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Airbus Plans to Expand Cockpit Automation
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Airbus plans computerized systems that could automatically maneuver jetliners to avoid midair collisions, without pilot input, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'For the first time, flight crews of Airbus planes will be instructed and trained to rely on autopilots in most cases to escape an impending crash with another airborne aircraft. Currently, all commercial pilots are required to instantly disconnect the autopilot when they get an alert of such an emergency, and manually put their plane into a climb or descent to avoid the other aircraft. The change, which hasn't been announced yet, comes after lengthy internal Airbus debates and despite skepticism from pilot groups and even some aircraft-equipment suppliers.'"
wasn't there a plane crash a few years back caused by both planes trying to avoid a mid air collision actually moving into each other? A system which ensures the planes do actually move apart seems a good idea
Hopefully there won't be any inches are centimeters errors in this autopilot code... Or that it won't run windows 0_o
Soon they'll have nothing left to do at all..
I was always under the impression that pilots were trained pretty much entirely for these once-in-a-lifetime events, such as mid-air collision and having one jet fail. I guess they are only going to be useful for take-off and landing now?
Maybe they're trying to phase out pilots all together? Sure would put an end to the whole pension-deficit issue that airlines are facing (well, once all the current pilots die of old age).
Will program for karma.
They should hire those kids who automated their dormroom http://web.mit.edu/zacka/www/midas.html. It's not like they have anything important to do.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Two planes, flying towards each other at 600kph, collision risk registered at 1km distance, gives 3 seconds for the crews to react. That does not seem like a lot.
Personally I'd be more comfortable with a computer doing this.
considering that Airbus runs Windows in the cockpit. They would run it for all aspects if MS would obtain the FAA certs (which even MS is not that stupid).
With this change, midair collisions that have historically been blamed on "pilot error" will now be attributed to "pilot inattention".
We will have too trust our lives more and more too machines, we already do it in hospitals...
:)
Machines and electronics are less subject to stress... pilots will have to share their responsabilities with electronics, it's inevitable.
Still, we should first have a good quality check procedures on those programmers and engineers work, as a programmer myself I wouldn't trust my own code to keep me alive
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
After all the crash of one of the first fly by wire A320 aircraft at a French air show in 1998 there were numerous questions raised about the suitability of its control software. The investigation claimed pilot error but there is considerable evidence that the data in the flight recorders was falsified. The thought of a pilot being advised to leave it to software is very worrying.
God bless the idiot-proof airforce!
--Sideshow Bob
Demented But Determined.
there exists such a thing as 'Software Bugs'
I recall reading about these dangers during the 9/11 investigation. Supposedly there were arguments leaning towards an automatic autopilot override for authorities to use in the event of something like 9/11 occurring again, the problem was just that... Too many problems and glitches with these systems. Airbus themselves have had these issues on a crash...
Mind you this accident was a while back, there were other issues with the systems overriding at the wrong time...
Infiltrated dot Net
I'm still waiting on fly-through-anything and bouce-off-anything technologies ala MS Flight Sim 2004.
"For the first time, flight crews of Airbus planes will be instructed and trained to rely on autopilots in most cases to escape an impending crash with another airborne aircraft or a building."
Technoli
You're probably referring to the July 2002 collision between a DHL cargo plane and a russian passenger aircraft. In that case both aircraft were doing what they were told and it was not pilot error.
There used to be a saying, "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going," and the term "scarebus" is becoming less humorous and more descriptive to me; I can't see this as a good idea without some serious checks and balances.
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
I dunno, but I'd like to have airbus expand _my_ cockpit.
That was unnecessary.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
...is greatly exagerated. Keep in mind that the same technology can be used in all means of transport, yet it is the rare monorail and subway line that runs without a conductor. These are both fixed-track and an order of magnitude slower that airplanes.
By the time the technology is ready for true pilotless commercial flying, we won't blink an eye.
The downside of this faith in technology soon becomes apparent, however. The following five examples graphically illustrate this.
a. When my brother was assigned captain to the then newly introduced Airbus A 310 - a plane which in the 1980s was considered a high-tech aircraft but today already appears antiquated - he told me about an incident that gave me pause: During the last stage of the final approach, a bolt of lightning struck the nose of the aircraft, damaging the plane's electronic equipment in the process. The confused on-board computer still had a suggestion to make, however, and flashed it on the screen: "Shut down engines."
Now no sensible pilot in the world would do that during this stage of flight, so "Colleague Computer's" suggestion was ignored. The incident itself makes one stop and think, however: Isn't there the danger that at some point in the future the on-board computer will not merely make a suggestion but go ahead and take action itself? Isn't there perhaps even a danger that one day, in keeping with the new philosophy I mentioned earlier, the pilot will only be able to intervene to the extent permitted by the computer? No matter how enthusiastically one may basically embrace technical progress, anyone who has retained any critical perspective at all will find it impossible to answer this question with an unequivocal "no". The following additional examples make it clear that a healthy dose of scepticism is by no means unwarranted.
b. On 26 June 1988, a brand-new Air France A 320 that was participating in an air show crashed in a wooded area in the Alsatian town of Habsheim near Mulhouse while performing an extremely low altitude fly by. When the pilot reached the end of the runway and wanted to power up the engines from minimum thrust to the thrust required for climb, the aircraft failed to react to his signal to commence the climb: Since the plane had been flying over the airfield at minimum speed (VLs) on the verge of a stall, the on-board computer refused to obey the command to lift the nose, for if the low thrust had remained unchanged, lifting the nose would have caused the plane to stall and then crash. The plane had not yet attained the higher speed necessary to avert a stall, however, because a jet engine needs several seconds to accelerate. Thus the A 320, controlled by computer logic and unresponsive to the pilot's will, flew into the adjoining woods.
c. On 14 September 1993, a Lufthansa A 320 crashed in Warsaw while landing on a wet runway in the rain. Due to the strong crosswind, the pilot tilted the plane slightly to the right just before touchdown; it thus touched down first on the right main landing gear and then on the left. As a consequence of the A 320's construction at the time, the spoilers (which changes the airflow round the wings, modifying the lift and thus bringing the plane down to the ground) did not work because the main landing gear on both sides were not fully weighted and the wheels - due in no small part to the aquaplaning effect - were not turning at the programmed speed. In short: According to the logic of the computer, the plane had not yet landed but was still turning. Thus the spoilers, which would create a braking effect, were not to be activated. At that time neither the thrust reversers nor the spoilers of an Airbus A 320 - in contrast to a Boeing 737, for instance - could be manually activated. As a result, the aircraft - braked too slowly and too late - raced towards the end of the runway. The human being (pilot) was helpless.
As if that were not enough, the on-board computer did one more thing: The pilot could not fully activate the thrust reversers to brake the plane because the engine performance had been reduced to a maximum of 71 percent of full reverse thrust in order to protect the engines. A captain friend of mine remarked: "That would not have happened with my B 737."
Conclusion: "The pilot, who in a crisis decides against protecting the engine
Infiltrated dot Net
The real question is how many planes today allow the autopilot to completly take over the controls when sent a signal from the home base?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I wonder if they ever nailed down that "sudden decompression" problem possibility brought to light by Joseph Mangan. I tend to side with the guy because he has lost everything defending his viewpoint of using inferior automobile-grade chips to control valve hatches critical for compression as a danger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mangan http://www.eaawatch.net/
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Peter Griffin: (to the Stewardess) Hey, where are we right now?
Stewardess: On an airplane, sir.
Peter: No. This room. What is this room called?
Stewardess: The flight deck?
Peter: No...
Stewardess: Control room?
Peter: No...
Stewardess: Cockpit?
Peter: (guffawing) HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HO, HO!!! AH, HO, HO!!! Oh, god! (to the pilot next to him) I told you I got her to say it! AH, HO, HO!!
The 777 and A380 don't have physical control links between the cockpit and the wings. Even when the autopilot is off, you still have to depend on the computer to fly the plane.
"HAL, please fly the plane level!"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"...
Some industrious Hollywood upstart read this post and is already working on a terrifying thriller about the perils of anything that involves machines. It's about a brilliant but evil criminal mastermind who hijacks the automatic aircraft guidance system and aims a crowded airliner directly at the White House. But little did he know, there would be one passenger on board he wasn't expecting.
Enter creepy movie announcer voice
From the director of Die Hard... Autopilot -- Prepare for the ride of your life!
obligatory skynet reference.
Airbus's design philosophy is that the airplane knows best, and Boeing's is that the pilot knows best. I tend to agree with Boeing. For example, AFAIK, one cannot cross control a modern Airbus - the airplane automatically maintains coordinated flight under all conditions. Normally, this is a good thing. However, in the case of Air Canada flight 143, where a Boeing 767 was improperly fueled, the pilots intentionally slipped the aircraft to avoid disaster (http://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html). In the case of American Airlines flight 587, where the tail of the Airbus broke off, the cause of crash was determined to be the pilot's rapid full extent rudder inputs. However, when one looks into _why_ the pilot put in those rudder inputs, you find out that Airbus uses a very high detent load (high load before initial travel) combined with very low load progression as the pedal is depressed - kind of like a keyboard key. Try to press a key on your keyboard 1/4 way - it's not easy. Bottom line - Airbus has some decent technology, but their aircraft are not always pilot friendly. To ignore what the end user - the pilots - have to say about design is just plain foolish.
err...you mean like...In the case of an emergency?
Most of time, Airbus products tend to collide with ground, not other aircrafts. I think they'd better solve this issue first.
My favorite cartoon version of an auto-pilot, from an ancient WB 'toon: Bugs Bunny and whoever are in an out of control airplane, so in desperation they press this big button labled "auto pilot". A door opens up, a cliche' looking Robot runs out, sees what's going on, grabs a parachute and jumpes out.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Maybe there should be a button the pilot can press that irreversibly hands over control of the plane to the autopilot, which then makes for a nearby airport and lands, attempting to avoid overflying populated areas. Obviously it isn't something you'd normally ever want to do as there's a small danger of the autopilot going wrong, but if a terrorist tried to storm the cockpit in order to seize control and deliberately crash the plane into a particular target the pilot could just hit the "lock-down" button and there would be nothing the terrorist could do. (Of course, he could still blow up the plane but he couldn't use the plane as a weapon.) Perhaps the risk of the autopilot going haywire would sometimes be smaller than the risk of the plane being forced into a building.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
... Brings to mind the Farside Cartoon, where the one pilot says to the other: "Say Jeff, what is a mountain goat doing way up here in the clouds." Seriously though, commercial airline pilots are now just one step closer to being glorified bus drivers. Ok, airbus drivers, but you get the point.
Oho, but will these controls run Linux?
Interesting. I was just re-reading Manna, the fascinating book wherein pilots and human air traffic controllers are replaced by automated systems after 2008 because of accidents and terorism. Are we to see further diminishment of pilot control over the next few years?
I'd be very skeptical this program given the history Airbus aircraft have had with their control systems and their general managerial attitudes for safety.
For instance, the crash of Flight 587, an Airbus A300 in November 2001 was caused by a "delamination" of the vertical stabilizer's composite structure - moisture got in between the layers of composite material and caused them to pull apart. Subsequent inspections found other aircraft with signs of vertical stabilizer delamination. The Canadian Transportation Safety Board has recommended detailed checks of Airbus A3000 rudder assemblies because of the issue.
The problem is that manual inspections can't always reveal signs of delamination - it often requires ultrasound inspection - something Airbus has refused to support, and there has even been accusations that Airbus has tried to inappropriately lobby the NTSB against such a recommendation.
Airbus' overreliance on technology and dysfunctional managerial culture continues to put passengers at risk - and this new automated system ensures that the pilot has even less control than he or she did before. Trusting that system to do the right thing in a crisis is always a risky proposition - trusting a manufacturer with such a generally shoddy attitude towards safety makes it even riskier.
How about they start improving safety with a steady stream of sensor telemetry from the plane to the ground network, including microphones and crew "panic buttons"? The radios could signal on several bands, to receivers including satellite and longer waves, caching data when disconnected for burst update when reconnected. Any significant outage or deviation would generate an alert.
Later they can make the signalling more than read-only. I'd prefer aircraft primarily on autopilot, with crews chatting with each other across the global skies while they monitor their own flights and each other, supported by ground crews.
Why is there ever any dependence on finding a "black box" recording after a fiery crash?
--
make install -not war
I have always thought that the cost of having a conductor on light rail systems was dumb. If you MUST hire someone, hire an extra security guard.
The Ariane 5 Rocket self destructed because of an unhandled overflow exception thrown by the flight control software. http://www.around.com/ariane.html
Pretty soon the Blue-Screen-of-Death is going to become a lot more sinister.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
A Bad Programmer is a Killer ... worth reading
Infiltrated dot Net
Put some snakes on the plane...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Sure it is possible that the automated system will cock up and we should still have pilots ready to take control in case the planes get *really* close, i.e., the autopilot should be given the chance to steer away when the planes first get too close and if they continue to approach each other the pilot should be able to quickly override. If the situation evolves so fast that the pilot just wouldn't have time to take over if the autopilot is acting incorrectly then I'm even more convinced the autopilot should be in control. Humans acting quickly make lots of mistakes and take long times to figure out coordination issues (I presume there is some international standard on which way to turn to avoid a collision but stil).
Of course this system should be tested as thourghly as possible but the truth is that people make TONS of mistakes. Sure there have been incidents of air accidents caused by bad software but there is no shortage of accidents caused by pilot error. For some weird reason people seem more comfortable trusting their safety to an individual that might screw up than a computer that might screw up. Personally I want to minimize my chance of dying so if a computer has a slightly smaller chance of killing me I will take that.
Hopefully one day the computers will run the entire plane flight and 9/11 type uses of airlines as weapons will just be impossible.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Sounds great - Just let me know when the Google version is ready to use in my flying car.
why don't they write some software to handle crisis management for the company ... like what the company should do if all their new planes are found to have some serious flaw ... just leave the company directors out of the decision ...
... which involves many human lives and is more important than the corporate well being of airbus!
when they do that, then perhaps we can consider trusting the computer to do crisis management of planes
f3773t
So now they'll have Otto and ROC?
"We have to blow the computer!"
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Currently, all commercial pilots are required to instantly disconnect the autopilot when they get an alert of such an emergency
This is just outright not true.
While it IS true that a pilot is required to obey a traffic resolution solution provided by a TCAS system (Traffic Collision Avoidance System), he's by no means required to disconnect the autopilot before doing so. In an emergency (and a TCAS yelp is an emergency), you just grab the controls and do what you have to. The autopilot will either a) disengage on its own or b) live with your control inputs.
The Airbus may be special since the newer ones are all fly-by-wire, meaning the pilot's inputs go to a computer that then decides what control surfaces to move. It may very well be that on the fly-by-wire stuff the autopilot overrides the pilot, but that's downright scary. I've seen autopilots happily chase a wandering VOR needle due to some sort of course roughness that a pilot would just simply ignore.
I'm all for cockpit automation as it makes flying significantly safer, but taking the pilot more and more out of the equation frightens me in some ways... equipment isn't 100% reliable, even when triply redundant, and the automation isn't always right. Every pilot that's spent any significant amount of time with glass panels has at least once scratched his head and asked, "why the hell did it do that?"
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
Hurray!
Why is there ever any dependence on finding a "black box" recording after a fiery crash?
Better yet, why not make the whole plane out of whatever material the black box is made of? Then the whole thing could survive the crash!
I'm getting an idea. No, false alarm. No. Yes! No. Yep. Nope, waaiiit, no. Yes. Yes. No. YES!!!!
How about implementing international standards for collision avoidance similar to what exists in the marine world, e.g., if one aircraft is overtaking another, the one overtaking vectors starboard (that's right), the one being overtaken vectors port (that's left). If approaching head-on, both vector starboard, if approaching at right/oblique angles, the one to starboard descends (if altitude and terrain allows) and the one to port ascends. Seems simple to me.
Of course, the ideal solution is to stick to your flight plan when flying IFR, keeping your eyes open when flying VFR and when flying VFR stay within VFR conditions, keeping your eyes open all the while, and fly conservatively. But no, that would be too sensible and would not earn lawyers (no legislation required) and avionics manufacturers enough money (no having to retrofit needless systems into aircraft and recertify them).
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
...That implies that it can also cause them. This sounds like the same flawed plan that went around just after 9/11, in which it was proposed that there should be some way to take control of hijacked planes from the ground. Any time that you create the potential for someone to remotely control an airliner, whether via a real-time link or by inserting some code into the avionics beforehand, you've given anyone with a high-enough level of technical expertise a bunch of cruise missiles that don't require a martyr to operate.
I just want to know where the crew will sit if that inflatable guy is in their seat the whole time.
The system to avoid mid-air collisions is already mostly automatic.
It's called Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). It intercepts
other aircrafts' transponder position signals, and, in case of
intersecting traffic, actually communicates with the other aircraft's
TCAS system, and they both agree on which of them will ascend or
descend. This decision is then communicated to the pilots via audio.
Therefore, if both aircraft have TCAS installed, they are guaranteed
to receive opposite instruction (i.e., one to ascend, one to descend).
In the mid-air collision over Germany a few years back, both aircraft
had TCAS, and they both worked perfectly, and their instruction would
have avoided the crash. However, at the same time that the TCAS alarm
sounded, the traffic controller advised the one aircraft to sink,
in disagreement of the TCAS instruction. Unfortunately, the pilot
decided to ignore the TCAS, and followed the traffic controller's
instruction, driving right into the path of the other aircraft,
which was following TCAS advice to sink.
Since then, pilots have been trained to always follow TCAS
instruction. When pilots must follow TCAS instruction, it is
logical to automate that decision. With the appropriate controls
to override the autopilot, of course.
I think planes should move to only 1 pilot, really that is all there is during emergencies becasue the Captain makes all the calls. Review the crash histories and you will see pilot error in almost all (excluding terrorism). The British Midland crash is a perfect example.
Slashdot is like a newspaper now... every time I look at it I see stories I read on the internet a week ago.
"You break left and I'll break right".
To never fly on an airbus plane again. They've been taking away a pilots ability to follow his/her instincts for a while now. The current system won't even let a pilot make a manuever out of normal spec even if pilot deems it neccessary.
I had a good friend who once read a story about a guy who was thrown from a car accident and walked away because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He used that example for many years as justification for NEVER wearing a seatbelt (and, ironically, he suffered a concusion from a 15 mph fender bender).
So, humans have an incredible capacity for ignoring the facts that don't support what they want to believe. In this case, even if the computer makes the RIGHT decision and a collision is avoided, passengers will get pissed for minor injuries in a severe turn, the computer will be blamed and a massive investigations will be launched.
And, in some cases, very senior, experienced individuals will make better decisions, but these aren't the guys that will flying the planes most of the time. They're the guys that need to train the computer systems (like chess - you need really great chess players to 'teach' the computers and, at some point, the computer will outplay the master).
1. They only travel in one dimension.
2. They have the option of stopping travelling in that one dimension at any time. Doing so doesn't kill everyone.
3. Emergency action consists of either moving or stopping.
The fact that it's taken this long to get an automated system to understand the commands 'Go' and 'Stop' with any degree of safety would indicate that airline pilots shouldn't be too worried about loosing their jobs to Metal Mickey.
Half way through a long flight, the Pilot and First Officer hear a beep...they glance at the display units and a chill runs through their body...
"An update has been installed that requires a reboot of your aircraft..."
AT&ROFLMAO
Airbus Autopilot flightsimulator game from Microsoft. Just turn it on and hope it doesn't crash.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Given that today's front-page-top-center-headline is "Incidents Prompt New Scrutiny Of Airplane Software Glitches" and the accompanying article discusses a number of autopilot problems that have led to uncontrolled/out-of-control situtions on commercial jets during flight.
There are rules for avoiding collisions. In-flight collisions among commercial traffic are unbelievably rare in the First World because pilots don't generally BSOD or have their sensors start giving them false information. (To be more precise, they're trained to understand the quality of information their instruments are giving them, and decide when to stop trusting that information.)
Software can clearly fly planes, and fly them safely. It also clearly isn't managing to do so yet and until we can write software that's better than two pilots we shouldn't be putting it in aircraft.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
We can trust the judgement of a multi-thousand hour Airline Transport Pilot, or a dumb computer. That's a no-brainer (no pun intended) for me.
If Airbus actually implements this insanity, I'm hoping that the Federal Aviation Administration (the US flight safety organization) finally puts it foot down and says "no way on a US certificated aircraft."
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
What happens when these "Anti-Terroist" measures get used by the terrorists? Is it so implausible that a terrorist might take over a flight control center and then start sending planes into the ground? Or into eachother? Or a Building? Didn't Bruce Willis show us this in a Die Hard movie?
I don't recall that accident- but I do recall very vividly the huge mess around Air France Flight 296. The pilot was doing a low pass for an air show, gave the engines throttle, and the computer on the Airbus 320 decided "no". The plane crashed and killed three people.
There are photos showing people who never should have touched the black box (civilian aviation authorities, instead of the police), taking it away...and the black box that was taken away from the scene was intact, but the one returned (under court order 10 days later) was different in appearance, if I recall. Quite a bit of telemetry had been completely erased from the data tapes and remaining data was out of sync.
The whole problem originated because some engineer thought it would be a good idea to inject some code into the process of "pilot decides to apply throttle, engines respond." The pilot should ALWAYS be free to override systems, and you should have a really, really, really REALLY good reason for putting any logic into control systems. It almost never works without some sort of hitch; complexity breeds problems.
On almost any plane with an autopilot system, there is a BIG red button on the control yolk that, when pressed, immediately PHYSICALLY disconnects the autopilot from the control systems and sounds a loud beeper for a few seconds.
Furthermore, run-up procedures (at least in non-commercial, small planes I flew in as a passenger) have the pilot a)check that he can physically overpower the autopilot in all control directions (they have a clutch, basically, on the autopilot motors) and b)that the emergency disconnect works. The tests are repeated for rudder and alieron adjustments.
We also have a huge, peer-reviewed system for continuously training pilots in all aspects of flying; pilot's associations, company training and bulletins on safety, procedures, etc in most airlines, and word of mouth. We don't have that for engineers that program computers that handle critical-to-life-and-safety systems on planes...unless they're very experienced pilots themselves. Even then, do you really think Airbus flight control programmers sit down and hobnob with Boeing fligh control programmers? Hell no...
Please help metamoderate.
I'm an aerospace engineer, and I work with a lot of other aerospace engineers in a job where I flight test airplanes and control systems, including autopilot systems similar to those used on big heavy jets.
I don't feel very comfortable on an Airbus. They're big and spacious and well appointed - and dangerous. Quite a few of my colleagues will change travel plans rather than have to fly on an Airbus.
Hmm.
On the autopilot system I'm helping to test, the manufacturer (yes, it's one of the big two) is up to version 19 of the software, out of a planned 3 versions. Yep, nineteen for three. It's taken them 19 revisions to even get CLOSE to an acceptable (not even perfect) design. It's very very difficult to uncover all the possible ways that hundreds-of-thousands-of-line computer code can go wrong (as I'm sure you geeks know very well) - and in passenger aviation, a wrong line can kill you, as Airbus has proven very successfully several times already.
*Shudder*
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
SNAKES ON A PLANE...
Sorry , here it is again...
http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
There is only one way to insure that mission-critical software is 100% reliable: Abandon the 150-year old algorithmic software model (the Turing Computing model) and embrace the non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous software model (the behavioral computing model). Don't say you weren't warned, Airbus, Lockheed, Boeing, NASA, FAA, etc... The internet does not forget. ahahaha...
It's probably worse with the autopilot thing. The system would HAVE to include communication between the software running on the two planes, because the two would have the same algorithm.
/*Autopilot puts happy tone music on for 3 seconds ..etc..etc
Plane A: Crash course [processing] GO UP 200ft!
Plane B: Crash course [processing] GO UP 200ft!
Plane A: Crash course [processing] GO DOWN 200ft!!
Plane B: Crash course [processing] GO DOWN 200ft!!
Actually, anyone flying left seat in the big iron *IS* a thoroughly and exhaustively trained, very senior and experienced person fully capable of making the correct decisions and acting on them. And I trust the guy at the front of the plane far more than I trust a team of software developers working in an office somewhere.
Ian Ameline
The solution's actually quite simple: you just don't tell them that there's no "real" pilot.
That's precisely why at some point during every flight when I have to travel, I run up and bang on the cockpit door, demanding that they open it so I can see the pilots.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
So, what's the average reaction time of the flight marshals?
The owls are not what they seem
And most flights are probably done 95% on autopilot these days.
For certain, almost all commercial flights employ autopilot for at least some segments of the flight. But certainly nowhere near 95% of all flights use autopilot. Don't underestimate the number of GA (General Aviation, a.k.a. "Private Pilots") out there flying for kicks and convenience.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
From that link the 737 has a pretty good record. Better than the A300 and MUCH better than the A310. The 300/400/500 models are about equal to the A319/320/321.
And the Concorde looks like suicide, but the total flights number is much smaller.
Something else to keep in mind, the fatal accident rate per person-mile traveled of all of these models are waaaay lower than the US interstate system.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
How about implementing international standards for collision avoidance similar to what exists in the marine world, e.g., If approaching head-on, both vector starboard, if approaching at right/oblique angles, the one to starboard descends (if altitude and terrain allows) and the one to port ascends. Seems simple to me.
Of course, the ideal solution is to stick to your flight plan when flying IFR, keeping your eyes open when flying VFR and when flying VFR stay within VFR conditions, keeping your eyes open all the while, and fly conservatively.
Perhaps it's different in the US, but in Canada, you should never be in a "head-on" collision situation while VFR (or IFR, for that matter). In Canada, VFR aircraft on eastbound headings (0 - 179 degrees magnetic) must fly at odd-thousands plus 500 feet altitudes. Aircraft flying westbound (180 - 359 degrees magnetic) fly at even-thousands plus 500. This assures a 1000 foot vertical separation between opposite-facing traffic. IFR traffic flies at even and odd thousands (without the "plus 500").
Is that not how it works in the US, too?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Basically 9/11 has put an end to hijacking for ever. Earlier in an hijack the passengers would meekly follow orders in the expectation that eventually the government would negotiate their release or rescue them. However post 9/11 passengers have no way of knowing if the hijackers plan to negotiate or just hit a building. So it becomes a choice between sitting quitely and dying or fighting back. Even the most pacifist and cowardly person would fight like crazy in such a situation. Forget box cutters even if the terrorists got AK 47s aboard they still couldnt shoot a whole lane load of passengers before being taken down unless they actually had like at 25% of the passengers in their team. Rarely do terrorists have that kind of manpower- terrorism by definition is used by parties with inadequate manpower to fight open battles.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I would. But then, I document my code.
Good thing compliers are bug free too. Or the underlying OS. Or hardware microcode. Or CPU.
Not that code documentation is any measure of correctness. A good practice to be sure, but abysmal code could be well-documented.
I do think it's possible to build resilient computer systems with error correcting hardware, software that catches failures and multiple-vote redundant systems, design by contract interfaces, etc. Just nobody does such things because they adversely impact quarterly revenues.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And robots. Giant robots.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Those numbers include hijackings/bombings etc.
To accurately represent the safety of the aircraft, they would need to eliminate those incidents. If you do so, the numbers work out quite differently.
Ian Ameline
I wonder if female airline pilots object to it being called a "cockpit" - shouldn't they insist it be called a "chicken-pit"?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"HAL, please fly the plane level!"
"I'm sorry, Dave, the plane is level."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The last time Airbus publicly showed-off a computer controlled passenger jet, the plane crashed in a most horrific way.
http://69.57.136.18/moviestorage2/af320.mpg
Interesting? Jesus this is a troll!
Clippy has detected another plane approaching....FAST. What would you like me to do?
Turn Left
Turn Right
Dive
I don't see any planes. Send a bug report to Microsoft.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Will the autopilot be INFLATABLE?
Sucks to be on that boat!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It should be easy to establish that a heartbeat somewhere should have the control of the plane. Leaving the choice of inside or outside of the plane. If you introduce the override outside of the plane, now you don't even have to be inside of the airplane to hijack it. (Isn't this what the 9/11 conspiracy sites allege?)
Someone somewhere has to have the master control that no one can override. Either the guy in the plane, or the guy on the ground. Either of them could be hijacked. Personally, I trust the person in the plane. Sounds like they are fixing a problem that doesn't really need to be fixed, and introducing a rather larger security hole.
In the great action flick Die Hard 2, the terrorist took over the airport and set the altititude of 200 ft lower than what it should have been and sent that data to the planes. Now, even though they took over the radar at the airport, but what's to say they couldn't take over this control system? :P
Really and truely, i think airplanes should use turn signals. I hate it when people can't seem to use thier's
There have been undoubtedly lethal crashes caused by computer interface issues as well as software issues of modern planes (a bit more with Airbus, but that's not to say that Boeing has been excluded.)
However, historically, pilot error (also called, amusing, controlled flight into terrain) has killed more people than any other issue.
I like to cite American Airlines 965, which crashed in the mountains surrounding Cali, Columbia. Like any accident, the situation was a long series of mistakes (many of which were computer interface issues in regards to navigation.)
The aicraft was slowing down to land and so had the flaps down. The pilots were giving a terrain alarm and told to pull up. They did so and put the engines on maximum power to avoid ramming into the mountain the aircraft was warning them about. According to the investigation, had they put the flaps back up, the aircraft would have made it, but with the flaps down the engines couldn't overcome the drag--but in all the excitement, they forgot the flaps.
I believe a newer Airbus would have put 2+2 together and pulled the flaps up.
Late 80s, early 90s I don't quite remember. I was flying from Greece to the US. We were over the Alps and I was sitting by the Window on the right side of the plane facing NE. It was a beautifull scenery. In the distance I saw a dot in the sky and the dot was getting larger. In very little time the dot passed under our plane maybe 100-200 feet. It was another Jet. It was so close that I saw the cockpit. Of course it was blurry since the jet flew perpendicular to our jet @ 500+ mph. This of course happened at 30,000 feet. Now, for my opinion: I think airplane flight can be automated easier than cars for the following reasons: 1. Fewer planes than cars. 2. They run on a schedule. 3. They have deterministic flight paths. From point A to point B. 4. They don't talk on cell phones. 5. They don't eat/drink/eat/read books.
When the programmers have concluded that the plane is safe to fly, give them free tickets.
If a computer had been in charge, computers have no intelligence, no judgement, and no creativity. All dead is the inevitable result.
Add one phrase to that old aviation maxim.
Coincidentally, there's an article in today's WSJ about bugs in flight control software, including an account of a Malaysian 777 that experienced 3000-foot altitude oscillations brought on by the computer before it could we wrestled back into control, and a 747 that automatically shut down two of its engines by mistake. Most of these seems to be responses to bad sensor information.
A relative of mine is an A320 captain, and says he COULD let the plane basically fly itself from gate to gate these days. There are still some situations where you need a hand on the stick and have to revert to your basic instrument-scan training when the computers reboot or the instrumentpanel goes dark. It does happen from time to time. For a single pilot, it may be a once in a lifetime thing, but multiply that by a lot of pilots....not so uncommon.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
To be fair, these engines are kept below full reverse to avoid catostrophic engine failure that could likely result in explosion and loss of the entire wing.
Well if you are certain you are about to go off the edge of a runway into a body of water, or into a woods at high speed then I'd take a "Likley" loss of a wing any day.
The problem is that pilots should have the ability to make that choice as needed, and not have an option removed because it offers some risk. Perhaps it takes some manual saftey overrides but it should at least be possible.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Did anyone see when they did this with the new S-class Merc ?
It was supposed to have automatic emergency brakes, they tried it at a press release, and it crashed. Someone had disabled it.
Best of luck to Airbus.
Many posts here are going espouse the advantages of manual control over computer control and vice versa. I think that computer reaction could be a good thing in certain situations however at this point, I do not know if the computer would be adquate in all situations. The one situation I can think of is if the airplane on autopilot and the pilots can't switch to manual fast enough to correct for a situation. What the article doesn't mention is if there is an override. As with other instances of computer control, there needs to be an manual override when the computer did not respond.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Do you really think Boeing or Airbus want a fully automated aircraft? Any bug or design flaw that causes an accident can no longer be blamed on the crew (who in a lot of cases can no longer defend themselves). The manufacturer will have to accept full liability, rather than dump it on the crew.
I don't think they really want this. From what I have seen, both manufacturers have over confidence in their products reliabilty when it comes flight management & automation software.
On August 29th, 2007, Skynet will become self aware.
The progression to this as follows:
Instrument planes that are still human-flown with an order of magnitude more sensors than they currently have. Have backups for them (pressure, GPS, and dead-reckoning altitimeters, etc.) Record tons of flight data. Then what you do is add prototypical "auto-pilot" systems that are supposed to deal with imperfect inputs. Have the auto-pilot make decisions during the flight plan that don't actually translate into flight manuvers. Then you can analyze it on the ground to see how the real flight and the simulated flight match up... see what new kinds of logic and detection and resolution algorithms need to be added to the programming. Rinse, repeat. Eventually you should have an autopilot that makes all the "right" decisions even when weird stuff happens in the air, and you can verify that after the fact.
Then you let the autopilot fly, with human pilots for failsafe. Try that for a few years.
Eventually once you get enough flight hours you should feel reasonably confident the auto-pilot system has enough internal redundancy and "experience" that it bests most actual pilots. Its a time consuming, iterative process. But it can have enormous potential.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Train the autopilot so well that it can handle any "situation" a typical 20+ year commercial veteran has seen. (It's less an "AI/sentinence" issue but more collecting and processing data offline). If the computer couldn't handle it, most pilots would know what to do either. And you can always add a failsafe like: give control to human staff on board, or emergency remote flight control (some FAA building somewhere), or power down engines 80% and attempt to minimize kinetic energy impact to ground... or something.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
:-P
Pilots are human and are capable of making a mistake, but so is software (having been written by humans). Personally, I'll take my own human programming over the computer software anyday. My piloting skills have been written, debugged and tested for over a decade . Also, the other pilot sharing the cockpit has his/her own independent piloting program running in their brain double-checking mine. At best with computers, you have two separate computers running the same faulty program. Never mind, that the computers don't have access to or the ability to correlate all the information we have accumulated in years of flying. Weather data, radar information, how a cloud "looks", what virga looks like, where mountain wave might be, wake turbulence from other aircraft, assimilating communications from ATC with other aircraft. I could go on and on. The truth is, computers are fast and efficient at bringing tools to help humans do their jobs more efficiently. I'm glad they are there to HELP me do my job. However, they have never even remotely been able to compare with thousands of years of human evolution in any job.
Unfortunately, that programmer is tasked by his employer (the aircraft manufacturer/airlines[indirectly]) with the duty to do whatever it takes to save the aircraft in any situation. It's just a bonus if there is no loss of life in the process. This 'laissez faire' attitude doesn't take into account the 'edge conditions' mentioned in the parent post where the software doesn't know what to do. This is just a logical outgrowth of the 'Life Is Cheap But Toilet Paper Is Expensive' mentality of big busines.
At this rate, they should give pilots a manual override switch to turn off the flight computer's higher brain functions or just scrap all computerized avionics alltogether and go back to the seat-of-your-pants, fly-by-wire days.... =/
This situation also reminds me of a Werner Von Braun quote:
Wow! Insightful an disparging at the same time!
Perhaps this is ultimately (in a way) the mantra of big business. It seems that way due to their past behavior--the most noteworthy of that seems to be the collapse of Enron.
If one plane gets built in Britain/Autralia/whereever and the other gets built in USA/France/whatever lets hope they both go left or right and don't just dodge into eachother.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I believe it was just yesterday that the WSJ published a story about a wild ride aboard a 777 due to a software bug.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just so no one gets the wrong idea here, the term "fly-by-wire" does NOT necessarily refer to a computer overriding the pilots. In a lot of the Airbus discussion I see online, it gets used in this way. FBW is, very simply put, a flight control system that uses electrical impulses over wires to send commands to the servos that move the control surfaces on the wings, tail and stabilizer as opposed to hydraulic lines or manual cable linkages. Nothing about computers overriding pilots is directly implied by the term. The Boeing 777 is a FBW aircraft and has no such system for overriding pilot inputs.
Airbus basically places something called an FCC (Flight Control Computer) as a middle man between the pilot's sidestick and the control surfaces. This computer accepts the pilots commands as input, modifies then according to what Airbus calls "flight law regimes" and then sends a modified signal on to the computers - this is where all the unique "Airbus stuff" comes from such as the pitch and roll limiters where the pilot can't exceed 33 degrees nose up or down or 66 degrees of bank. The FCC also eliminates any concept of elevator trimming for cosntant pitch, such as what you'd find on virtually any other airplane. The FCC simply continues to command the elevator to maintain whatever pitch (it's technically G-load, but that's beside the point) and bank angles that were present when the pilot lets go of the stick. Most aircraft do not hold their attitude like this, if you release the yoke, the plane will have a tendency to return to wings level and to climb or descend depending on the trim setting.
Airbus keep coming up with crackpot schemes to make computers do more of the work, and people less. Most of them quietly dissapear, but its worrying nonetheless. Ever since Air France's first Airbus A320 flew into the forest and the 'black boxes' (flourescent orange boxes?!) were 'dissapeared' in the boot of a car owned by Airbus people before the official investigators got their hands on them. The flight data recorder was out of official hands for some three days after the accident. I've never trusted Airbus FBW aircraft (any A320/A319/A321, A330, A340, A380, A350). That game with the flight data and cockpit voice recorders just makes things worse. As a passenger, I book for myself, and I'm *very* careful to make sure that I don't fly on Airbus products. If there is a last minute aircraft substitution, I'll play difficult customer and baulk at the gate. "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going".
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." (Diderot)
If you pull on the control stick for some length of time, 10 seconds I believe, then you escape the autopilot. A lot can happen in 10 seconds.
On second thoughts, are you sure they don't already?
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Except that the A300 is not a fly-by-wire design.
The concord looks bad, but as you alluded the flight numbers are smaller. Notice there is only the one incident. In the only fatal concord accident the plane ran over a piece of debris on the runway which blew out a the landing gear, which ultimately would likely have had fatal consequences on any plane in service.
If you eliminate the single non-design related concord accident it is probably one of the safest planes ever built.
Well, safest unless you count the horrendous damage it could do to the wallet of anyone associated with it - passenger or operator.
It is called Freefall by Bill Hoffer. One HELL of a good read. It details in very very specific and technical terms the causes for the 767 Canada Air incident.
9 06897-5291803?v=glance&n=283155
It also provides the human side of the story by a narrative time line. I HIGHLY recommend this to everyone!
ISBN: 0312922744
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312922744/103-7
Libertas in infinitum