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The Engineer Who Stopped Airplanes From Flying Into Mountains

Posted by samzenpus on from the just-pull-up dept.

New submitter gmrobbins writes "The Seattle Times profiles avionics engineer Don Bateman, whose Honeywell lab in Redmond, Washington has for decades pioneered ground proximity warning systems. Bateman's innovations have nearly eliminated controlled flight into terrain by commercial aircraft, the most common cause of fatal airplane accidents."

19 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. And yet somehow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a low-tier banking executive makes more money than this man.

    1. Re:And yet somehow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      doesn't sound like he's really into it for the money

      that man is lucky -- he has a very long engineering career with a meaningful benefit to society

    2. Re:And yet somehow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are larger rewards in life than money

    3. Re:And yet somehow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Only bad engineers get offshored. The good ones get kept on to die a slow, painful death by managing the offshored employees.

      FTFY.

    4. Re:And yet somehow by X.25 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      a low-tier banking executive makes more money than this man.

      Well, look at the "Forbes 400 list" of richest Americans, and see how many of 20 richest actually produce a physical product.

      And that's why system is about to collapse.

    5. Re:And yet somehow by geogob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm an engineer working in the field of aerospace instrumentation. I'm passionate about my job. For me, it's like playing a game and I can barely wait for the weekend to end to go back to work. In my team here, we're having a lot of fun and everyday gives us new challenges. Solving these challenges is quite exhilarating, probably just as it was for this engineer fight through the challenge of solving CFITs.

      But, in the end, we're still all in it for the money. We were just lucky enough to find a career and a job that we really happened to enjoy.

      I'm totally biased when I say this, but engineers are one of the profession that's grossly underpaid and under-regarded. Some investment make millions just by moving some virtual values - usually worthless - left and right on a computer screens, while engineers responsible for the success of projects worth in the multi-billion "real dollars" range, or indirectly responsible for countless lives, struggle to get decent salaries and usually don't even come close to 6 digit figures. What's even worse is that engineers carry a true responsibility for the success of their project. A personal responsibility. Bankers, when they fail because of their own greed, carry little responsibility as far as I know. Worse that could happen, is that they lose their job when the company goes down. That's nothing compared to what engineers have to face personally when they fail like that.

    6. Re:And yet somehow by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes what would we ever do without swarms of HFT servers sucking the value out of the market within milliseconds, before humans could ever react.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    7. Re:And yet somehow by swillden · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm totally biased when I say this, but engineers are one of the profession that's grossly underpaid and under-regarded. Some investment make millions just by moving some virtual values - usually worthless - left and right on a computer screens, while engineers responsible for the success of projects worth in the multi-billion "real dollars" range, or indirectly responsible for countless lives, struggle to get decent salaries and usually don't even come close to 6 digit figures.

      I think you're comparing averages to outliers.

      An analogous comparison would be to look at drama majors and assume they all make crazy money because A-list Hollywood actors are millionaires. There are large numbers of people who study finance and business -- and are good at it -- but who don't have the particular breed of genius mixed with insanity required to succeed in Wall Street, which is the pinnacle of that career field.

      In my field, software, there are plenty of millionaire engineers, and a few billionaires. They made their money as much by luck, being in the right place at the right time with the right ideas, as by skill and hard work, but that's also true of the Wall Street types. Oh, and the software "outliers" have orders of magnitude more money than the Wall Street types.

      Further, those millionaire investment bankers don't make money by just taking a nice, safe and predictable salary... their compensation is almost entirely performance-based, and the nature of their business is that performing well requires taking risks. If those risks don't pan out, they get very little and lose their jobs. Lots of people go that route and wash out, but we don't hear about them. The analogous sort in the software field is the guys who spend their careers in Silicon Valley, hopping from startup to startup, working insane hours for peanuts plus worthless stock, hoping that this time the stock becomes valuable. I don't know what the analogous risk-taking, shoot-for-the-moon career path looks like in, say, aviation engineering, but working for Boeing isn't it.

      I think there are plenty of opportunities for engineers to make huge money by taking big risks. There are also plenty of opportunities for engineers to make a decent living working 40-50 hours per week, doing what they like, with a paycheck that shows up like clockwork. It's also important to keep in mind that the lower stress of the steady paycheck is also a form of compensation, and not a trivial one. It's huge if you want to have a family and to be involved in your kids' lives, for example.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    8. Re:And yet somehow by hey! · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I recently met an engineer who developed the architecture and led the design of several widely deployed electronic systems. I don't want to mention the names (so as not to embarrass anyone) but they're systems that generate a quarter billion dollars in revenue annually and which you've almost certainly heard of.

      *He* can't get a job, because of his age and (ironically) because his resume is so impressive. People are afraid to hire him.

      Now to be fair this guy pretty much radiates "engineer". He comes across as gruff, cynical and impatient, and he dresses a little oddly. He might have some tendency towards Asperger's; he listens intently to what is said but doesn't seem to be aware of body language. But still, even considering that, this shows that the fond belief engineers have that a track record of success will magically open doors for them in their career is baloney. This guy built more than one "better mousetrap", and he can't even get a job interview.

      The reason this guy hasn't been able to get a job for several years is that he doesn't want to network. He sees shmoozing as a stupid waste of time, because it's not how *he* would hire someone to do a job. But at his career stage it's the *only* way he'll get another job, because otherwise his resume will only land on the desk of people who see his ability and experience as a threat. He's got to hit the cocktail party circuit -- events where tech entrepreneurs hang out -- because *that's* where he'll find people eager to bring someone like him on board.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. And the geek shall inherit the earth... by jholyhead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's nice to see real Engineers getting a bit of recognition for a change.

    Scary fact of the day from the CFIT wiki article - as of 2007, 5% of commercial airlines still weren't running a Terrain awareness and warning system.

    1. Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth... by devitto · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth..." - and some plough into it by accident.

      5% of commercial airlines still weren't running a Terrain awareness and warning system.

      Don't worry about the 5% - that number is decreasing all the time, one way or another.....

    2. Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      surely a more scary fact is that we have people flying planes who can't tell the difference between the land and the sky?

      If, like Don Bateman, you'd ever lived in the Pacific Northwest - you'd realize there are times you can't tell the land from the sky even when you're standing on the land.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

      That 5% includes Africa and Asia, most of which isn't covered by aviation authorities with the same power as the EASA or FAA - places like Singapore etc are, but you need to start including all the smaller airlines that own Boeing 737-200s or 727s, which have been around for over 4 decades and are available very cheaply. They won't fly to Europe or the US, so they get to operate under very relaxed rules - check out the list of airlines banned from flying to EU airports sometime, it's quite enlightening.

      Also, corruption is rife in many African countries, which even by itself is a big blocker to reform.

  3. Re:CFIT vs loss of control by robbak · · Score: 5, Informative

    Correction: cfit is no longer the leading cause. Terrain warning systems make then almost impossible, which is the point of this article.

    --
    Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
  4. How old school. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Today this would be solved by making flying info mountains illegal.

  5. Make the technology scale down... by MrClever · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now all we need is to make the technology down-scale in both size/weight and cost. It would be great to see these systems adapted and installed in smaller, lighter aircraft. There are still far too many CFIT fatalities in the private and small aircraft world. They have synthetic terrain warning (superimposing the aircraft's position from GPS and altimeter over a topographic data to determine horizontal and vertical proximity to terrain) but no active warning systems. GPS is good, so is the altimeter, but neither are perfect all the time - if they were, ground proximity warning systems (GPWS...aka "WHOOP WHOOP, PULL UP!!") still are prohibitive for small aircraft operators. Kudos to the GPWS team though - they saved my ass on at least one occasion in a previous life when I was professional pilot!

  6. Re:Terrain by qxcv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "He deliberately force-landed the plane by diving down in a steep manner until the Ground Proximity Warning System gave off a signal 'sink rate, whoop, whoop, pull up'."

    He said Komar ignored 15 GPWS warnings as well as his co-pilot's warning and brought the plane into the sharp dive, causing it to drop suddenly by 1,600 feet per minute compared with a normal 1,000 feet per minute and to overshoot the runway.

    The plane's front wheel snapped off, causing the aircraft to bounce three times before skidding on the runway, crossing an airport fence and a public road and hitting a dyke before bursting into flames, the prosecutor said.

    Source.
     
    A few years ago, a friend claimed that a member of the flight crew aboard GA-200 actually said "Stupid American" or something along those lines in an attempt to shut up the GPWS (which wouldn't particularly surprise me knowing Garuda). I'd dearly love to hear the CVR recordings for that flight if anyone knows where I can get them, I'd like to see whether that rumour is fact or fiction.

    --
    "The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
  7. What? by rotorbudd · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The Engineer Who Stopped Airplanes From Flying Into Mountains"

    I thought that was the pilot's job?

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
  8. Another perspective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Engineers are one of the highest paid professions in our society. Other than actuary you won't find a profession that pays higher with a 4 year. Starting salaries? What profession tops the list everytime? Engineering. If you want to come out of a 4 year program making the most money, it's engineering. And it's been that way for decades.

    The trouble is that everyone here is comparing their salaires to Wall Street types - who are outliers when it comes to compensation. I have met a local investment banker here in Atlanta (at Suntrust) who shakes his head about Wall Street bankers - he says they're another "World".