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World's Largest Passenger Plane May Be Unsafe, Some Say
CNET reports (citing this BBC video account) that some aircraft engineers in Australia are concerned about small cracks that have appeared on the wing ribs of some Airbus A380 airplanes, a report says. They're calling for the whole fleet to be grounded, but Airbus says the cracks are harmless.
Yes, the economy is more important than not killing people. In fact, can I kill you and take your money? It's for the good of society. That money's gotta keep changing hands. I'll be by tonite.
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Meanwhile, scores of hungry Boeing executives are rubbing their hands together and licking their chops.
Airbus have issued an inspection notice saying it's a materials issue, and that airlines should inspect at an aircrafts 4 year inspection interval. They would not do so, and would be overruled by the European safety body EASA, if they thought otherwise.
This has been discussed to death on aviation industry forums, and the general consensus is it's a non-issue - the calls for grounding are being headed by an industry union, not a regulatory body.
Every aircraft has cracks in it, even brand new ones - in this case, it's in a non-critical location and is non-load bearing. A check at the 4 year point is adequate for this type of discovery.
Aircraft are over-engineered by a factor of 120-300%.
Fun fact: that is actually legal in some cases...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is just the unions posturing as part of their ongoing winging about Qantas doing more and more servicing of aircraft in Singapore and Malaysia. When a problem occurs in an aircraft which was actually serviced in Australia they are are strangely silent. At any other time they will winge and make loud noises to try and make it appear they are still relevant and try and somehow force all aircraft servicing to be brought back to Australia. This has been going on for years and stories on the nightly current affairs shows about it is a regular thing.
I can say that composites are fucking weird... the cracks may have been accounted for in the design... kinda crappy but sometimes you are designed into a corner.
I don't have a picture of the cracks so i can't really make a good determination but if its composite and on the surface its pretty much harmless and if nessesary can be fixed with local resin cure.
The ones you got to worry about...
YOU CANNOT F***ING SEE BECAUSE THEY ARE BURIED IN THE STRUCTURE THATS WHY OLD SCHOOL ENGINEERS ARE SCARED TO HELL ABOUT COMPOSITES.
Not all aircraft parts are essential for structural integrity. Some bits are just there to hold wires in place, etc.
When Airbus says "noncritical" you'd think they'd know the difference...
No sig today...
They just need to do a few Brazil to France test flights.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Recently downgraded to: "Mostly harmless."
It'll be 'pilot error' - he should have checked over the world's largest plane for cracks that (obviously, not like these)- are not harmless.
Condolences to the families and friends of those who die.
Why are we so strange behaving species? How about being more rational?
We are rational - we just suck at understanding the risk of thing sin everyday life.
To many false alarms or things that appear as false alarms, we ignore it. And most of the time it is the right thing to do. Because if we don't, we spend all of our time preparing for very unlikely or even improbably events.
Or another way we go over board is over estimating some risks while brushing aside others. Such as we have no problem jumping in a car and driving 70+ mph separated by just some dashed white lines but yet, we have to go through over zealous or even unnecessary security at airports.
Most likely we will die from a car accident, cancer, heart disease, gun shot, lightening strike and a few others things, but do we spend as much time and money on mitigating those risks let alone as much as we do on terrorism? Hardly.
Hate to break it to you, but Boeing's planes are fly by wire too. They're just designed to act like a plane with direct hydraulic control even though they aren't.
That's not to say we should just take Airbus at their word, though. An independent 3rd party should be brought in to investigate and ultimately make the decision.
What I've understood so far, is that the cracks are not in the wings themselves but in stabilizing ribs mounted on top. I agree that a more thorough explanation is required, but it's not like the sky is falling.
-- oh, and cue the "zomg Airbus is not from the US! burn them!" mob.
Well there are two things I don't like about this, and one that I do:
1. If this is a non-critical part, why is it receiving stresses that is causing it to fail?
2. If there were oversights on non-critical parts, who's to say there weren't oversights on more important parts? These planes fly over huge tracts of empty ocean, it's not like they can just pull off to the side of the road and wait for AAA to tow them home
Good things:
1. Considering the absolute massive size of the airplane, number of parts (both moving and not), the number of assembly locations (+ final assembly) it's a goddamn miracle that they've only had two notable failures since the introduction
That said, the 747 has a really impressive track record and 40 years to work out any major failures. They seem relatively safe in my book. You'd have to drag me on to an A380 flight that travels over a body of water bigger than the English channel though. Call me in 10 years when they have 150+ in active service.
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Sometimes the truth hurts.On slashdot it gets marked flamebait!
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Brazil to France
Why? Will these non-critical cracks cause the crew to dither around and debate the meaning of instruments while stalling into the Atlantic?
Who's saying they are blowing it off?
From what I understand, they are aware of the problem, have isolated it's cause, and deemed it non critical. And I do trust Airbus far enough that they do not want to see one of these planes fall out of the sky.
The cracks are for course troubling in such a young aircraft, but blowing issues out of proportion is about as bad as ignoring them.
Dear Boeing fanboy, get off your high horse.
Boeing are every bit as much Fly-By-Wire as Airbus these days, and from what I understand, that phrase is heard on Boeing cockpits as well.
Depends entirely on what is cracking and how much. It is routine for damage found on aircraft inspection to be reported to the manufacturer for engineering guidance.
Defect limits exist for many aircraft and engine components. For example, borescope (think "endoscope for machines") inspection of turbines is used to check allowable wear and damage. That can be considerable depending on the engine.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The Comet were another issue entirely, and at the time unknown materials problem.
the problem isn't fly by wire, the problem is that airbus computers evaluate pilot actions for correctness and override if they decide the pilot is incorrect, in situations where the compuiter judges wrong, such as when a sensor is giving faulty readings, the plane may do pleasant things like land on the face of a mountain
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I'm an experienced aircraft mechanic and have no problem with it.
"Such parts wouldn't be there in the first place, now would they?"
"Fairing" comes to mind. which exists to cover structure and streamline flow.
Even delicate fighters can have considerable defects and be safe to fly. One inspects, documents, and monitors those with inputs from engineers and tech reps.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The cracks are in aluminum wing rib feet. Has nothing to do with composites.
All I have to say is: de Havilland Comet.
They're just designed to act like a plane with direct hydraulic control even though they aren't.
Sounds like an improvement over the feel of two non-coupled joysticks, where assuming one pilot has a clue he can not even tell what the clueless pilot is doing wrong. I'm not a big metal pilot, but I understand that in a Boeing the yokes are connected so that both pilots have coordinated movement between them; in the Airbus with a side joystick I don't even know if the pilots can see what each other are doing, and further I understand that the pilot to most recently move the stick in the Airbus takes command of the plane. If my understanding is correct, I'll take a Boeing any day.
And if those parts are designed to experience some cracking, as part of some carefully tuned tradeoff? There was some high altitude spy plane (maybe the Blackbird?) that leaked fuel on the ground, because when operating the temperatures would cause things to expand, so it was better to have it leak on the ground than break in the air. If a layman, or even an engineer unfamiliar with the project, saw that, they would naturally assume something was wrong.
Is it even possible to fly a large jet without fly-by-wire? Are pilots really strong enough to move the control surfaces on the wings and tail by muscle power alone? And even if they are, do they have the endurance to do it off-and-on for hours at a time?
Hi, folks - welcome aboard Manual Airlines flight 123. I'm Chuck Norris, and I'll be your pilot today; Arnold Schwarzenegger will be the co-pilot, and Sylvester Stallone will be our navigator.
There's just not enough info in the article to argue the case either way. OTOH I doubt there's ever been an aircraft without minor design defects that are fixed as they appear.
All commercial airliners have a log book in the cabin with a list of known broken/defective bits that the pilots are supposed to read before every takeoff and where they write down any weirdness they notice during the flight. None of the books are empty, even on brand new aircraft (ask a pilot...)
No sig today...
...and Airbuses have a little overhead switch which puts them into direct control mode.
No sig today...
Ford says so. Not that the Pinto was really that unsafe, but the lies Ford pushed to cover up their knowledge of problems (or Chrysler and lies about the minivan latches, it's not just Ford, it's all industry in the US, whatever's left). They knew the fix, and they chose to let people burn because it was cheaper. The government sided with them, though a jury didn't.
Learn to love Alaska
While we're at it, we should ground the entire Boeing fleet as well...one of their roofs ripped off a couple of days ago during a flight and cracks have been found all over the 737 fleet.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-airlines-boeing-knew-737-flaw-expect-problem/story?id=13300089#.TwomuU8gifg
Best part: They knew it could happen but they kept it a secret.
No sig today...
That still nonetheless uses pitot data to set the control rates - a likely cause of the Brazil kingfisher dive.
Well, it's not either/or. "Ordinary" (ok, anymore fly-by-wire is ordinary, but you know what I mean) aircraft of any size (all commercial aviation, lots of general aviation) use hydraulic actuators, not the pilot's muscle power.
Would you go in one of these.
No sig today...
Yes you can see the other pilots control stick from your position, and no, you need to do more than make an input to gain control - there is a priority switch you have to push.
They (Airbus), should have consulted the Russians or Ukranians, who have been flying the world's biggest and heaviest aircraft without any incidents.
You cannot appreciate this plane's size until you get close to this massive aircraft, which makes the Boeing 747 and A380 dwarfs to a degree.
The article claims "small cracks that have appeared on the wing ribs". Airbus calls it "some noncritical wing rib-skin attachments".
This sounds like the difference between a cracked bone and a sore ligament. One really is less worrisome than the other.
They are outcompeting them. And, boeing australia is boeing's largest outfit outside continental usa.
.........
https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+australia&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
and now, not any country in eu or eu commissions (that are MUCH more stringent than any kind of regulatory body in usa or any place else) have not found any problems with boeings, but, very Inconspicuously, australians did. the fact that boeing's largest outfit outside u.s. is residing in australia, is just a coincidence, i assure you
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Fly by wire is different to hydraulically actuated surfaces - hydraulically actuated surfaces are not by themselves considered fly by wire, but do add more power to the pilots inputs.
The readers on slashdot don't usually grasp context too well. If the most capable and relevant people we have look at the findings and say, "those are superficial", then you don't just ground all the A380's for no reason, because it's extremely damaging to do so without a good reason.
If, on the other hand, someone has valid concerns... then yes, safety takes priority.
Like it or not, there is, and must be, a price on human life. "But it could kill people!" isn't sufficient reason in itself to ground the A380 - the risks and costs must be balanced.
Pulling some numbers out of the air, for argument's sake this problem has a 10% chance of one day causing a crash, which will kill 400 people, and killing the A380 will cost $20 billion. That is $20 billion to save, on average, 40 lives, or $500 million per life. You could instead tax Airbus more heavily for $500 million, and put the money into a branch of health care which on average saves one person per $500,000. The economy is $19.5 billion better off and the population is 960 people better off, by letting the 380 keep flying despite the fact that "it might kill people".
You even place a value on your own life. Do you own and habitually wear a bullet proof vest? Do you wear a crash helmet when driving? Do you buy a new vehicle every year with safety features almost entirely dictating your choice? If not, it is because you value money (and other benefits such as comfort and avoiding ridicule) over slight reductions in your chance of an early death.
(Note: I don't know the risk/benefit numbers for the specific case of the A380 cracks. I'm saying this analysis is grossly inadequate to justify grounding the A380, not that it shouldn't be grounded.)
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The Ford "cover up memo" was in regards to post-crash fires after accidents involving rollovers, not anything specific to the Pinto and it's behind-the-rear-axle gas tank.
The Pinto got a bad rap -- it's actually got a better fatality record than similarly sized cars of the era.
Who's saying they are blowing it off?
From what I understand, they are aware of the problem, have isolated it's cause, and deemed it non critical. And I do trust Airbus far enough that they do not want to see one of these planes fall out of the sky.
The cracks are for course troubling in such a young aircraft, but blowing issues out of proportion is about as bad as ignoring them.
Agree. The alternative is that the cracks really are critical but Airbus are playing down the problem because they've decided that having an accident, forcing them to ground the rest of the fleet anyway, having to pay out billions in damages and fines, and completely destroying their reputation, is a better option than grounding the fleet now and repairing the aircraft.
Before I listen to anyone's opinion that these cracks are more of a problem than Airbus say they are, i'd want to see some qualifications in metallurgy or similar discipline.
I'd wager this has a whole lot more to do with last year's grounding of the entire fleet (due to negotiations failing with unions) and the ongoing labour dispute than anything technical. As others have already mentioned, the A380 has been widely discussed in aviation-specific forums, it's likely this is a move to highlight the ongoing issues within Qantas
Is it even possible to fly a large jet without fly-by-wire? Are pilots really strong enough to move the control surfaces on the wings and tail by muscle power alone? And even if they are, do they have the endurance to do it off-and-on for hours at a time?
Pilots don't need to be strong enough to move control systems by muscles alone. Hydraulics take care of that - whether fly-by-wire or not.
For some reason, when following your link to the 737 roof ripping problem I'm first shown a video of a smoke issue on an Airbus plane, and only after that does the actual 737 video related to the article show up.
Isn't that funny.
Fair enough. Just how far did these wings flex before failing the test?
6.9 meters? 1 meter? 4 meters?
Airplanes are required to have some flexibility (the idea of which appears at odds with airplane construction to the layman), for the simple reason that, among other things, airplanes that are too rigid will crack on landing. Mind you, we are speaking about an aircraft's wings here, not the fuselage of the aircraft, so there may be different reasons for flexibility, but the theory is still sound. A wing which cannot absorb a shock safely will probably sheer off during heavy turbulence, but then, I am not an aviation engineer, and I do not know the reasonings behind the institution of this test.
I am John Hurt.
pilot error as in hiding a bug in airbus autopilot or it reading faulty gauges.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/27/air-france-flight-447-crash-report-airbus-autopilot-to-blame.html
should be fine :p... nothing to worry about :p
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
I doubt there's ever been an aircraft without minor design defects that are fixed as they appear.
This is what happens when an airline is a launch customer (as are Qantas and Singapore I believe). When the airline is first in line to receive a new aircraft type, there are all kinds of bugs that the airline has to be willing to accept. For example, the first six production 787s are overweight in comparison with what was promised. Similarly, I've heard time and time again not to buy the first model year of a new car or significant vehicle redesign because of potential problems that will be found only after production and then fixed in subsequent years.
Yes, it is the SR-71, which requires a generator or two to jump start, and a refueling in mid-air since it tends to lose a lot of fuel before getting off the ground.
I am John Hurt.
The point you're missing is that it's a known problem that can be monitored for and affected planes can be serviced. If the causes weren't known I'd say at 10% they should be grounding the fleet and fixing the problem.
Yes there is a point where it gets to be too costly for the protection given, but that's generally when you don't know the cause and can't keep an eye on it. If they're spending that much to fix the problem then they're probably doing it wrong. In that case they ought to just monitor the problem and replace the particular parts needed rather than the entire fleet.
The things that really scare me are the flight crew and unknown problems.
And some actual knowledge of the specific problem. Admittedly, I haven't done any metallurgy in 10 years, but I know enough to not trust anything the media say about very specific technical problems on a first attempt, metallurgy, computer science, physics, or anything.
That's not fair. No one that doesn't place a value on life would ever ride in one of those deathtrap machines known as a car.
Not killing people, but not going to extraordinary lengths to ensure no one dies either. There's a cost/benefit function. Should we pay people to patrol sidewalks 24/7 to make sure there's nothing slippery? This is the same thing. It's *very probably* not going to kill anyone, but it's not worth the time and money to "make sure" it won't, especially when there are no guarantees regardless.
Add to that the fact that no amount of prevention will prevent someone from *ever* dying, and it's just more wasted energy. I'm not saying human lives aren't important or that people shouldn't all be treated with equal respect, but if we didn't draw a line somewhere, the only job in existence would be making sure someone else didn't get hurt/killed. So obviously there needs to be a line, and what you seem to be suggesting is that it should be drawn by ignorant schmoes who read newspaper articles instead of the engineers who actually design and inspect the product in question. You're not the first to suggest that, but I don't think it's necessarily the best policy.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Yes, the economy is more important than not killing people. In fact, can I kill you and take your money? It's for the good of society. That money's gotta keep changing hands. I'll be by tonite.
Ya'know, the article was really short:
Airbus recommends that airlines check for cracks but says they present no real danger. The BBC quotes the following from a statement by the company:
"We confirm that minor cracks were found on some noncritical wing rib-skin attachments on a limited number of A380 aircraft. We have traced the origin. Airbus has developed an inspection and repair procedure, which will be done during regular, routine scheduled four-year maintenance checks. In the meantime, Airbus emphasizes that the safe operation of the A380 fleet is not affected."
There is always a risk of catastrophic failure. Every flight is a game of Russian Roulette.
All this means is that the Airbus revolver might have fewer chambers than other planes.
But people still fly; apparently the convenience of saving several hours/days worth of travel time is worth the risk.
There's a context here - the A380 heavy maintenance is not done in Australia (and so not done by their members) and Qantas and the union are currently in a massive industrial bunfight.
So any negative comments about A380 safety have to be taken in that context.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I'm no aircraft engineer, but I do not feel comfortable with all this "pose absolutely no danger"-talk. AFAIK, particularly modern aircraft are engineered to trim down on weight as much as possible, and I would be VERY surprised if there were parts in the plane that could just safely break down posing no risk whatsoever. Such parts wouldn't be there in the first place, now would they?
As you say - you're not an aircraft engineer.
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Why? They're on record as saying that it's not critical. By which they almost certainly mean that monitoring it is sufficient. What independent 3rd party experts are you going to tap? Most of them work for either the competition or one of the regulatory bodies that's supposed to be keeping tabs on them.
Ultimately as others have pointed out, the amount of damage that this would do if one of those planes fell out of the sky because those cracks caused a wing to fall off would probably be the end of Airbus. Given that they're stress fractures on the wing it's quite likely that they were considered when designing the plane.
but Airbus says the cracks are harmless
Yeah sure.....
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
NASA said it was perfectly safe for space shuttle to take off in freezing cold weather. Sometimes the managers don't want to look like idiots so they make up shit without knowing what an o-ring is.
just to clarify that happend almost a year ago not just a few days ago
That's always a tough call. Statistically flight crew error is the most likely reason for a plane crashing, but by the same token there are rare occasions where there's a sensor malfunction or obscure bug that was never uncovered by QA that causes the autopilot to be worse than useless.
Personally, I'm marginally more comfortable with Boeing's approach to it than Airbus's, but in practice it's rarely if ever been an issue.
I've seen some suggestion that if neither pilot presses the priority switch the inputs are algebraically summed. Do you know? I can not say that in all cases it would be better to have slaved yokes. I am aware of one fatal incident in a sailplane where the best guess is the passanger panicked and overpowered the pilot fighting for the stick. But I have to think it would be better to have some shared feedback between the sticks.
Actually, this is an interesting question - the answer is a resounding "yes".
What you do is have a small "elevator" on the actual elevator. So, you deflect the small "elevator" up. That hitting the airflow causes the real elevator to move down. That causes the airplane to pitch.
It like getting hydraulic controls for free, using the airflow. Doesn't work too well at the edges of the performance envelope, but used in many older aircraft.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Are they really dead? Maybe they would land on some exotic island somewhere, being chased by a smoke monster and polar bears and fighting with some initiative called Darma.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
"If it ain't Boeing I ain't going" -> So, is Gulf-stream out? Cessna? I could go on.
Airbus is typically seen as the European competitor to Boeing. They both, as per my understanding, make good planes, and tend to be comparable feature-wise. When other countries submit requests for bids for aircraft, they tend to send requests to both companies.
However, as with Boeing in the United States, Airbus suffers from some heavy politics in the EU. Each economic block cares to protect its 'precious,' and isn't above sniping the other.
And fly by wire systems are the future. The military uses them in a number of aircraft, including the F-117 and B-2 (both aircraft that the military, IMHO, hates losing). In short, the theory is sound, has been tested, with any possible problems stemming from individual implementations of said theory.
I am John Hurt.
Your first question doesn't make much sense. All systems of a similar scale, and many much smaller systems have non-critical elements that are subjected to stress, and will fail over time. I'm sure I don't have to cite examples.
I reckon we'll be banned from driving in the next 15 years.
Think about it, if the driverless cars that are definitely coming are proven to be safer than human driven cars, which I suspect they will be, how will any government justify letting us drive?
Even if the governemnt doesn't ban driving, the insurance industry will probably make it so expensive that it is effectively banned.
This proves that the Airbus A380 is 100% unsafe to fly and will result in death if you board one.
Please tell all your friends - I'm hoping that I get some cheaper A380 seats when I travel later this year if we can lower demand.
Take your home and your car as examples, think of how many non-critical parts there are in both of those that could fail without posing risks, and then berate yourself for every part you think of.
Pilots don't need to be strong enough to move control systems by muscles alone. Hydraulics take care of that - whether fly-by-wire or not.
Yes but hydraulics systems have some negative aspects :
- you can't use one, you need a second one for backup and that takes weight and space.
- you have to design the airframe around the hydraulic system, its a constraint that simply doesn't exist on fly by wire airplanes which can have a more optimised airframe.
- from a reliability standpoint electric wires are better than a hydraulic system
Hydraulic system in modern airplanes is simply anachronistic. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Sadly all very large planes are inherently unsafe. The simple reason why is that it is rare to have rescue and medical personnel in numbers large enough to deal with an incident. Imagine one of these huge planes sliding off a runway during a landing and the sheer numbers of injured people that need to be rescued is beyond local capacities. We had a commercial jet go down in the Everglades just west of Miami and getting wounded people out was at least a twelve hour affair. Many died due to our inability to get to them quickly enough. The worse scene would be more than one of the huge planes striking each other even on the runways. Anybody got 1,000 ambulances for a fast response?
"If the most capable and relevant people we have look at the findings" .... Exactly, the initial call to ground the fleet was by the service engineers and the association that represents them. This is not a trivial matter raised by a baggage thrower.
The people who lie are usually the ones with the most to gain/lose. What do service engineers have to gain by grounding the fleet - not much. What would Airbus lose by having their brand new fleet grounded - a huge amount of public confidence.
At least things like that taught us to never keep our fireworks strapped to our pickup truck gas tanks.
Learn to love Alaska
... someone used planes as an example of exaggerated risks to justify the use of nuclear energy.
Why the general contempt for human life and Nature?
Is money that important?
Oh... erm... well, forget it!
2011 was the safest year for commercial flying since 1945.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
.
At some point we have to realize that the Internet (rightly and wrongly) gives any voice a megaphone.
So you have to decide what you want to listen to and what you want to believe.
I understand that takes more than a few neurons to rub together, but you can do it. I know you can.
Think for yourself. It's fun.
an economic downturn kills far more people in one year than plane crashes ever will. U.S. life expectancy is declining now, for example.
Cars are only dangerous when you're bad at driving. Ever wondered why only a small fraction of drivers are involved in fatal or near-fatal car crashes each year? It's because the rest have above average driving skill. Ask them yourself if you don't believe me.
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
Right now there really is no indication of a problem. We could ground the fleet over what is probably nothing. But if we do that too many times then airlines go out of business, or at minimum raise prices. Then many more people drive. And, as we all know, driving more leads to a higher fatality rate due to flying being safer.
Most of us are not trained aerospace experts, so let's avoid foolish kneejerk reactions. I would wager there are a lot of people still looking at that plane as it is so new. Lets let them focus where they think they should. They may be some safety issues on the plane. And if so they will likely be fixed before they become problematic.
It wasn't much of a secret
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243 [Wikipedia]
We had to cover this as part of Fracture mechanics when I was in school (along with the DeHaviland Comet)
Using a factor of safety is not over-engineering - it is an admission that the design can't account for absolutely everything.
Cars are only dangerous when you're bad at driving.
Or somebody in a car in the oncoming traffic, or at the next crossing, or...
A tin can with wings weighing nearly a million pounds fully loaded, sent 45,000 feet into the air . Of course it "may be unsafe".
(Actually, I'm pretty sure the maximum loaded weight is about 900,000 pounds, not a million, but for dramatic effect, I rounded up.)
You are welcome on my lawn.
How dare you use facts!
Don't you know American companies are crooked, evil, liars?
Wasn't there a 60 minutes spot showing how Pintos wer setting orphanages on fire just by parking nearby?
You sir will have to answer to Dan Rather for your sins.
AC indeed.
No brain, no pain.
Like it or not, there is, and must be, a price on human life.
Yep. Where most people get confused, is by conflating "value of MY life to ME" with "value of one citizen to society". They switch back and forth between these contexts in order to make whatever stupid "if it saves just one life" point they are working.
I think the best way to measure the value of a life to society is to look at per capita GDP.
For that matter, It is actually possible to determine the rational value people place on their lives. Of course you can't ask them directly, because you'll get gibberish... but you can ask it indirectly, by asking how much extra we'd have to pay them to take a job that has x% chance of fatality per annum.
The research has been done. They crunched the numbers and came out with $2-$10 million compensation for a job with 100% risk of fatality. The dollar amount somewhat depended on their current salary level. Interestingly, the dollar amount was pretty close to the average citizen's lifetime per capita GDP.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
pilot error as in hiding a bug in airbus autopilot or it reading faulty gauges.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/27/air-france-flight-447-crash-report-airbus-autopilot-to-blame.html
The autopilot is not bugged. The autopilot wasn't even active for over four minutes before the crash. The headline is completely misleading, as the autopilot shut down as soon as conflicting airspeed readings came in. The system recognizes that it is unsafe to have a computer flying when the computer is getting faulty data. Thankfully Airbus flight computers are pretty good about error-checking, as they detected the airspeed discrepancy and acted on it - by turning control over to the crew and telling them why.
The accident appears to have been triggered by a number of events:
- Faulty pitot tubes providing faulty airspeed indications.
- Weather radar that saw a little storm ahead, but not the big, fuck-off storm behind it until the pilots decided to fly through the small storm.
- An avalanche of data coming into the cockpit during critical moments. During an emergency, it can be difficult to avoid focusing on a few bits of data, while others slip by.
The storm was recreated in an Airbus simulator for multiple flight crews. Using data the flight computer sent back to the maintenance crews during the flight, they were able to trigger the same errors (Pitot tube failure and airspeed mismatches).
Every crew survived.
I reckon we'll be banned from driving in the next 15 years. ...and in 20 years, we'll all have flying cars... that we're banned from driving.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Think about it, if the driverless cars that are definitely coming are proven to be safer than human driven cars, which I suspect they will be, how will any government justify letting us drive?
That will definitely happen. Right after they ban smoking and drinking (after all, tee totaling is proven safer, so how can they justify letting us smoke and drink?)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Isn't that mostly a function of peoples' monetary ability to pay for special treatments? I suppose this could make it slightly more expensive for the 875,000 americans who go to other countries to get cheaper treatments. Besides, don't the laws of supply and demand dictate ticket prices? Less demand = more money. I'm still trying to figure out, other than medical tourism, how a cheap plane ticket will extend my life.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
It'll be 'pilot error' - he should have checked over the world's largest plane for cracks that (obviously, not like these)- are not harmless.
Actually, it is the job of both the pilot and the lead ramp agent of the gate to do a walk around and check the airplane for visible signs of damage. In the case of the lead ramp agent, it must be done twice: both when the plane first taxis in and right before the plane takes off. And I believe the pilots of both crews (incoming crew and outgoing crew), if there is a crew change, do walk arounds as well. So, were a crack to form, unless it formed catastophically in flight (ie, breaks apart), there is a very good chance the crack would be found and inspected prior to departure.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Can I say yay to that idea? i'll gladly give up the right to drive myself if it means there won't be anymore morons with cell phones plowing right through lights because they were busy pushing buttons instead of steering that 2 tons of flying low death on wheels. I nearly lost my dad a couple of years back to a gal that ran a red light in an SUV and hit his 2 ton work van with enough force it rolled three times and it took the jaws of life to cut the driver's door off of him. I was real proud of him that day though, his insurance company was already gonna cover his medical bills and the cost of the van but told him he had an excellent case to sue but when they took the gal and ran X-rays on her it turned out she had a tumor that nobody had caught and it was already inoperable, his doc came in and told him that the gal had maybe 6 months (and naturally no life insurance and three kids with no husband) so dad told his insurance company to drop it, saying 'She got enough problems, no since adding to her burden" and sure enough the poor thing didn't make it through the summer.
as for TFA it sounds like Airbus are doing pretty much all they can do without destroying the planes and starting over. Sadly there just isn't any way to design a 100% safe plane, especially not one that carries the kinds of loads and goes the kinds of heights these commercial airliners do. I'm sure that Airbus doesn't want to get their asses handed to them in a lawsuit so I'm sure they are watching these things like hawks and will pull a unit in to get fixed if it starts getting any worse. personally i'd rather fly on one of these new ones that are being watched than some of the ancient airliners we still have flying in this country. I wonder what the oldest Boeing still being used for commercial flight is up to, 35? 40?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Except that other aircraft makers HAVE shown to do exactly what you describe. It is pretty common in fact for say Boeing to have been caught out to have tried to hide known issues that have caused deadly accidents rather then deal with the issue and save peoples lives.
When the economic incentive is big enough, human life looses all value. Look up on say Boeing doors being blown off due to known issues with the locking mechanism or indeed making the door open outward despite the obvious safety implecations vs the normal practice of opening inward.
Don't understand? Aircraft are pressured. if the door open inward the internal pressure presses it into the door frame making it near impossible to be blow out, try it yourself, kick in a door from the side it opens into, you are going to have to be pretty burly to get that done. But of course an inward opening door takes internal space you can't load cargo into that space so there is an economic incentive to have the door open outward so you can add a bit more cargo.
Boeing did it, the locking mechanism failed and people died. Multiple times and Boeing still hasn't fundementally fixed the problem by making the door open inward only. The economics of a few kilograms of extra cargo versus all the passengers on board.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Actually, it isn't that it lost a lot of fuel before takeoff (although it did leak a bit), it's the fact that it couldn't takeoff at all with a full fuel load. The engines and airframe were optimized for high-speed, high-altitude flight. Lift and thrust characteristics were terrible in the low-altitude subsonic speed regime.
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dwarf?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Or hardware failure. If you are driving 100km/h and a wheel comes off good luck keeping it under control.
Remember that airliner that lost its top? Couldn't happen but it did and it turned out that the reason the aircraft did not fail completly were some supports operating suddenly in a manner nobody ever expected them to but they did. In an accident there are always multiple factors working together. Maybe that support is non-critical in normal flight but what if something else breaks? Might it suddenly be the piece that determines between catastrophic failure and a harrowing incident?
A simple example exists in your car, the parking break. Pretty non-essential right? But if your main brakes fail for whatever reason, they might just be the difference between having to change your pants and donating your organs to some lucky fellow human being.
Say in your house, you have non-supporting walls. So you knock them all out. Now, is that house without the non-supporting walls as strong as the same house with those non-supporting walls? In theory it should be. So let disaster strike, both houses loose one supporting wall. Is it possible that the house with the internal walls remaining MIGHT just not collapse as readily or as fully and those unimportant non-supporting walls holding up long enough for people to have a change to get out?
A lot of people like to point out that if Airbus is caught out on this, it will be the end of them. If that was true no aircraft maker would be in business today. They all been caught lying and gambling human lives for not very large amounts of money. If you think a large company is going to fail just because they kill people you are very naive. Only in China are executives held to accounts for their actions. Read up on aircraft accidents, how they are often caused by manufacturer issues and how it never ever seems to result in any form of punishment, let alone the bankruptcy of heavily subsidezed pork industries.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Given the transcript, it seems to be a issue of the chair expecting one outcome and the computer doing something else:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877
In particular the computer disabled all input limiters, allowing one of the pilots to hold one of the side sticks (basically a computer joystick, so no feedback to the other pilot as one find on mechanical systems) into climb.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Ok I was just on the flight that had "turbulence" in a A380 and honestly it was kind of amazing falling out of the sky...
see my commentary
https://twitter.com/johnjonesname
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If they are merely wire hangars, why are they taking stress? Surely those wires shouldn't be flopping around, or they wouldn't have bothered with wire hangars.
Whether they shouldn't be taking stress but are, or should be taking stress and aren't handling it, it needs looking into.
Infuriate left and right
A radiation therapy machine called Therac-25 had severe design flaws that caused it to kill several people. The AECL engineers and managers were overconfident and over-greedy, respectively, so even after a significant number of accidents they refused to admit that the machine was faulty.
Chances are the problem is quite serious, but Airbus' actuaries tell them that the short-run cost of performing immediate repairs is greater than the long-run cost of their insurance rates after a mechanical failure.
"If it ain't Boeing I ain't going" -> So, is Gulf-stream out? Cessna? I could go on
You could, but the small aircraft makers' numbers are much, much worse than Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc.
Commercial Aviation beats General Aviation on safety by a significant margin. Even when you add in the tumor machines they make you go through on the way in....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Incidentally, congratulations on your recent MBA.
May the Maths Be with you!
I think you mean duct tape: http://www.politics.php3.salon.com/2011/10/27/ryanair_duct_tape_controversy/singleton/ OK, not really.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Nobody expects the wings to fave to flex that much (though if they ever do, I'm sure the passengers will appreciate if they don't snap off!). The idea is that if the nominal case allows for that, then the worst case will still be able to flex enough to handle real world conditions.
If you had to bet your life on a rope, would you pick the one rated for exactly your current weight or would you pick the one rated for 4 times your weight?
If you knew the rope has been through 10 years of hell since that rating, might you want it to be even more than 4 times your weight?
And, of course, 7 meters sounds like a lot but it's only 10 degrees.
And yet the GP was trying to take the moral high ground by claiming it was better to disrupt the economy than allow people to take such a negligible risk.
Haha nice flamebait. Post as coward so you don't lose karma?
;)) and it is nothing like getting a flat tire. Suggesting that it is tells me you aren't a good driver, if you've ever driven at all.
Metal can fail too you know. Kind of like the metal on these airplanes. And I can guarantee more tires have fallen off cars in your hard-assed US of A than wings have fallen off Airbus A380s.
I've never personally had it happen but I have heard of it (usually from older American built cars
The sheer cost and practicalities of replacing everyone's cars in that timeframe, alone, rule it out.
If it were that simple, motorbikes - dramatically more dangerous than cars by any measure - would have been banned decades ago.
aka "existing in reality".
No, the Airbus FMSes go into alternate law when they lose speed data. In alternate law the FMS does not apply any envelope protections to control inputs - the pilots have unfettered control. This was the case in the AF447 crash. The reason for its crash appears to be that the 2nd co-pilot first stalled the aircraft at high altitude, and then continued to apply control-inputs that prevented the other pilot from recovering from the stall. AF447 was literally flown into the sea by the junior co-pilot. Sadly, because of the design of the controls, neither the more experienced co-pilot (acting as pilot-in-command in the left hand seat), and the captain (behind them, he came in once the plane was already stalled) had any idea that the junior co-pilot was applying inappropriate commands to the control stick.
Popular Mechanics had a good article recently on AF447, including detailed CVR extracts. One thing that needs to be changed though is that the Airbus average the control inputs from each stick, and does not give any feedback to either pilot that the other is applying a contradictory input. In older aircraft control yokes were mechanically linked, and it was entirely obvious to each pilot what the resulting command to the aircraft was, and what pressure was being applied. Airbus need to add this to theirs (and do Boeing do too perhaps?).
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
This better not be a damned parts story!
FWIW, I read Airframe while traveling cross country and back. My co-workers at the time thought I was nuts. Hell, I'm an aerospace engineer; it would be like a surgeon reading Coma before getting some minor surgery done.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I watched the wheel come off of a car that was three cars ahead of me on I-71S between Columbus and Cincinnati last year. It happens.
Whoosh!
While we're at it, we should ground the entire Boeing fleet as well...one of their roofs ripped off a couple of days ago during a flight and cracks have been found all over the 737 fleet.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-airlines-boeing-knew-737-flaw-expect-problem/story?id=13300089#.TwomuU8gifg
Best part: They knew it could happen but they kept it a secret.
according to that article that was a 15 year old plane that was built after the 737's were redesigned in 2000...
Maybe they are reporting from the future?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
FbW aircraft still use hydraulics to actuate the actual surfaces. E.g. the A380 has 2 separate, redundant hydraulic systems.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
I was going to comment about how "some people say" there's a problem isn't worthwhile listening to unless they are experts with evidence. But since it's Airbus and not Boeing (yes, I'm a Yank) I agree it's catastrophic and all flights should be grounded immediately. How dare they play with people's lives this way?
Speak for yourself, but I don't mind a bit of engineering excess being put into something that's got me 10km-or-so up in the air.
There was some high altitude spy plane (maybe the Blackbird?) that leaked fuel on the ground, because when operating the temperatures would cause things to expand
Yuppers, the SR-71.
I was stationed at Beale AFB in the late 90's as a fire fighter, and can tell you it's no tall tale, these things sat over reasonably sized puddles of jet fuel. They require a catalyst, T.E.B.(triethylborane) to ignite the fuel. It's not really fair to say they "let" them sit in fuel, while it did leak into puddles, it was constantly recovered and disposed of.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
This is a great book, explains in plain English how certain things (like planes, bridges, etc..) are designed and built, and how they sometimes fail. BTW I am an engineer that teaches strengths of materials.
The factors of safety (or factors of ignorance) for aircraft are generally lower than for other structures as a concession to the weight requirements. However, they generally need to perform special destructive tests to demonstrate that the design indeed can meet the factor of safety required. Here is a good example from the Boeing 777 development:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0
Cracks in certain structures are expected and can be accounted for. Aircraft, being built for minimum weight, are prone to fatigue cracking in certain components. As long as you know this you can plan an inspection interval sufficient to catch cracks before they reach a critical size. Some cracks don't grow at all and are never a problem. It depends on the loading history on the part.
The gotchas are that you need to be able to inspect the part, be able to service the part, and be 100% aware of its loading environment. For 60+ years of jet travel, many of the gotchas have been caught and lessons learned.
Well I know at least two persons who would disagree. Both of them had terrible accidents involving them riding a motorcycle while respecting all the rules and a drunk driver in a car. They didn't die of course, one of them is mentally disabled after a 6-month coma and the other one is in a wheelchair until he dies.
Also, if the large majority has above average driving skill, then the small fraction must have very, very low driving skill. You might want to check your math skill.
Pilot maintenance log: Autoland rough
Service depot status: Autoland not installed
P: Something loose in cockpit
S: Something tightened in cockpit
P: Dead bugs on windshield
S: Live bugs on back-order
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear
S: Evidence removed
P: DME volume unbelievably loud
S: DME volume set to more believable level
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick
S: That's what they're there for
P: IFF inoperative
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode
P: Suspected crack in windshield
S: Suspect you're right
P: Number 3 engine missing
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search
P: Aircraft handles funny
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious
P: Target radar hums
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics
P: Mouse in cockpit
S: Cat installed
Someone always has priority, it's not like you lose it after a period of time....
Early 747's had similar issues with cracking on the spars in the nose. Some bits of aluminum even fell off a couple of planes (was that the primary buffer coupling?).
They were fixed as the planes cycled through rehab and the rib placement redesigned. 737's had a tendency to lose roof panels because of metal fatigue from improper riveting.
This sort of thing happens. You really need more info to determine if this particular case is serious.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
pilot error as in hiding a bug in airbus autopilot or it reading faulty gauges.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/27/air-france-flight-447-crash-report-airbus-autopilot-to-blame.html
What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 tells the story as it stands after investigations. It's a rather chilling read. But it makes one thing clear: it was about human error. The plane was even fully operational when it crashed, as an anti-icing system had managed to bring air speed sensors back to operation before it.
Two years after the Airbus 330 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, Air France 447's flight-data recorders finally turned up. The revelations from the pilot transcript paint a surprising picture of chaos in the cockpit, and confusion between the pilots that led to the crash.
That happened to my brother. The mechanic at the car dealer only put one nut on the wheel studs after replacing the brakes, and that one was on by only one turn. My brother was driving home in rush hour traffic when the wheel (left rear) came off, went bounding through the air, narrowly missed bouncing off two cars - one a cop car!, and fell off the road. My brother's truck came sliding to a sparking halt in the middle lane, blocking traffic for quite a while. No collisioins ensued, the cop never saw a thing. The car dealer repaired the truck of course - I think they had to replace the bed of the pickup.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Hell, you can even use duct tape in a pinch.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yes, wings have quite some flexibility. During take-off you can really see the wing slowly bend upwards while it takes up more and more of the weight of the plane.
That said, sometimes talking to people they would also mention that they feel so scared when they see an airplane wing flex. Especially during flight. Then I always tell them that they have to flap their wings to fly, just like birds. It's just the natural thing to do when you have wings. Birds do it, bats, insects - they all flap their wings. So why shouldn't airplanes do the same?
The people who lie are usually the ones with the most to gain/lose. What do service engineers have to gain by grounding the fleet - not much. What would Airbus lose by having their brand new fleet grounded - a huge amount of public confidence.
What do service engineers have to gain?
Well, let's have a bit of context. These aren't just "service engineers", it's the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, the trade union for aircraft engineers in Australia.
The same trade union which wants an A380 maintenance hangar in Australia, written into the workplace agreement they were negotiating with Qantas.
They've recently settled that agreement, without getting the hangar, (one source), so one presumes they're just keeping their name in the news.
People who are actually good drivers (or flyers) know that there are some situations in which you are FUBAR. Like getting t-boned by someone running a red light, or like PSA Flight 182 -- a 727 which collided with a Cessna 172 above San Diego, CA. Captain James McFeron's last words to the tower as the 727 descended in an uncontrolled plunge were, "This is it, baby", and that sums it up. Sometimes no matter how good you are, how much you prepare, you end up at the mercy of the universe's alternate plans for you.
Regarding the article, there's enough that can go wrong without having a plane come apart because some bean counter deemed it an acceptable risk.
The risk/reward ratio is much higher in motorcycles than cars.
And I love riding motorcycles. But way too many people don't see them at all. Sober or not, day or night.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Don't worry, /. will cover it again a fee times by then.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I hate to break it to you but your wrong. -5 points you lose!
Most all of the Boeing fleet is mechanical linkage of the yoke to hydraulic proportioning vales. The 777 and on are fly by wire, but hydraulics still move the control surfaces and the proportioning vales are controlled by servo motors that are controlled by the electronic signals from the joy stick.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
I was flying in a little turboprop airplane, and there was a 12 inch crack in the skin covering the wing, I showed it to the girl next to me and she instantly turned white and looked like she was going to puke or pass out!
I said don't worry the new piece starts right there by those rivets, and the most that'll tear off is that chunk right there.
She asked the stewardess about it and she says oh don't worry maam... it'll be fine. Without even looking at the crack or batting an eye.
What do service engineers have to gain by grounding the fleet - not much.
Australian service engineers were on strike recently about keeping QANTAS planes serviced in Australia to preserve Australian service engineer jobs. It's the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association that is calling for the planes to be checked now rather than when they are next due for heavy maintenance as Airbus suggests. I wonder if "checking now" (followed probably by "checking much more often") might make work for some Australian licenced aircraft engineers? While I am inclined to agree with them, I do have to recognise that yes they have something to gain.
There's some unbelievable factory test videos of 747s landing in the wind floating around the net I'm too lazy to link to on my phone.
Thank you for an intelligent reply.
I am John Hurt.
Not an aviation engineer (I am a scientist), but I have studied some aviation. ;-)
And, just for future reference, if you are going to troll someone, at least get your grammar / spelling correct: "something to day?" -> "something to say?"
I am John Hurt.
About 20 years ago a 747 had a minor fatigue crack on an engine pylon pin. Boeing had already had engines fall off in flight, had redesigned the pins. The solid metal pins are 2-3 inches in diameter.
This time, an international airline that I had flown on previously, dropped a 747 engine near my house! 747 engines are big, it left a shallow, burnt crater. Somewhere around the house I've got a picture. I sure hope the managers for the 380 watch this carefully, not pulling the same management economizing stunts as BP or Tepco.
whoosh!!
Aircraft are 'theoretically' over-engineered by a factor of 120-300%, there fixed it for you. Problem being over-engineering safety factors can be sucked up manufacturing failures, including material impurities and, fabrication techniques. Also unaccounted for impacts on strength, including radiation, resonant frequency loads and, temperature loads. Then add in unforeseen constructions of all of the above and before you know it planes snap in half and wings fall off.
If unaccounted stress fractures occur that the theory used to calculate the design with it's 'theoretical' safety factors, than it is logical to ground those aircraft until the theory can be adjusted to account for the stress fracture failures, otherwise you are flying a plane based upon best guess engineering.
Waiting until the wings fall off one at the highest point of load, taking off and landing, so as to deposit it's fuselage, cargo and passengers upon surrounding suburbs, does not make any sense. My suggestion is if the recommendation of the manufacturing executives proves incorrect than they all be executed if anyone dies as a result.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The crew is trained for IAS failure. They're supposed to use a chart to manually set throttle position and nose attitude. This crew, for some reason, failed to follow the procedures.
Cha-ching, you win the internets for today. Finally a voice of reason.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
no, no, I meant over the shelf scotch tape... you know the clear one that is about 1cm wide :)... That speed tape is way too expensive, haha
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
That's a non-sequitur if there ever was one. Yeah, small cracks have a tendency to become larger under stress. So what. They always did, and they always do, and any plane that's flying out there has plenty of small cracks. This tells us nothing. What we need to know is what is the predicted rate of growth of those particular cracks under the stresses the material at the crack tip, in particular, is subject to. Add in tasty details about expected contributions of structure (will the cracks join like in Tu-144?), corrosion, etc.
Take a close look at the skin of the jet next time you fly. You may be surprised how many metal patches you will find -- patches that repair cracks or dings/dents.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
If this is a non-critical part, why is it receiving stresses that is causing it to fail?
Because such parts are often attached to other stressed parts, and stresses simply redistribute over the whole assembly. As the non-critical part starts failing, the stresses depart to where they belong.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
1) minor and noncritical
2) on a limited number
3) traced the origin
4) have already found the solution
5) have already put it in the inspection list
OK, now you can ground the whole fleet...
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
Every crew survived.
Because the only crew with a dumb ass at the stick pulling up during a high-altitude stall was the one on 447. Once the captain found out, he is heard on the black box saying "no no no".
One thing that a flight simulator can't easily re-create is an in-experienced pilot who has been flying flat with the auto-pilot on for the last few hours.
Of course, that was actually a year ago, not a couple of days ago. But hey, lets not have facts to worry about.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hmmm
Strangely enough, those people always manage to see the cops on their bikes...
Or maybe you've got some difficulty with reading comprehension. It says classics were built until 2000 and that the airframe was redesigned in 1993 because of the lap joint problem. I don't see it in the article, but I know that this plane was built before 2000 because, from memory, it was a -300, not one of the newer ones.
That's what people said about the Titanic and the Tower of Babel. If we listened to Luddites like you there'd be no progress.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Motorbikes are more dangerous to the rider but not really to other people.
Maybe 15 years is a bit out, but maybe they'll just exempt older cars.
Aircraft are over-engineered by a factor of 120-300%.
Completely wrong. Elevators, which are operated by the public at large and have little need for reducing weight have a 200% safety margin. Airplanes, which are operated by trained professionals and designed with minimal weight as an explicit design goal, have a margin of safety on structural components of about 3-5% and even less on non-structural components. If these cracks are on a structural component then a large wind or heavy landing might cause permanent damage. That said, they are designed to fail non-catastrophically, so it it most likely that the plane will be ruined but no loss of life.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
It's a design trade-off. Having non-coupled sticks also offers advantages in other critical situations: see for instance the Air India IX-212 incident that happened on a Boeing 737 with coupled control yokes. The pilot flying was kind of inexperienced, and somehow managed to get stuck against the control yoke while the commander was out of the cockpit, making the plane enter a dive. When the commander rushed back to his flying seat, he had to struggle and fight with the other pilot for the control of the plane, who was in total panic and kept pushing as strongly as he could against his yoke. As the commander finally managed to pull stronger on his yoke than the other pilot pushed, the flight did not end in catastrophe. But it was still quite a scary incident.
In these situations, you can see the advantages of the Airbus design, with uncoupled sticks and a priority override button. In the AF447 crash, you can see its disadvantages.
So...a large fraction of drivers have above-average driving skills?
This word "average". I don't think it means what you think it means.
No sig today...
The things that really scare me are the flight crew and unknown problems.
Right, that was the whole goal: to scare you. Google the Quantas grounding for more information. FUD is an effective tactic when trying to sway public opinion.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
They won't ban driving. Rather, the steering wheel will become an input to the car's computer, letting it know you wish to turn at the next available safe opportunity. You'll still drive the car, it's just the car won't let you drive it unsafely.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I'm still trying to figure out, other than medical tourism, how a cheap plane ticket will extend my life.
Flying is safer than any other form of transportation so a cheap ticket that you buy instead of taking a different form of transportation for the trip lowers your risk of death during the trip. Thus a higher life expectancy.
(snicker) Oceans.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
They're too big to fail!
Cars don't kill people. People kill people!
-- Cheers!
The _fuselage_ of the Concorde used to flex enough to be noticeable to the passengers inside. I think I read something about the galley, toilets etc being strategically placed so that at no point could a passenger look down the entire length of the aircraft, but I can't find this information in the wikipedia article.
sustainable living
I didn't say envelope controls, I said control rates - the gain.
Brett
Interesting.
Even though I have a background in materials science, and know very well that everything moves and flexes all the time, I must say whenever I see the wings of an aircraft move seriously it does look kinda scary. Even though I know very well that there is no other way - it's impossible to make such long thin things so stiff they don't move visibly. And that the materials involved are perfectly capable of handling those stresses.
We can still use them for transporting proponents of the patent system.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
But my filter bubble doesn't let me see your results :(
Yes, it is the SR-71, which requires a generator or two to jump start, and a refueling in mid-air since it tends to lose a lot of fuel before getting off the ground.
IIRC (from talking to a guide at a museum), another technique used with the SR-71 was to position another jet engine in front of the engine air intake to heat and fuel-enrich the air to allow the Blackbird's engine to start more effectively. Amazing stuff right at the limit of what can be engineered (and made obsolete by spy-sats).
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Although this you could argue it was 50/50 between a design flaw and pilot error. One pilot was pulling up (in panic?), the other was pushing down (to gain airspeed). So the system took something like the average. As you say, once the other pilot knew what the one who was pulling up was doing, he realised that they were pretty stuffed. (IIRC, he says something along the line of 'you've killed us'.)
A physical link between the two joysticks, or possibly even only allowing input from one, would have saved the aircraft.
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Fucking Airbus: First the non-feedback double joystick with "cancelling input" mechanism. Then this lap joint fuselage weakness that they *knew about*. Now this small cracks in the plane which they *say* are harmless. Sure, they are harmless until some plane crashes.
Why do they let companies get away with such incompetence?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
$500M of a corporation's money, vs a person's right to fly on a plane without cracked wings. Tough indeed.
But the corporation isn't being evil in this case. You've got to assign a value to a human life otherwise there's just no way to work out how important safety features are, and there's no way to work out how much to pay for insurance, and so on. Typically, a life is worth a few million bucks ($2-5 million US, IIRC). That has to be used to work out whether it is worth doing some kind of safety-related action, with key factors being the number of lives at risk and the likelihood of a failure causing deaths. Now, an A380 carries over 500 people but the part in question isn't load-bearing so a failure is probably not very likely soon and probably won't cause the plane to crash. In other words, keep an eye via regular maintenance inspections on it but don't panic.
(I can't imagine any circumstance under which an aircraft manufacturer or airline would want one of their planes to crash, even if all the people on board survive. Crashes are bad for business. They're even bad for business in competitor manufacturers and airlines.)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
The people with below-average driving skills are few, but really extremely bad at driving. This makes it quite easy to be above-average :D
"I've never heard of a wheel coming off"
Then I guess it never happens. Jesus.
Play Command HQ online
Exactly. A lot of the alleged technical commentary above is basically a worked example of how "free markets" do old-style protectionism.
Virtually serving coffee
Now, I have seen the result of a blowout quite personally. Of course, it wasn't in a sports car, but a military truck, and in around 80km/h. Lets just say that the guys in the truck were pretty lucky to walk away from the crash, and the truck will never drive again. They went off the road and rolled the truck.
If you handle a blowout or not primarily depending on the loading and balancing of the vehicle and pure luck. If you are unlucky, you have a front heavy vehicle and blow out a front tire. If you are really unlucky the tire jams in the wheel well. If that happens you end up in the ditch or in meeting traffic. And then it's up to passive safety.
That you have never heard of a wheel coming off mostly shows that you haven't driven any significant distance, and certainly not in trucks. Delaminating tires is a common cause of truck accidents, especially for trucks that frequently drives on bad roads (such as trucks used to transport timber).
I'm on a A380 Flight right now - one of those with the experimental inflight WiFi (I'm sitting on the upper floor, in first class). The plane is awesome, and I feel as safe as can b ... [NO CARRIER]
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I literally have 30 minutes of booked flight time. And even I know that pilots are supposed to use positive communication about who has control of the plane. When a pilot wants to override the other pilot, he says "my aircraft" and the other pilot says "your aircraft" takes his fat fingers off the yoke/stick/trackball.
I also don't like the idea that the plane handles differently in an emergency situation.
Carbon fiber, unlike metal, does not visibly show cracks and fatigue
Fandroids hate facts.
If all the other planes can do that, this one should be able to do so as well. If what someone below noted is correct, that 7 meters is only 10 degrees, then I'm not a fan of the plane either.
Depends on the aircraft. A Boeing 737 for instance has hydraulically boosted controls. There are steel cables from the flight deck controls to the ailerons and elevators (the rudder is purely hydraulic), so the B737 system is sort of like "power steering". With a complete hydraulic failure, you can still muscle a Boeing 737 around (although I suspect it will take both crew members hauling back on the controls at the same time to flare for landing). Some airliners of similar size to a B737 do not have hydraulic controls at all, it's purely done with steel cables. Instead the crew are controlling servo tabs, and the servo tabs move the ailerons and elevators.
Larger aircraft like a DC-10, MD-11, Boeing 747 are pure hydraulic. If the hydraulic system fails, you have no control over the flight controls. The only control you do have is differential engine thrust. This has happened a small number of occasions (look up Sioux City DC10 crash).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Sigh
A survey a few years ago asked people if they thought they were below average, average, or above average drivers. 80% selected above average. More interestingly, most of the people who said below average were actually above average...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
1) the less experienced pilot was left on the stick while 1 pilot stayed there and the most experienced left for a pause.
2) once the indicator showed the wrong speed, the less experienced pilot started to climb up and regain altitude
3) this triggered stall warning to which the less experienced pilote answered by pulling the stick instead of pushing. THAT alone was the first terrible error. Most category of stall except rare one impossible with big airliner have you PUSH the stick to gain speed.
5) the other pilot tried small course correction unaware the less experienced on was still pulling the stick.
6) the "middle experienced" pilot to the less experienced one to leave the stick to him, but he apparently did not
7) when the most experienced came back in the cabine a few dozens of second before the crash it was already too late.
The whole story scream of pilot error on the side of the less experienced one. Sure the pitot failed, but pulling a stick to a stall warning ? No way.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Depends. There are parts of the wing that are actually not load bearing, but exist for the safety of the ground crew or to further improve fuel efficiency. A crack in one of those parts would not be life threatening. Without knowing where the crack is it's hard to say whether it's superficial or not.
Similarly, I've heard time and time again not to buy the first model year of a new car or significant vehicle redesign because of potential problems that will be found only after production and then fixed in subsequent years.
Same principle as with software, I guess.
I am not really here right now.
Trained yes. Always succeed, no.
And exactly the same situation in AF447, the 2nd office / right-seat co-pilot (and pilot-flying initially) kept pulling on the stick. At least with coupled yokes, such as in IX-212, that this is occurring is clear to the other pilot who can then take some physical action. On AF447, because on Airbus there is no cross-stick control-input feedback and because resultant command is averaged from both stick inputs, the 1st office / left-seat pilot and the captain were left completely unaware that the right-seat co-pilot - who had been ordered to relinquish control - was still pulling on the stick. They spent over two and a half minutes falling, stalled, out of the sky, with the 1st officer trying to recover the aircraft and the 2nd officer preventing this from having any chance at all by pulling on the stick. Even towards the end, ~40s before impact, when the 2nd officer let slip he'd been pulling back and was ordered repeatedly to let go of the control, he still kept pulling back (though at that point, it was almost certainly too late).
The lack of feedback is lethal.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
airbus is a corporation. they only thing that they care about is what wall street and the markets think. if you think they give a damn about your safety except where it makes the the investors happy, you are a fool.
Not as much of a fool as somebody who thinks they don't realize it will be the end of Airbus if they try to cover up a serious safety problem like wings falling off.
No sig today...
So you are saying these cracks are ... printed on the part? Gosh! Maybe you have a picture of a brain tattooed on your forehead.
Wire hangars or whatever, if their response to stress is cracking, they are not designed properly and they are not up to the job. I doubt a cracked part shapes the wing as well as an uncracked part. If it does, why not just manufacture them cracked and get it over with?
Infuriate left and right
But my filter bubble doesn't let me see your results :(
Really? Assuming that you are in Australia, are the strikes and grounding filtered?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
sorry, apparently this was a failed joke. Actually I'm in europe, but google still creates a bubble for me... I just recently tried the experiment with some friends, and I got really annoyed about the results being so different. PS: googling 'Qantas grounding' gives indeed articles about Qantas grounding, just they probably are different articles
Tip: sarcasm works best when you don't skirt so close to the truth.
For some reason, the cops always assume I'm speeding when I do.
If you make it back to 0 ft/0 mph, with the exception of a couple airports, you've just landed in the ocean.
The A380 has a lot of CF parts so metallurgy may not be relevant. There have been enough problems with carbon fiber tails breaking, starting with "small cracks" so I hope they're taking it seriously.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The critical issue that arises from the BEA interim reports is that nobody in the cockpit was aware that they were in a stall, even if the stall alarm sounded many times and the airspeed measurements came back back rather quickly. While I totally agree that feedback from the sticks could have helped in identifying the stall condition, it remains questionable if this could have saved the aircraft.
There is a more fundamental question here: in an emergency situation such as this one, why did the crew chose to discard most of the information that was given to them by the plane ? As soon as the initial issue was identified (unreliable airspeed), it seems that almost every information provided by the plane was considered bogus and not trustworthy anymore.
The inspectors from BEA have a assembled a "human factors" panel to try to understand the reactions of the pilots. Of course, human-machine interface is probably at the centre of the problem, but the issue seems a lot deeper than just stick feedback.
Fighters delicate?
Fighters are rated a +9Gs and I think -7Gs that is much higher than any airliner is rated.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Fucking Airbus: [...] Then this lap joint fuselage weakness that they *knew about*.
That was Boeing!
I wonder why that wasn't noticeable pretty quickly. One time my wheel was torqued a little when I was putting the lugs back on and the vibrations from the thing made it obvious there was a problem. I pulled over, readjusted the wheel to get it properly set and had no more problems. Granted, I suppose with only one lug on by half a turn it might have come off before he noticed.
AJ Henderson
One thing you'll even notice on smaller aircraft is that a lot of times on inspection cracks aren't even fixed. The A&P will basically just find the end of the crack and "drill it". IE,drill a small hole right at the end. This will tend to stop the crack form growing any further.
This is where "common sense" trips a lot of people up. "Common sense" is often dead wrong when it comes to engineering problems. Another aviation example is the Zenith Zodiac aircraft series (these are typically built from kits but some are available pre-built after the sport aircraft stuff was passed). The ailerons on the original design doesn't use traditional piano hinges - they literally just take the aluminum skin from the win and continue it on across to the aileron across the top. Rather than the hinge moving when the aileron moves, the wing skin literally just BENDS back and forth. "Common sense" would tell you that metal just bending back and forth like that would eventually wear out and break like a paper clip. The engineering analysis on the plane shows though that you're unlikely to wear it out within several decades of flight (during which any eventual wear would be long caught in inspection).
Sometimes you just have to trust the people who build the things when they say that it will work.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The wings on airliners can generally bend close to a U-shape - wingtips almost vertical - before they break. Look around on Youtube and see if you can find any wing flex tests. Seeing how far they can bend should make you feel better.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
While you are correct it can.
If the ones below average are extremely far below average and those above average are only a bit above this means there can be only a few above average ones.
If 100 driving skill is the average, one idiot has 1 driving skill and all the others have 101 driving skill this means there must be 99 people with 101 driving skill. In this case there is only 1% that has below average skills.
A decent driving test should make this impossible, for it should weed out the idiot with 1 driving skill.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Found one here where you can see the plane fuselage clearly in relation to the wing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRf395ioJRY
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Knowing that they can bend that far doesn't make it look less disturbing. But that's just the conflict between reasonable scientist and unreasonable human. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one in that respect.
We are rational - we just suck at understanding the risk of thing sin everyday life.
Thing Sin!
You willl burn in hell, prevert.
Motorbikes are more dangerous to the rider but not really to other people.
Motorbikes are a very useful source of fit, healthy, brain dead organ donors.
If you ban motorbikes us old farts will have to look for another source of the fresh organs we will soon need.
Not me - I always see them. See them ignoring every traffic rule in the book, that is. Just because you can fit between two cars on the interstate does not mean you should pass between them, for example.
Also see this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCLhSMzetY
That guy just replaced all his lug nuts, the shop gave him lugs that matched the thread pitch and everything else but the thread depth was less than it was supposed to be. He torqued up the lugs, drove to the event, and on the first really hard corner all 4 wheels popped off. That's a nice and expensive car too, it was featured on a magazine cover not long before that happened. It was fixed up without any serious damage to anything but the brakes from what I remember.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I was in an offroad rally when the truck ahead of me came to an abrupt stop. It had double-wishbone front suspension and the point where the upper wishbone attaches to the upright had broken, so the wheel was sitting flat on the ground perpendicular to the car, BTTF-style. Luckily it was on approach to a road crossing so we weren't going that fast - if that had happened while driving along the edge of a cliff or skimming the crests of a trail at 80kph+ he could have been in a world of shit.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
spy sats have predictible orbits. SR-71s were outlived by U2s (to be retired soon) and comparable drones
http://www.supercub.org/forum/showthread.php?41793-Air-France-447
About a third of the way down the thread is a comment by Dick Rutan.
The accident I fear most is someone pulling out too close in front of me on a highway where there isn't a run-up lane (or whatever they're called). If they pull out REALLY close it's unavoidable. I've had a few close calls, and the closest was the one where I had the least say in the matter and the other driver was 100% at fault.
I was driving along doing the limit (50mph) in my very visible 4x4 in broad daylight, and this dumb woman who had ages to see that I was coming (from close to a quarter-mile away) pulled out less than 25ft in front of me. That's one of two times I've ever "fright braked." I hit the brakes so hard that the wheels locked up and the jeep spun (it has no electro-nannies, and I just happened to have a sticky brake caliper at the time that pulled harder on one side just enough to start the spin) and I wasn't ready for the spin at all so my head was pulled back against the headrest and I was looking at the roof. The centrifugal force of the spin had to be at least 3 Gs, I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 4, it felt way stronger than anything I'd felt on a rollercoaster and I couldn't pull my head back down. I thought the 4x4 would go onto its side but it stayed shiny-side up. The woman picked up her speed when she saw me sliding sideways towards her.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Here's the thing: most people don't *enjoy* driving their commute every day - driving, especially in stop & go gridlock, SUCKS. People *enjoy* smoking & drinking. They won't need to "ban" driving, it'll simply be something that most people opt not to do once the systems are available in their car - and they will be, sooner or later (admittedly more likely later).
If they offered an "autopilot" function in cars, most (i.e., the overwhelming majority) would want it simply because it gives them more free time each day to do something they consider meaningful, fun or productive. The system would probably require the driver to operate the vehicle for a minute or so onto a roadway, and again at the far end of the trip to park... but if you could sip coffee, send some email, read the paper, or even nap for the other 30 minutes of your commute, who *wouldn't* want that? You'd get all the benefits-to-the-rider of mass transit without the restricted schedule, limited service areas, and occasional silent-but-deadly-farts from your fellow riders.
Sure, there'll be a few idiots who believe the illusion of being in control of their vehicle gets them to their destination faster; they're welcome to their fanciful notions, but in reality, all the weaving & speeding they're doing will make a difference of about 12 seconds to their commute. I can't count the number of times I've seen somebody trying to speed and weave their way through morning traffic in Boston, only to end up within a car length of them getting off the highway 20 miles farther along.
Exactly
Also, margins are not only because of the model, but variances between materials, material fatigue with time, etc
how long until
Why are we so strange behaving species? How about being more rational?
Legacy code.
In many places in the world its illegal to smoke in public places and/or work places including, pubs, clubs, cafes etc. Driving on public roads may end up being illegal, while motor racing and private tracks may be legal. Just saying, don't rule it out just yet.
There is no -1 disagree
As I said, hydraulically actuated surfaces are not considered fly by wire, which is a whole another set of criteria and features.
I never said there were still direct connections...
The physical link would have communicated clearly to the other co-pilot what the one with the controls was doing. To me, the idea of averaging two controls is completely moronic. I really can't come up with a situation where you would want to do that. This essentially halves all inputs, drastically changing handling, and should, at a minimum, give an error when they two are at opposite ends of the extremes.
I think it is pretty easy to cluck-cluck about how the pilot responded in an emergency now, but when the plane issues a stall warning every time you push down on the stick, I think you might get the idea it is a bad idea. Pretty amazingly bad human interface if you ask me.
If I can add some context here, QANTAS engineers have just come out of a serious dispute with QANTAS management. A dispute that they lost. A number of Australians (at least) may be taking this as an attempt at making QANTAS management look bad.
The French claim they are French, everyone buying them claims they are "European" and those riding in them try to convince themselves they are German.
You realize that the rest of the world wants to be just like the US, including (or often especially) the bad parts, right? As goes the US, so goes the world.
Not to mention that, as Slahsdot is a US site with an overwhelming majority of Americans, it's appropriate at any time to turn the discussion to matters closer at hand, even if that consistently pisses off the few foreigners here.
Or perhaps you could have taken the comment as an apology for Airbus, as the US does the same or worse, so all the Americans that object when a foreign company do it and not as bad when the US company does it are hypocrites.
There are plenty of readings of my comment that assume I know Airbus is not a US company, so yours is an incorrect and unfounded reading of my comment. Perhaps you should work harder on forming correct posts, rather than incorrectly correcting others.
Learn to love Alaska
Well that's an easy one - if the engineers sign off on something in the face of evidence that they have not done their job, then they lose the ability to work as. Licensed engineer. Anywhere.
Losing your career is a pretty big thing.
Not to mention the lawsuits they become personally open to.
Sorry, one other thing, "But neither Bonin nor Roberts has ever received training in how to deal with an unreliable airspeed indicator at cruise altitude, or in flying the airplane by hand under such conditions." If you don't train a pilot, how surprising is it when they fail? Your comment is no different than if I put you in a race car on the track at speed and then said it was your fault when it hit the wall.
The fact that only one person died is also of interest.
I'd rather be in the plane that only kills one person when 1/4 the roof tears off than the one that would likely fall apart.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It's still pilot error if the pilots hadn't been adequately trained. The blame however, might rest elsewhere.
Your username and signature are superbly appropriate to your comment :P
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
This happened right in front of me this morning, as I was on my way to work. The left rear wheel of a car came off and went rolling down the road for about a block before it fell over. The driver did not look happy.
I think "baggage thrower" is my new favorite term.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I can't tell if this is meant sincerely or as satire.
I see. Thanks for letting me know.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
i stand corrected - i skimread it as being after 2000...
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
It says something to me that when the captain arrived he couldn't figure out what was going on. He couldn't see the pitch, he couldn't see the rapid decent, it wasn't obvious to him that the plane was stalled, he didn't see the air speed was 60 kph. Instead the system fooled three pilots with over 20k hours into thinking that there was nothing that could be counted on.
The EPA uses a figure around $6-9 million last I checked. Economists looking at spending on safety measures come up with something closer to an implied value of $0.5-$1 million. (It's also probable that many people are not entirely rational about risk.)
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"and do Boeing do too perhaps?"
On all commercial aircraft (and, I think, most of the military aircraft, not sure about the two-seat fighters) Boeing control yokes (not side sticks) are mechanically connected to one another, and move simultaneously for all three axes of control input. The newer jets then transcode those inputs through the flight control computer system. Fun fact: The autopilot control inputs are back-driven into the yokes. You can see the plane flying itself (although the inputs are usually subtle).
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Woosh!
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
That is a crucial detail. Thanks for adding this info about the priority button and the auditory feedback.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
the problem isn't fly by wire, the problem is that airbus computers evaluate pilot actions for correctness and override if they decide the pilot is incorrect, in situations where the compuiter judges wrong, such as when a sensor is giving faulty readings, the plane may do pleasant things like land on the face of a mountain
An old wife's tale often told by Boeing fans.
Fandroids hate facts.
Somehow the potential presence of a cupcake in a jar is more terrifying than evidence of structural degradation on several aircraft.