Computers need to know what they are doing
You have written about "the pilot". This seems to be a very common misconception. Are you aware that there are two fully qualified pilots on a commercial passenger airliner? One is designated the Captain, the other is designated the First Officer.
Don't get me wrong. That is the norm nowadays. And statistically safe. Meets regulatory requirements too. But "fully qualified" doesn't necessarily reveal the whole story.
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where a very specific set of circumstances defeats the design. That it took some 13 years for that edge case to be found implies that the design and implementation was pretty damned thorough.
Any comment on the 50% reduction of aileron authority once one wheel touches the ground during landing?
"The BFU stated, that at the time of flare and touchdown there was no significant gust. The weather situation was well within the forecasts.
The flight control laws of the Airbus Fly By Wire (FBW) change from flight mode via flare mode to ground mode in the pitch axis and change directly from flight mode to ground mode in the roll control. In ground mode the side stick deflection lead to a direct proportional deflection of ailerons and roll spoilers without computer interaction.
However, above 80 knots the effectiveness of roll control, ailerons and roll spoilers, is reduced by the half (e.g. aileron deflection limited to 50% of maximum deflection).
When the left hand main gear contacted the ground, the radar altimeter indicating less than 50 feet AGL, both landing gear control interface units detecting weight on the left hand wheel, the airplane changed from flight to ground mode, confirmed by Airbus, the effectiveness of the roll control reduced by 50 percent at that point.
.....The airplane subsequently touched down with the left hand main gear at a roll angle of 4 degrees to the left and got airborne again. The roll angle increased to 23 degrees to the left, first officer and captain each now pushing their side sticks full right,"
Report: Lufthansa A320 at Hamburg on Mar 1st 2008, wing touches runway in cross wind landing
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We already have "computers that look ahead to see what is going to happen" with regard to flying into mountains - it's called EGPWS. What additions are you proposing?
All commercial passenger airliners flying today are already equipped with at least two of the most complex processors known to man: the human brain.
These devices consist of a network of 100 billion neurons - (each neuron a mini computer in itself) - and are able to adapt and predict and plan ahead in real time. They also produce "what if?" scenarios. The vision system alone has been developed and refined for millions of years - It uses short and long term memory resources to enhance the processed vision from the eyes to construct a real time three dimensional predictive situational awareness.
Even so, these incredibly complex devices, are not perfect. They can become tired, they make mistakes, there are errors of perception and vision. Therefore a way of operating aircraft safely has been gradually developed over the years to try to mitigate against failures and shortcomings as they become known.
What is happening in aviation today is that it has become locked into a descending spiral of ever lowering operating costs to encourage an increasing number of people to fly. This will generate profits and bonuses for the owners and shareholders, but to facilitate these lower costs, pilots (and crews) are being utilised beyond what is sensible and safe. We are technically allowed and required to fly when we are tired. Training time and quality is being reduced. Ground school - to learn the intricacies of the aircraft systems - are often reduced to computer based training, where, with enough practice, the tests can be passed without any true understanding of those systems and how that relates to operating the aircraft on a dark stormy night.
So mistakes are happening and passengers are quite rightly concerned. The answer is not to develop more and more computers to take over from the pilots - we have enough computers already. Most, (except those such as TCAS and EGPWS etc.) remove the pilot further and further away from engagement and situational awareness of their flight. Autothrust, for example, removes the need to constantly monitor and adjust the aircraft speed. We should of course always monitor our speed very carefully, but when it is operated by a computer that rarely gets this (simple linear parameter) wrong, monitoring is perhaps not as rigorously performed as it should be. Then, one day, you get pilots who have not done 'proper' groundschool to fully understand their systems; have not practised flying with manual thrust; and fly with the autopilot engaged so often; that they literally sit and allow the speed to decay to 30 knots slow on approach without doing anything about it, and just watch as their aircraft crashes around them !
I think the answer is not to spend time and resources trying to build computers to replace pilots - such a thing would be a waste of time and take decades to even work reliably enough - let alone convince the flying public; But those resources should instead be directed to proper pilot training and sensible rosters.
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These devices consist of a network of 100 billion neurons - (each neuron a mini computer in itself) - and are able to adapt and predict and plan ahead in real time. They also produce "what if?" scenarios. The vision system alone has been developed and refined for millions of years - It uses short and long term memory resources to enhance the processed vision from the eyes to construct a real time three dimensional predictive situational awareness.
Even so, these incredibly complex devices, are not perfect. They can become tired, they make mistakes, there are errors of perception and vision. Therefore a way of operating aircraft safely has been gradually developed over the years to try to mitigate against failures and shortcomings as they become known.
What is happening in aviation today is that it has become locked into a descending spiral of ever lowering operating costs to encourage an increasing number of people to fly. This will generate profits and bonuses for the owners and shareholders, but to facilitate these lower costs, pilots (and crews) are being utilised beyond what is sensible and safe. We are technically allowed and required to fly when we are tired. Training time and quality is being reduced. Ground school - to learn the intricacies of the aircraft systems - are often reduced to computer based training, where, with enough practice, the tests can be passed without any true understanding of those systems and how that relates to operating the aircraft on a dark stormy night.
So mistakes are happening and passengers are quite rightly concerned. The answer is not to develop more and more computers to take over from the pilots - we have enough computers already. Most, (except those such as TCAS and EGPWS etc.) remove the pilot further and further away from engagement and situational awareness of their flight. Autothrust, for example, removes the need to constantly monitor and adjust the aircraft speed. We should of course always monitor our speed very carefully, but when it is operated by a computer that rarely gets this (simple linear parameter) wrong, monitoring is perhaps not as rigorously performed as it should be. Then, one day, you get pilots who have not done 'proper' groundschool to fully understand their systems; have not practised flying with manual thrust; and fly with the autopilot engaged so often; that they literally sit and allow the speed to decay to 30 knots slow on approach without doing anything about it, and just watch as their aircraft crashes around them !
I think the answer is not to spend time and resources trying to build computers to replace pilots - such a thing would be a waste of time and take decades to even work reliably enough - let alone convince the flying public; But those resources should instead be directed to proper pilot training and sensible rosters.
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Given that in the Hamburg incident one of the wing fences contacted the ground (possibly as a result of summation of dual input) I'd argue that the reduction in roll authority in those circumstances was probably a good idea!
Like anything, sir; but that's not what I was getting at.
The point I was making was that whether you're talking about Google, Tesla or whomever; the complexity inherent in dynamic autonomous guidance (or, in layman's terms, computers automatically driving in response to immediate outside situations) of a ground vehicle is at least several tens of orders of magnitude less than doing the same in a fixed-wing aircraft. Not only would the logic have to deal with a far greater need to scan and evaluate in the vertical (y) plane, but because aircraft controls (particularly thrust) tend to respond much more slowly than those of a car, the overall requirement for look-ahead, simulation and evaluation would be well beyond the scope of current technology (to say nothing of the technology - several generations behind - which is currently certified for aviation use).
You haven't answered my question - which recent accidents do you believe could have been avoided with the technology you describe, how, and why?
Autothrust, for example, removes the need to constantly monitor and adjust the aircraft speed.
Then, one day, you get pilots who have not done 'proper' groundschool to fully understand their systems; have not practised flying with manual thrust;
Failure to require pilots to practice certain skills (e.g. flying with manual thrust), on the other hand, is a rather dubious practise of some airlines, and I don't think it's fair to blame the technology itself for that state of affairs.
...and fly with the autopilot engaged so often; that they literally sit and allow the speed to decay to 30 knots slow on approach without doing anything about it, and just watch as their aircraft crashes around them !
I think the answer is not to spend time and resources trying to build computers to replace pilots
Hello dozy,
Forgive me: As I often find with your posts, I am never sure whether you are agreeing or disagreeing, or whether you simply enjoy countering other people's points of view? (i.e. winding us pilots up !?
)
Straw man argument: the OP was claiming this, and I was responding to the OP. Perhaps I could have phrased it more tidily by saying "the answer is not to develop a computer to think ahead.........."
Another straw man: How does the fact that autothrust has been around for quite a while render my point invalid?
Yes I am, and they are directly related in this crash, so how does that nullify my point? It was a non understanding of the A/T HOLD mode coupled with a reluctance - or lack of ability - to monitor speed and take over and use manual thrust, that was the main cause of this crash.
Yes, they were too high all the way down the approach. Yes, the two other captains in that cockpit failed to properly alert or take control from the obviously very senior but incompetant Captain. (the {non flying} F/O was the only one who spoke up until it was far too late).
Setting and monitoring the correct thrust and speed is not a complex task, nor is it a difficult one. It can be tedious to do for long sectors (In my past I have flown five types without autothrust), and is legally necessary for CAT lll autolands.
Don't be too overawed by the FEs panels of yesteryear. I have a background and previous life in electronics, so it is easy for me to see; but each part was quite simple, there were just a lot of parts ! A bit like music mixing desks you might have seen in recording studios: they look insanely complex to the novice but they really are not. (Last night every passenger who visited the flight deck as they boarded were in awe at the cockpit: "Wow do you know what every switch and light does?" etc.)
I am trying to understand how the fact that "pilots have been falling behind their aircraft for far longer than autoflight has been around" nullifies my point? You point out that poor training was to blame as if I hadn't thought of that, but this was one of the points I made.
And, yes, I was referring to Asiana. I do agree there were CRM issues and other factors in this accident; because as we all know; any accident is never caused by a single hole in the cheese. Having said that, a proper understanding of the A/T system modes would have 'converted' this crash into a hot and high approach. Not pretty, or proper, but the landing (or go around) would have been reasonably OK and ?five people would not have died.
Regards.
Forgive me: As I often find with your posts, I am never sure whether you are agreeing or disagreeing, or whether you simply enjoy countering other people's points of view? (i.e. winding us pilots up !?
)
The answer is not to develop more and more computers to take over from the pilots
No-one directly involved with the tech side ever claimed it was. The notion that FBW/digital flight controls plus FMC/autoflight was the first step in replacing pilots was purely an invention of the press.
Autothrust, for example, removes the need to constantly monitor and adjust the aircraft speed.
That's not an especially new thing though - it's been a part of line flying since the '60s.
Then, one day, you get pilots who have not done 'proper' groundschool to fully understand their systems; have not practised flying with manual thrust;..
You're talking about two different things there.........
Yes, they were too high all the way down the approach. Yes, the two other captains in that cockpit failed to properly alert or take control from the obviously very senior but incompetant Captain. (the {non flying} F/O was the only one who spoke up until it was far too late).
Since the advent of the widebodies in the late '60s and early '70s, we're talking about airliners with a degree of complexity such that they're on the very limit of what human beings are capable of dealing with (case in point, a couple of years back I walked through the flight deck of a static B741 exhibit and the sheer number of switches, CBs and gauges blew my mind - those FEs got a silent salute out of me that day!). The reason that later aircraft systems design moved towards computer management and monitoring of those systems is because the complexity grew to such a degree that it was too much to ask of flight crew (and because that kind of work is something computers - when programmed correctly - are very good at).
Don't be too overawed by the FEs panels of yesteryear. I have a background and previous life in electronics, so it is easy for me to see; but each part was quite simple, there were just a lot of parts ! A bit like music mixing desks you might have seen in recording studios: they look insanely complex to the novice but they really are not. (Last night every passenger who visited the flight deck as they boarded were in awe at the cockpit: "Wow do you know what every switch and light does?" etc.)
...and fly with the autopilot engaged so often; that they literally sit and allow the speed to decay to 30 knots slow on approach without doing anything about it, and just watch as their aircraft crashes around them !
In all fairness, pilots have been "falling behind" their aircraft for far longer than autoflight has been around. If you're referring to Asiana into SFO, I think it's fair to point out that poor training and a series of CRM blunders were involved well before the automation mix-up came into the picture.
And, yes, I was referring to Asiana. I do agree there were CRM issues and other factors in this accident; because as we all know; any accident is never caused by a single hole in the cheese. Having said that, a proper understanding of the A/T system modes would have 'converted' this crash into a hot and high approach. Not pretty, or proper, but the landing (or go around) would have been reasonably OK and ?five people would not have died.
Regards.
Last edited by Uplinker; 7th Sep 2016 at 14:07.
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Hello DozyWannabe,
The BFU state that the continued roll to the left, despite the application of full right aileron, was due to the flight control law switching to ground mode whilst the aircraft was still technically airborne.
The crew needed more than half aileron to control the roll - but the computer logic denied it.
Given that in the Hamburg incident one of the wing fences contacted the ground (possibly as a result of summation of dual input) I'd argue that the reduction in roll authority in those circumstances was probably a good idea!
The crew needed more than half aileron to control the roll - but the computer logic denied it.
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So you think that smarter computers would be a bad thing?
Hence from post #24
"It's great to use computers to perform routine tasks - but please still give us the authority to over ride."
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that won't make them any smarter than the bloke who is programming them.
Computers play chess better than any human.
How is that not smarter than the programmer who programmed them?
Oh for goodness' sake.
Look, chess is a very strictly defined. A chess board has just 64 squares OK ? Each square can only have one piece on it. Each piece only has certain defined moves available. To win a chess game, one only needs to be able to work through every possible move you can make WITHIN those 64 squares, and the moves the opponent can make in response. Grand masters can do this to an extraordinary degree, but it is something that is very well suited to a computer, because a computer has the memory available to work through every possible move on the board and log it, score it and then make the best move according to its programmed algorithms. Chess is also not life and death.
Now, imagine you are making an approach to a runway at night. It is raining and turbulent with scattered cloud. An aircraft ahead of you has just been cleared to take off. Your aircraft is bucking around and you have the windshield wipers on. You fly through occasional clumps of cloud in which you get a brief white-out effect from your landing lights. ATC has brought you quite close in to the aircraft that has just been cleared. You have heard the aircraft acknowledge his take-off clearance. In these conditions, you can only really see the runway edge and centre lighting. You cannot see the aircraft on the runway, but you can just make out his strobes and infer where he is when he blocks out a runway light. He seems to be moving very slowly and is just lining up.
You have to make a decision according to the acceleration of the aircraft taking off whether to execute a missed approach, or whether to keep going.
Question: How do you propose to engineer and program the level of real time visual processing required to make sense of what your "thinking ahead" computer is even looking at - let alone be able to make any sort of decision about it?
All you can see is a blackness with myriad of lights ahead of you. The human pilot knows that those lights are the runway, those lights are the road nearby, those tiny lights are the aircraft on the runway, and the human brain can track that aircraft by observing where he is according to which runway lights he is blocking out. As well as this, the scene is moving around all the time due to the turbulence. The scene completely disappears now and then - replaced with just random whiteness as we fly through each cloud. The rain and the windshield wipers constantly distort and block parts of the scene. The human brain can assimilate all of this and process it into a three dimensional moving predictive situational awareness. Can any computer see this well?
Stop bloody trolling will you?
Look, chess is a very strictly defined. A chess board has just 64 squares OK ? Each square can only have one piece on it. Each piece only has certain defined moves available. To win a chess game, one only needs to be able to work through every possible move you can make WITHIN those 64 squares, and the moves the opponent can make in response. Grand masters can do this to an extraordinary degree, but it is something that is very well suited to a computer, because a computer has the memory available to work through every possible move on the board and log it, score it and then make the best move according to its programmed algorithms. Chess is also not life and death.
Now, imagine you are making an approach to a runway at night. It is raining and turbulent with scattered cloud. An aircraft ahead of you has just been cleared to take off. Your aircraft is bucking around and you have the windshield wipers on. You fly through occasional clumps of cloud in which you get a brief white-out effect from your landing lights. ATC has brought you quite close in to the aircraft that has just been cleared. You have heard the aircraft acknowledge his take-off clearance. In these conditions, you can only really see the runway edge and centre lighting. You cannot see the aircraft on the runway, but you can just make out his strobes and infer where he is when he blocks out a runway light. He seems to be moving very slowly and is just lining up.
You have to make a decision according to the acceleration of the aircraft taking off whether to execute a missed approach, or whether to keep going.
Question: How do you propose to engineer and program the level of real time visual processing required to make sense of what your "thinking ahead" computer is even looking at - let alone be able to make any sort of decision about it?
All you can see is a blackness with myriad of lights ahead of you. The human pilot knows that those lights are the runway, those lights are the road nearby, those tiny lights are the aircraft on the runway, and the human brain can track that aircraft by observing where he is according to which runway lights he is blocking out. As well as this, the scene is moving around all the time due to the turbulence. The scene completely disappears now and then - replaced with just random whiteness as we fly through each cloud. The rain and the windshield wipers constantly distort and block parts of the scene. The human brain can assimilate all of this and process it into a three dimensional moving predictive situational awareness. Can any computer see this well?
Stop bloody trolling will you?
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When you say "us pilots", it implies to me that you're drawing separation lines in anticipation of there being some kind of antagonism before it actually happens, which I reckon is a slightly sad indication (of how these things in general seem to go - not you specifically).
Straw man argument: ... Perhaps I could have phrased it more tidily by saying "the answer is not to develop a computer to think ahead.........."
How does the fact that autothrust has been around for quite a while render my point invalid?
Yes I am, and they are directly related in this crash, so how does that nullify my point?
As we know, aviation accident scenarios are usually fairly complex sequences of events involving equally complex networks of decision making, and (while not aiming at you personally) I tend to be wary of the notion of "main cause[s]" in the singular. This is because it gives rise to a tendency to focus on a few (or even single) aspects at the expense of properly understanding things from a holistic "systems safety" perspective (to say nothing of feeding the media's tendency to foment a 'blame game').
In that case it would appear that Asiana's training systems all the way back to ground school and sim training were outright unfit for purpose in many respects, and while they certainly came across as one of those airlines who trained pilots to be over-reliant on aids, technology and automation (i.e. I agree with your point there...
). But if I recall correctly it went rather further than that. To start with, Asiana maintained a list of "difficult" airfields (within which SFO was a prominent example) and effectively forbade flight crew to land there without ILS (unless there was no other option). Sim training for non-ILS approaches was always done using their home base locale, which is relatively forgiving terrain-wise.I guess what I'm getting at is that - as you say - whilst the last hole in the Swiss cheese was a failure to monitor airspeed which fell below safe margins as a result of A/THR mode confusion (and a failure of the check Captain to properly monitor and remedy the situation), my view is that this (along with the automation-reliance aspect) was but one part of the whole. In citing certain airfields as problematic and strongly discouraging flight crew from attempting non-ILS approaches at those airfields, the company's attitude ran the risk of effectively undermining flight crew self-confidence in general, even before we get to the training aspect (which further reinforced the notion that pilots should only be confident in doing non-ILS approaches at certain airfields).
In HF/psychological terms that is pretty much teaching your crew that some scenarios are probably beyond their abilities before they've even tried. It's accepted that the probability we humans have of making a mistake when performing a task increases dramatically as the amount of stress we are put under increases. As you said, I'm not a pilot, but many of those I've spoken to have said that checkrides tend to be pretty nerve-wracking even if you're usually confident in your abilities - that's stressor number one. Our newly-minted Asiana Captain was rostered to SFO (which the company considered challenging) to start with - stressor two; the check Captain was apparently of the quiet "hands-off" tendency (number three); then on finals, SFO Approach informs him that ILS is inoperative - and that's four. Minutes away from scheduled arrival time and the unfortunate guy had every reason to feel he'd drawn every single short straw possible - as such his stress level was (and the consequent odds of his making a mistake were) already drastically higher than should have been the case.
[to Uplinker : I've gone into the above tangent not to refute your point or be contrary in general - you're absolutely correct when you state that Asiana's company policy at the time was rather automation-centric - I just wanted to explain my view (for anyone who may be reading) that this particular accident had causal roots in several other aspects as well. If a person is subject to an implicit (and oft-reinforced) notion that a certain task is beyond them, and then subsequently expected to perform that task under already high-stress conditions, it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy - and the profession, organisation, ethnicity etc. involved is immaterial. ]
Don't be too overawed by the FEs panels of yesteryear. I have a background and previous life in electronics, so it is easy for me to see; but each part was quite simple, there were just a lot of parts !
- I know what you're saying - in that each part was in and of itself relatively simple - what I was getting at was that I imagined a scenario of multiple and/or cascading failures with the tool for diagnosis and remedy being literally hundreds of gauges and switches on the FE panel plus a ceiling full of hundreds more CBs each linked to an individual system - and thinking that while the tech was relatively simple in an individual sense, getting into the possible combinations and permutations had to have been (particularly in a high-stress scenario) either at or near the limit of the Mk.1 human brain.So - to reiterate - I wasn't trying to nullify your points (promise!), I was trying to add a bit of extra background info and put forward some points of my own that some readers might find interesting. I'm keeping my own counsel as to whether the OP may or may not have been a deliberate wind-up attempt (though my responses assumed giving them the benefit of the doubt) - but I promise you that I'm not doing that, and never have done.
In that scenario an "override" of the kind available on the T7 would not have helped because the timescale involved was far too short for the crew to have engaged it, let alone taken advantage of it. In my view (with which you're welcome to disagree), to say the logic "denied" the crew is an exaggeration. It gave the crew the maximum amount of right aileron that the design parameters considered safe - and to be fair, whilst the ground contact was certainly a bit of a "brown trousers" moment, the logic nevertheless gave the crew enough control authority to prevent things from getting worse.
Consider this - in that one particular scenario the aspect of the design which limits aileron travel in "ground mode" might have contributed to the wing fence "scrape". The engineers (pilot, aero, mechanical or software) who designed that system had to take multiple (tens at least, if not hundreds of) scenarios into account and come up with the best possible compromise in terms of addressing them all as safely as possible. For example, consider a scenario (one of many alternatives) in which the same inputs were applied and aileron travel was not limited, resulting in an overcontrolled roll to the right and a probable fatal crash. Then consider that for every second in time you "rewind" from that wingtip scrape, you're adding several more scenarios that must be addressed. Engineering is about compromise above all and it ain't easy.
I reckon it's worth bearing in mind that when it comes to flight controls, engineers have had to design in myriad ways of controlling and limiting input and response to help the pilots keep their craft pointed in the right direction - from mechanical baulks and counterweights through electro-hydraulic systems to today's digital technology; all of which involved compromise.
- Why illustrate your point with a Google patent clearly related to their "self-driving" car project?
- Why are you seemingly ignoring my posts explaining why the level of complexity involved in autonomous airliners is at least several orders of magnitude more complex?
- Why have you not listed (and this is the third time of asking) those aviation accidents that you think could have been avoided with "smarter" computers?
On the other hand, and to give you the benefit of the doubt one last time for now...
As a software engineer myself (and a dyed-in-the-wool techie since not long after I was out of nappies [aka diapers]) there's this. "Smarter" is very much a subjective term - I've stated many times that the kind of computer technology used in aviation (as is the case with any safety-critical real-time embedded use) always uses hardware that would be considered obsolete in any other field. Case in point - the ELAC and SEC units fitted to every A320 that has rolled off the production line from 1988 to the present day are based around the Motorola 68000 and Intel 80186. Both designs were already almost a decade old (i.e. developed in the late '70s) when the A320 went into service, both are effectively 16-bit and both are designed to run at clock speeds not much greater than 10MHz. The 68k found it's way into a lot of homes via the Atari ST, CBM Amiga, original Apple Macintosh and Sega MegaDrive/Genesis in the late '80s/early '90s and yet...
When combined in the A320 (two of each type plus a duplicated FAC), the system overall is capable of running tens of logical finite-state machines per unit, all of which are capable of self-checking and cross-checking each other in real-time. The same (arguably) "ancient" devices are also capable of assessing the crew's control inputs, calculating a certain amount of "look-ahead" in terms of the aircraft's trajectory and power settings (exactly the kind of 'simulation' you seem to be getting at) and providing the best combination of control surface and thrust response possible - all (again) in real-time.
In other words, I'd argue that whilst the underlying tech is obsolete and each individual software component is kept deliberately simple in order to enable thorough testing, in concert the system is "smart" enough to give the crew what they're asking for, and - on rare occasions - also capable of helping them avoid or get out of trouble (to a certain extent) by keeping the aircraft within the safe flight envelope.
That said, I ask one last time - what do you mean by "smarter", and which accidents would your notion of "smarter" have avoided?
Last edited by DozyWannabe; 10th Sep 2016 at 16:07.
Hi Dozy,
Your points accepted, and no offence taken. (Your written style sometimes reads as one who has more flying experience than anybody, no offence intended.)
As far as "us pilots" are concerned; I remember reading some years ago - your own post I think - that you are not a pilot?
Like so many things, the ideal and the actual are not necessarily the same thing - one has to do the actual job to realise why.
Regards,
Uplinker
@ BleedingAir: Yeah I know, I should know better by now.
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Your points accepted, and no offence taken. (Your written style sometimes reads as one who has more flying experience than anybody, no offence intended.)
As far as "us pilots" are concerned; I remember reading some years ago - your own post I think - that you are not a pilot?
Like so many things, the ideal and the actual are not necessarily the same thing - one has to do the actual job to realise why.
Regards,
Uplinker
@ BleedingAir: Yeah I know, I should know better by now.
.
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Like so many things, the ideal and the actual are not necessarily the same thing - one has to do the actual job to realise why.
It can cut both ways sometimes as well. Some of those on here who are (for want of a better term) of a "traditionalist" mindset seem to be of the opinion/belief that some time in the '80s airline managers got together with Airbus and us techies and resolved to design pilots out of the cockpit by degrees. As such I have in the past (thanks to one of my professors who took a very keen interest at the time) tried to explain that this was never the case, and that all of the engineers involved were committed to helping pilots do their job, not take it away from them.
Absolutely, Dozy, I was not judging or having a dig at you, merely confirming.I am sorry that you didn't make it into piloting, it used to be a great job, but to be absolutely honest, you really are not missing much in these days of low cost. You are probably a lot less stressed, and work more sensible hours. (And you have saved yourself £120,000 !)
I was recently physically assaulted by a baggage handler whom I had tried to ask to be more careful with our passengers' cases - that he was (literally) throwing out of the hold and some were falling to the ground.
Sadly, I find that the bad days outnumber the good days now..........
Re your last paragraph, I agree. As a previous electronics engineer myself, and now a pilot, I personally think the Airbus FBW design is very good, and I like flying it. Perhaps having an engineer's brain helps?
