use and monitor these systems while also maintaining proficiency in manual flight operations.” Note that manual flight was almost an afterthought.
The audit states “FAA does not have a sufficient process to assess a pilot’s ability to monitor flight deck automation systems (technology) and manual flying skills, both of which are important for handling unexpected events during flight. In addition, FAA is not well positioned to determine how often air carrier pilots manually fly aircraft. FAA has also not ensured that air carrier training programs adequately focus on manual flying skills.”
and concludes “Relying too heavily on automation systems may hinder a pilot’s ability to manually fly the aircraft during unexpected events.” The emphasis of the audit drifted towards manual flight, note ‘may hinder’, perhaps the lack of justifying evidence, and ‘unexpected events’, specific situations perhaps unrelated to the FAA’s advice for more manual flying in benign situations.

The FAA response is similarly biased towards manual flight and monitoring, vice the deficiencies in oversight. This may reflect the findings and recommendations in the referenced reports, but somewhat simplified and lacking practicality; e.g. does monitoring refer to PF monitoring the aircraft, or PM monitoring the aircraft and PF, or self-monitoring thoughts and behaviour. Noting that humans are very poor and often unreliable monitors and that the situations requiring most monitoring are those involving high workload, and thus most likely to result in monitoring breakdown.

The referenced NASA report (2014 ) The retention of manual flying skills in an automated cockpit concludes; “We found that while pilots’ instrument scanning and aircraft control skills are reasonably well retained when automation is used, the retention of cognitive skills needed for manual flying may depend on the degree to which pilots remain actively engaged in supervising the automation.” Note ‘cognitive skills’.

The other referenced NASA report (2015) The Effectiveness of Airline Pilot Training for Abnormal Events concludes and recommends; “The results suggest that the training and testing practices used in airline training may result in rote-memorized skills that are specific to the training situation and that offer modest generalizability to other situations. We recommend a more complete treatment of abnormal events that allows pilots to practice recognizing the event and choosing and recalling the appropriate response.”

A further NASA report (2010) Aircraft Loss of Control Causal Factors and Mitigation Challenges concludes “Although the causal factors have been loosely organized into three categories: human or pilot-induced, environmentally-induced, and systems-induced, no single category is solely responsible for loss of control accidents. Rather, accidents occur when combinations of breakdowns happen across human and engineering systems, often in the presence of threats posed by the external environment.”
Also as a presentation Aircraft Loss of Control Causal Factors and Mitigation Challenges.

Interesting and alternative views, which might suggest that … … re more manual flight?

[Mansfield]

This is a very interesting and well-debated thread.

It is fine to say that most accidents are the result of human error…but what we don’t know is how many potential accidents are avoided by human intervention. We can see it in cases such as the Hudson ditching and QF32, but we cannot see how many times absolutely nothing happens solely because a human intervened.

I was struck by FDMII’s observation earlier in the thread:

Another thing - the notion that the aircraft commander IS the legal commander responsible for the safety of the flight, and in the end is the sole decision-maker on board the aircraft is gradually being made subservient to the audit process where such authority is "modified". Certainly the commander must answer for each and every action, but the assessment of such action must be based upon a broader set of "rules" than mere standard documentation.

At the heart of the automation dependency issue may lie a question of the pilot’s autonomy itself. It is indeed hard to remember, after so many years of administrative theory and systems management, that our capable and competent aviator actually remains a fully autonomous actor in the whole scheme of things. The regulatory obligation is and always has been that the pilot is the final authority as to the operation of the aircraft and command of the crew, no matter how much a whole cast of corporate characters would like to water him down. That authority presupposes a role for free will and transcends the conditions of employment, making the pilot-employee something of a greased pig for all styles of management.

Taylorism, which lies at the root of most management schools of thought, was very much aimed at diminishing craftsmanship in the name of efficiency. For the craftsman, this was a disaster; yet on the precipice of an exploding industrialist economy, there was no time to apprentice craftsmen and no money to pay for their exquisite, and wildly inefficient, labor. Taylorism, conveniently, was also an open door through which class discrimination could be imposed and managed.

Automation is Tayloristic. It removes the craftsman and replaces him with efficiency, consistency and predictability. From a management perspective, this is ideal. It is cost-effective and appears to yield the necessary degree of safety. For a management class schooled in what Dekker calls “Newtonian scientism”, it makes perfect sense. The problem arises when we encounter a nonlinear environment…think weather but also complex technical systems…because Taylorism and Newtonian scientism are very much linear frames of reference, and automation, although exposed to nonlinearities through complex systems, is expected to operate linearly.

The challenge for future pilots is to produce a culture which retains the autonomy that they must have to counter nonlinear environments, executes the obligation toward public safety that they are entrusted with, and accommodates the changes in technology that are necessary to create efficiency and meet commercial demand. To my mind, that is first and foremost accomplished through the protection of margins.

We track down the centerline of the runway for a reason…to protect the 75 foot margins on either side. In fact, this is the primary responsibility of the pilot…to make decisions and inputs that protect the design margins, the regulatory margins, and the system margins. One of those margins is our ability to manually fly the aircraft. Another is our ability to keep the autoflight system tracking the “centerline” it was intended to track. Another would be to arrive at the final approach fix…at the alternate airport… with a realistically adequate quantity of fuel…enough for, say, a gear indicator light not working. The list is extensive, and you won’t get much help from the company, because the beancounters just can’t figure out how to measure the effectiveness of margins. Therein lies the craftsmanship today. How well can we use our authority to protect the margins?

[1201alarm]

I would strongly oppose any view that says all accidents nowadays are due to human error, so we need to design the human element out of the cockpit.

These claims can only seriously come from people who have no real experience in real life commercial ops. As a pilot I make so many decisions on each work day to smoothen things, and deal with so many technical issues each month, I just don't see how we could ever construct such a complex machine like a modern airliner which will operate to a safety level of 1 in 10 million (that is where wer are right now industry wide) fully autonomous!

A plane is much more than only software and computing power. It consists of metal parts, mechanical engineering, interacting systems, and last but not least a whole bunch of sensors. Each of them can fail, which will pose it's own challenge to a solution.

And this whole amassment of technology operates in a real world environement, in challenging weather, with other participants who can whirl your own idea how to proceed in a second. If your company operates a good sms with publications, just read what kind of freakin stuff regularly happens no one ever would have thought about.

1 in 10 million fully autonomous? Never in my life time.

Which brings me back to the original question. We need good basic skills more profoundly distributed throughout our industry. TK in AMS, Asiana in SFO, AF in the Atlantic, Air Asia over Java Sea should never have happened. These accidents showed major deficiencies in piloting skills (not just stick and rudder, but also understanding what flying means in aerodynamic terms). I however believe strongly, we can train pilots so such crass things do not happen again. May be in the last 20 years, we traded too much protection for skill. But the industry is slowly changing so we add protection to skill.

There is still a lot to be further gained also on the technical side. ROW/ROPS systems hopefully will improve excursion statistics. We could possibly go further with braking coefficient measuring and making it available to following aircraft in the approach. GPS technology and therefore approaches with vertical guidance can further improve CFIT risk. And the whole complex of TO security has still a lot of potential, I think for example about TO data calculations not on your computer anymore, but directly within your plane FMS. No chance of a typo when entering speeds and TO power, plus the potential warning, when you are not taking of from the position you have calculated (GPS comes in handy again).

But all these will at the end need a pilot who can cope with system and sensor failures, and fly his plane by hand, with a good scan of the main flight parameters. Plus who can do all the tactical decisions that happen every day out there.

[Tourist]

1201alarm

You have stated a lot of things as facts in your post, but have neglected to provide any evidence whatsoever that they have any validity.

Please provide some references?

p.s. I do have experience in real commercial ops. And corporate ops. And military ops.

I have also posted numerous videos and NASA studies etc that support my position. I don't think a single naysayer has yet posted a single piece of research furthering the "must have a human" position.

[BBK]

1201

Well said!

Tourist

Can you provide the reference that "all pilots are abysmal".

Yours in anticipation

BBK

[Tourist]

Originally Posted by BBK

Can you provide the reference that "all pilots are abysmal".

No, I usually try to provide evidence to back up what I said, not what others try to suggest I said.

I can, however, provide a range of evidence to back up my belief that the average pilot is awful.

What would you like?

Shall we discuss the recent crashes of a fully serviceable 777 into a San Francisco runway?
The Air France A330 with nothing wrong with it into the Atlantic?
Colgan?
The list is painfully long.....

I can also point to the new initiatives from Airbus and the FAA to try to improve pilots skills.

FAA fails to ensure pilots' manual flying skills: government report | Reuters

http://www.pprune.org/safety-crm-qa-...g-changes.html

They are not doing this because pilots are good.
They are doing it because despite the fact that most airline pilots will finish their entire career without having to deal with a single serious aircraft problem, enough of the vanishingly small amount of pilots who have to actually do that pilot sh1t are making a complete @rse of frankly banal situations to make the aircraft manufacturers look bad, and that hits the bottom line.

A large British Airline announced at a pilot gathering that over 50% of RAs at the airline were mishandled. Over 50% did not manage to put the needle in the green bit!


Don't get me wrong, I don't believe it is the pilots fault that they/we are rubbish.
I just don't think it is possible for the mortals among us to be good at anything that you rarely get to practise.
Excellence takes repeated practise.
Daily.
Hourly.
Once every six months is a joke.

[1201alarm]

Tourist, although you don't really merit a response, there we go.

Do you need reference for the ballpark figure 1 out of 10 million? Google "airbus commercial flight accident statistics" and see 4th generation fatal accident rate which is 0.11 on the million.

It is up to the techno geeks to convince some entrepreneurs or investors that they can develop a fully autonomous system that matches 1 in 10 million at acceptable cost, not the other way round.

Studies do not count by the way, only real projects with real funding and real business case. I do not believe in it.

Your judgement that pilots in general are abysmal is pathetic, but most probably just a provocation to get attention. AF447 is a great example that you talk bs. It is well documented in the final report that (I think) over 30 crews faced a similar scenario and did not crash. We just had a dual ADR fault in our company, ending in alternate law, manual flight and gravity gear extension. There where no subsequent safety recommendations, because the crew acted as expected from them.

Just because a few crew do not deliver does not proof anything. However 1 out of 10 million is a strong indication that pilots are generally well trained and cope with what is thrown at them.

There seem to be potential for improvement still, especially in the area of basic handling at some operators, but that does not invalidate the general path taken.

[Tourist]

Originally Posted by 1201alarm

Do you need reference for the ballpark figure 1 out of 10 million? Google "airbus commercial flight accident statistics" and see 4th generation fatal accident rate which is 0.11 on the million.

Thank you, no, I am well aware of the safety statistics, but thank you for bringing them up.

The safety statistics have got a lot better over the last 50 years.

Lets think about that for a minute.

What has changed over the last 50 years?
Have piloting skills got better?
I don't think you would find anybody who would argue that is the case.
Perhaps better CRM, I will give you that, but overall?
Nope. A huge drop in training levels over the decades. MPL etc.
Do we have more humans in the cockpit?
No, we have lost the Flight engineer.
What has led to the great safety stats then?
Firstly, and by a wide margin, engineering.
Modern commercial aircraft failure rates and backup systems are incredible.
Almost nothing serious ever goes wrong with the airframe. (your laughable example of dual ADR failure just makes my point. When did something so banal become worthy of mention? Of course there were no recommendations! You would have to title them "pilots followed ECAM instructions, flew aircraft with own hands. well done")

TCAS and EGPWS have saved countless lives by stopping humans f@cking up. In most cases humans are still in the loop, but it could be described as automation with human interference. An autopilot link without human interface would be more effective, and is now being fitted to modern aircraft. This is a tacit admission that humans are a negative influence on the effective operation of the systems.

ECAM has had an enormous effect.
I don't think people like yourself have really thought through what ECAM is.

ECAM is a clever way engineers have fooled pilots into thinking that they are solving the problem rather than the aircraft.

Think about it.
The ECAM tells you what to do.
You do it.
The ECAM knows you have done it.
The ECAM tells you to do the next thing.

That is automated failure management.

It is blatantly obvious that a system that can do that could also do the next stage, which is to do it itself. This would remove the human who is merely an error vector.

This will obviously be the next stage.
Before anybody jumps in and points out that there as instances where you have to do something outside the ECAM, yes, there are and the cards tell you when they are. This is just paper automation. The human is not doing anything other than remembering the instructions. Hardly a case for the human in the system.

ECAM is another way of removing error prone humans from the system as much as possible because we make so many mistakes.

Originally Posted by 1201alarm

Tourist, although you don't really merit a response, there we go.

I understand that it is difficult for you to be unbiased what with you being a pilot, but there is no need for personal attacks.
On the plus side, there will be manned aircraft still flying for a long time after the first autonomous airliners, so I don't think either of us will be out of a job soon.
I don't like what I'm saying, I just happen to believe it is true. Know your enemy.

Originally Posted by 1201alarm

It is up to the techno geeks to convince some entrepreneurs or investors that they can develop a fully autonomous system that matches 1 in 10 million at acceptable cost, not the other way round.

There we agree.
It doesn't have to be perfect, just equal or better and cheaper.

As usual (always?) in aviation the military will lead the way.
Ever more capable autonomous cargo aircraft have been flying in sandy parts for some years now, following the hoards of baby uavs with a variety of levels of autonomy from limited get home capability to fully autonomous.
Fully autonomous Combat UAVs are the future, with nobody expecting any major manned combat aircraft after the current generation.
Links to these programs are in the previous thread.

BAe have been testing a baby airliner with autonomous systems for just such a market.

That is real money.

The only challenges unique to the civil aviation sphere are certification, legal and public opinion.
The certification/legal challenge is already being spearheaded by driverless cars. They are on the roads right now and the kinks are being worked out now. This will have direct read across and also help persuade the public that autonomous is ok.
I'm quite sure that if you had asked someone 50yrs ago if they would get on a driverless train they would say "hell no!" but here we are.



I think you need to research the difference between correlation and causation

You think that:-

Pilots fly aircraft.
Aircraft have had less accidents.
Pilots must have got better.


I believe that.

Pilots fly aircraft a lot less than they used to.
Aircraft design and engineering has improved beyond measure.
Systems have been fitted to catch pilot errors, and despite the drop in skill levels, they are doing an excellent job.

[Tourist]

Originally Posted by 1201alarm

AF447 is a great example that you talk bs. It is well documented in the final report that (I think) over 30 crews faced a similar scenario and did not crash.

Sorry, I just have to come back to this.

OH
MY
GOD!!!!

Are you seriously using the fact that over 30 crews didn't crash when faced with a minor indication error in the cruise as an example of how good pilots are?

All any pilot in that situation had to do was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and they would have survived. Not just survived, but continued in straight and level flight without anybody down the back ever knowing about it.


The fact that a single crew crashed under those circumstances is a searing indictment of the state of piloting skill in the industry.

Congratulating yourself that some did not is jaw dropping.

[Jwscud]

Originally Posted by Tourist

What has changed over the last 50 years?
Have piloting skills got better?
I don't think you would find anybody who would argue that is the case.
Perhaps better CRM, I will give you that, but overall?

I think this is a very narrow and unhelpful view. CRM was a complete change in the method and philosophy of operating that cut accident rates as much as improved technology did. It is very notable that airlines that do not have good CRM or operating cultures have comparatively poor safety records - see Lion Air at the moment, Korean air in the 90s.

You mention the Military - the US Military has lately made clear (last week's Flight) that they will not expect as a matter of principle and policy soldiers being transported into combat zones on crewless vehicles.

I fundamentally do not see anything changing in CAT in my professional lifetime. Neural nets are powerful tools, and the technology you talk about is exciting. However, Current new airframe designs are not even built with contemplation of "optionally manned" or single pilot scenarios and they are likely to be in service for at least 20 years.