Virtual Pilot Lands Qantas Jet

An anonymous reader writes "Australian airline Qantas has successfully tested an automated landing where both the pilot and the control tower didn't talk to each other. The plane was being piloted by a "Virtual Pilot" located in the control tower."

Comments

Remote control of air planes

[bomblaster]

Airplanes have been able to land on auto pilot for years using the Instrument Landing System (ILS)!!

This is more about remote control of an air plane than automated landing. According to the article, digital commands were uploaded to the 747.

With all this technology already in place, it is certainly possible to develop systems to enable commercial air planes take off on auto-pilot too. But that will require huge costs in new infrastructure to be installed at airports similar to the ILS for landing. Real-time software testing costs will also be enormous. Maybe FedEx mighe be interested in funding this :-)

Re:Remote control of air planes

[grozzie2]

I heard that autopilot-controlled ILS landings were routine for cargo carriers, but the FAA doesn't allow it when passengers are aboard.

you heard wrong. The rules are very specific in this area. A 'normal' instrument landing into weather of cielings greater than 200 feet with visibility greater than 1/2 mile may be flown by a pilot, or by the autoland system, with no preference. A Category II ILS (100 feet, 1/4 mile) _should_ be flown by the autoland, but pilots may elect to hand fly if equipment problems dictate so. A Category III ils (cieling 0, visibility 0) may NOT be hand flown and MUST be flown by autoland, no exceptions. A non functional autoland is cause to divert to an alternate airport with weather conditions suitable for a hand flown landing.

Fedex and UPS do a lot more zero-zero autoland operations because they have invested in the equipment to allow them to do so on most of thier fleets. Very few airlines actually invest in the equipment and training to do CAT III approaches, and it's surprising how many dont even invest in the requirements for CAT II.

From a safety perspective, this is an absolute no brainer. Just look at the statistics, and look for the number of landing accidents attributed to 'pilot error', and then look for the number attributed to 'autoland malfunction'. Ratio those numbers against the number of hand flown landings, vs the number of autolands performed over the sample period. You'll find the difference between the ratios to be larger than 3 orders of magnitude, with the autoland a clear winner.

When it gets right down to it, in normal operations, on autoland capable equipment, there is really no reason to hand fly airplanes today. The autoland will do a safer job, and pilots get plenty of practise in the 'bad situations' in the simulator. The flight management system will fly a more precise profile, using less fuel, with a higher safety factor. This translates into safer operations and lower costs.

I've been flying for 28 years, made my living flying airplanes for 18 of those 28. Pilots of large aircraft today are nothing more than systems managers. They assemble and analyze data in real time, and act as keypunch operators for the flight management system. They provide an audio interface between the air traffic control system and the flight managment system keyboard. The article was completely out of context of reality, in reality the system being tested just eliminates the audio step of transferring air traffic control clearances into the on board flight management system, and instead transfers them via a data link, thereby removing the potential for keypunch errors.

The reporter writing the article saw something they didn't understand, and tried to dramatize it to a point it's totally removed from reality. There was no remote control, just automated data transfers of data that would normally be spoken then keypunched. I guess the reporter must be a /. regular....

Re:Is this really big news?

[parksie]

Commercially, the autopilot is the preferred method because it can make the tiny imperceptible changes for maximum fuel efficiency, that a normal pilot wouldn't (they're unnecessary from a flight point of view).

When the autopilot fails, the normal pilot takes over.

Re:Are the sure it's safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. What if the virtual-pilot system malfunctioned and the pilots were unable to gain control before the plane crashed and killed everyone. Mass criticism would ensue for using 400 passengers as genie pigs.

It would be if they were. They weren't; this technology has been around for 10+ years.

Re:Is this really big news?

[Anonymous Coward]

>ADF to navigate by VHF beacons

That would be some pilot... since the ADF tunes non-directional beacons in a MF band.

I think you meant to write VOR... the 'V' stands for VHF... and besides... everyone hates NDB approaches.

Re:Are the sure it's safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

All autopilots are designed to be overidden easily, and overpowered by the pilot in the event of AP system failure. No company would put hundreds of passengers at risk in this way. These systems have been deployed for years as a method of taking some of the cockpit management load off pilots who can get quite busy with procedureal functions in addition to flying the plane in nasty weather. The sky will not be falling anytime soon (at least not from this )
-m

The problem with zero, zero landings ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's a crash, the emergency crews have to be able to find it.

Many years ago a Transport Canada guy told me that although Pearson Airport (Toronto) had ILS systems that would permit completely blind landings, they weren't going to permit it for the above cited reason.