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Flying the Airbus A380
FloatsomNJetsom writes "So the largest passenger airplane in the world actually is pretty large inside — Popular Mechanics has a great article and video from their test flight on the brand new double-decker Airbus A380. This includes footage of takeoff, interviews with the pilot and test engineer, a rundown on the bar, the two staircases, and an attempt to walk down a crowded aisle from one end of the plane to the other without having to say 'excuse me.'"
And how many disasters have been caused by having a human in the loop? How many cases of runway incursions, etc?
And if you want to talk about mechanical failures - how about when the pilot has a heart attack? His body is a machine just like any other and is subject to the same principles of maintenance and failures.
A computer doesn't need to be perfect - it just needs to be better than a human. And how many more software bugs could be fixed with the money we'd save by not paying pilots?
Software doesn't have to have bugs. And if it stays in production long enough it eventually won't have any - if there is a standard of perfection and the complexity of software is finite, then eventually that standard will be reached.
I think that the idea that no machine could ever be engineered capable of flight better in EVERY respect than ANY human pilot is a romantic one.