Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
Yeah, immediate the transfer of the "immediate party" button from the dorm room to the cockpit context.
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.
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
"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
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
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!!
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.
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); }
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.
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.
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
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.
"You break left and I'll break right".
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).
I thought the Aloha incident was more of a maintenance issue. The plane was old and performed many take off and landing cycles (about 89,000 instead of the 75,000 the plane was designed to handle), leading to metal fatigue. Additionally, the salt water environment in which it primarily operated caused additional corrosion to cracks and whatnot. There were/are maintenance packages available to check for this problems.
Sorry , here it is again...
http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
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?
If a computer had been in charge, computers have no intelligence, no judgement, and no creativity. All dead is the inevitable result.
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
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
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.
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.
Except that the A300 is not a fly-by-wire design.