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Automagic No-Fly-Zone Enforcement
An anonymous reader writes "SoftWalls is the name of an aviation project at UC-Berkeley that's developing a system for commercial airliners that establishes and enforces no-fly zones. Basically, through GPS, if a plane begins to enter a no-fly zone (eg, around a mountain, or over Lower Manhattan), an alarm goes off in the cockpit. If ignored, the system actively removes control of the plane away from the pilot and co-pilot to steer the plane out of the no-fly zone. The technology is intended as both an accident prevention technique and a deterrent to terrorists planning to ram a building. ABCNews recently profiled the project (with video) and also rode along with a working prototype built by Honeywell that successfully kept a Beechcraft from hitting a mountain."
>>The technology is intended as both an accident prevention technique and a deterrent to terrorists planning to ram a building
Why do people seem to think that terrorists are just dumb camel jockeys from the middle of the desert who are easily impressed by internal plumbing? If an al Qaeda operative wants to smash a plane into a building, he'll figure out a way to disable such a system.
What happens if I'm on a flight that for whatever the reason HAS to land at La Guardia (low fuel) and cannot navigate AROUND lower Manhattan, but instead wants to go over it. And this system won't let the pilot do that, and by steering around, runs the plane out of fuel and crashes it.
So someone says "Oh, there will be an override for situations like that" -- well, why won't that override get used when someone is bound and detmined to fly a 757 into a tall building? At that point its just another warning system, which is fine, but the computer control part scares me. I like pilots in control when necessary.
Because it's a stupid idea.
A computer can't know the myriad of decision factors that the pilot does. There's a lot more to safe flight operations, especially during an emergency, than simply pointing the airplane in the right direction. There's considerations of how bad the weather may be in one direction, which engine may have failed causing difficulty in turning in one direction, which heading the aircraft needs to be on after completing a turn to line up with the desired runway so as to make a landing the first time (because there might not be a second time), how critical is it to get to a certain altitude rapidly, and hundreds of other factors that might (or might not) be important. The pilot is the one best to rapidly rank order what's important and what's not given the particular situation he's found himself and those several hundred passengers in.
Just what computer program could decide that it's a better decision to allow the plane to fly close to a mountain (how close? 1000 feet? 2000 feet? 50 feet?) in order to meet some criteria the pilot (you know, the person deemed competent to make such decisions) has decided is most critical.
Aids that assist in flying are wonderful - keep bureauacracy and "for the children" politics out of the cockpit though.
I'm all for a plane avoiding mountains, and taking over when the pilot is incapacitated so the plane doesn't crash -- but I hate seeing articles about new technology being promoted with "it'll stop those nasty terrorists! Woohoo!"
I'm sure the (surviving) terrorists are ROFL at us scrambling to prevent them repeating something they know they'll never repeat. We need to harden our other systems -- water/electric supplies, who's driving the oil/gas tankers/trucks, etc.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Yeah, I guess 3000 hours of flight time with 500 hours in combat including more emergencies from engine failures due to fire to hydraulic failures to electrical failures to lightning strikes to ... than I can count doesn't mean shit on slashdot.
How do you think the pilot knows of bad weather ... oh thats right he gets ground reports through his computer
Well, he could always look out the window ... perhaps a difficult concept to comprehend for those that believe that the pilot should only do what's been preallowed by some programmer who is completely unaware of the particulars of the situation that may occur.
Further more how do you know which engine is out without the computer
There's a significant change in thrust from one side of the aircraft when an engine has failed. Turning into a dead engine, especially with a heavy fuel load, is usually not the smart thing to do because of the greater difficulty of turning back - but if the pilot makes a concious decision to turn in a particular direction then a computer should not attempt to override it for reasons that are less critical than safety of flight (such as some BS no-fly zone).
99% of the time you are in the air the FMC is guiding the plane including *gasp* your headings out of turns
Sigh. An autopilot system is an aid for the pilot - it's not a substitute. A system that calculates the headings and lead points is fine for rolling out on a certain course, but is irrelevant to the situation of a pilot flying the aircraft where he wants it to be, vice some erroneous decision made by software.
FMC is going to be able to calculate out how fast you can and can't climb a hell of alot better than any human
No it can't. It can calulate the optimum climb rate to get to some altitude using the least fuel or least time or least distance - but that is not definitely better - the system doesn't know what may be most important at any given moment. That's the job of the pilot. People that advocate being able to hinder the pilot's options are doing no favors to either the pilots or the passengers they are responsible for.
Responsibility for the lives of hundreds of others is a big deal. Maybe you've never been there.