You can't disable a primary flight control system suddenly. That's what the problem is here. They get data from 2 sensors to determine AOA, one gets anomalous readings but the system doesn't know that. There's no way to know with 2.
Except, with an airplane, there is. There is GPS data. There is historical telemetry (and by historical, I mean the past ten seconds). There is engine speed data, altitude data, and airspeed data. All of this is already collected.
If the AoA is increasing, you'd expect the altitude to start increasing, the plane to start slowing, the engine RPM to decrease due to the increase load. All of these would correlate with GPS telemetry. Having the lives of 150 people hang on the reliability of a potentiometer attached to a weather vane is incredibly stupid.
It doesnt' have to cost extra. There are already other sensors that would give signals corresponding to an approaching stall condition that the computer could use to correlate.
For manually flying IFR, the answer is that you compare multiple instruments. If the artificial horizon tells you that you're flying straight and level, but your compass is spinning, your altimeter says you're losing altitude, and your engine is revving higher than what it normally does for where the throttle is at...you know the artificial horizon is broken AND that you're in a spiral dive.
The fact that the computer did not have a backup AoA, but that it is not constantly cross-checking against all the other information it has is malpractice. If the MCAS is meant to avoid a power-on stall, then the computer should also expect to see decreasing airspeed, increasing altitude, and a decreasing engine RPM.
I'd like to think that I'm just being an arm-chair engineer, but....REALLY BOEING!!
Off the top of my head he advocates for - decency in the way we treat eachother
Let's just deal with that one point. Advocating for feeling good is not a policy position. Every sane person wants that. How does he propose to legislate how we treat each other?
What heading to take, what altitude to take, and what speed to maintain.
It's a little more than you said, but still FAR easier than a self driving car. I'm never worried about deer jumping in front of me while flying.
At least, not until the last 1000ft. I fly out of a rural, grass strip, and deer like runway grass. And, so you know, a low pass over the airport to both insure they're not there and to scare them off if they are.
I used to drive a truck. I quickly found out that asphalt looks the same everywhere. That applause gets old after the tenth time, when they all get off to have fun (but you don't), and then you immediately watch the batch you dropped last week get back on (now tanned) while you continue to fill out paperwork.
This plane crashed six minutes after takeoff in clear weather. With the upgraded, more powerful engines, the rustiest of pilots would have been able to keep the plane climbing. It is just NOT that hard. Setting up an airliner for landing is crazy hard. Not hitting the ground is actually EASY.
The more I read, the more I think that recurrent training would have done nothing to help this accident.
It takes practice to make a smooth crosswind landing. Any dolt that has ever played a video game can climb to altitude and fly in circles. Any dolt can NOT HIT THE GROUND in CLEAR weather.
I had to look up the weather conditions for this crash. It was clear skies. It takes very little skill to take off and maintain altitude in clear weather.
Unless, the plane won't let you. In that case. . . FUCK BOEING!!
Yes. It is a numbers game, but an INFORMED numbers game.
If something reduces accidents, go with it, but keep an eye out for any problems it might cause.
This plane crashed on a clear day. The pilot should not have had any difficulty overriding some automatic control with yoke forces. This seems to be a case of either someone at a desk deciding that they can make better decisions than the person holding they yoke, or VERY stupid pilots. Seriously, six minutes after takeoff. You're at full power. Is the horizon somewhere around the normal place on the windshield? Do the engines sound normal? Is altitude increasing normally? Does your GPS agree with the altimeter.
If you can't figure it out, hand fly to altitude and declare an emergency to figure it out. If the plane won't let you climb...FUCK BOEING!!
The "seat" was not required in this case. The plane crashed six minutes after takeoff in CLEAR weather. The number one instrument the pilot has is the big clear one in front of him that shows the world. Instrumentation is a convenience, not a necessity, and the pilot has ONE job. Maintain airspeed in order to not hit the ground.
Also, does anyone else read this story as, "I don't know how to do my job, but I want to keep getting paid to do it."?
Fucking stupid.
Stick and Rudder skills are like playing a musical instrument. They require constant practice and exercise to stay "current".
This is not a new realization, but one that's been enshrined in the FAA regulations for decades longer than I've been alive. Pilots are required to "be current" meaning they have flown a minimum number of landings as PIC in the last few months before they can fly.
Nope. The landing requirement is only to carry passengers.
I am also are required to "be current" with a flight instructor every year.
Nope. It's called a biannual, but it is only required once every TWO years.
Airline pilots must be "current" in their type ratings, which includes both training, check rides and flight time.
So it actually makes sense.. We are taking away the On the Job training opportunity in Stick and Rudder operation, replacing it with button pushing and dial turning. What's a pilot to do?
Join a glider club. One flight a month will keep them MORE than prepared to handle a powered craft.
The 737 is not primarily fly-by-wire (not even the MAX). Some secondary flight controls are fly-by-wire (electric tail stabilizer trim, spoilers). The problem is that a pilot needs to know how to recover from runaway stabilizer trim and know that the situation is happening. Since the system was poorly documented, this was a problem.
It would seem that watching the ground get closer during a climb would be one indication that the situation is happening.
No. There should be a move to the government owning and controlling the transmission lines, the allowing anyone to produce and sell electricity in the same way that anyone can start a trucking company.
At that point, you'll see which technology is truly viable.
Cool. Then why bother fighting tooth and nail trying to kill coal off, when you can lay back, relax and watch economy do the dirty (or clean in this case) work for you?
Because, due to the falling curve of renewable prices, it will soon replace everything else without ANY intervention. The political class can't take credit and claim they invented it if that happens. They MUST pass a pointless law legislating the inevitable BEFORE the inevitable happens.
If you're watching the energy market, you would see that they ARE trampling each other. There are solar panel shortages. What is happening is that the "greedy companies" are slurping up the subsidies that were put in place while the panels were more expensive. Now they are getting the benefits of subsidies AND an economically viable solar solution.
Use solar thermal to liquify salts (or some other chemical) and store it underground. You can then have a HUGE power reserve. If you need more reserve, just dig another hole and put a tank in it. There are options other than PV.
Which is the only reason the politicals are making up their laws. They're just trying to stay ahead of the parades so that they can keep calling themselves the leader.
If ANY of the 50 united states should be leading in the solar revolution, it should be New Mexico (and it would be a head-to-head race with Arizona and eastern Texas).
The problem with solar is similar to the problem for most energy sources and that is low energy density. Solar at large scale requires lots of land.
I take it you've never driven through New Mexico. The problem with New Mexico is that it is a lot of empty land, that rarely has cloud cover.
And while some PV cells are made with toxic materials, others are made with much less environmental impact. The problem is they are also lower efficiencies.
So? Don't use PV. Thermal solar is much cheaper at grid scale and has the capacity to inherently store energy (through underground liquified salts).
Solar is great for small amounts of power which are far from generation sources. Its just not a useful energy source for large scale grid applications.
My local power company would like to see your analysis, since they've been working on different numbers and quietly building out large PV farms. Considering that thermal solar is even cheaper than PV, my thinking is that they're telling everybody else that it isn't worthwhile to invest in home solar while they build out their own infrastructure.
There is more than one type of solar, you know. In the case of New Mexico, there is no reason not to use thermal solar. In this case, the "panels" could be nothing more than polished sheets of aluminum that all focus the sunlight on a central point.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't disable a primary flight control system suddenly. That's what the problem is here. They get data from 2 sensors to determine AOA, one gets anomalous readings but the system doesn't know that. There's no way to know with 2.
Except, with an airplane, there is. There is GPS data. There is historical telemetry (and by historical, I mean the past ten seconds). There is engine speed data, altitude data, and airspeed data. All of this is already collected.
If the AoA is increasing, you'd expect the altitude to start increasing, the plane to start slowing, the engine RPM to decrease due to the increase load. All of these would correlate with GPS telemetry. Having the lives of 150 people hang on the reliability of a potentiometer attached to a weather vane is incredibly stupid.
It doesnt' have to cost extra. There are already other sensors that would give signals corresponding to an approaching stall condition that the computer could use to correlate.
This.
For manually flying IFR, the answer is that you compare multiple instruments. If the artificial horizon tells you that you're flying straight and level, but your compass is spinning, your altimeter says you're losing altitude, and your engine is revving higher than what it normally does for where the throttle is at...you know the artificial horizon is broken AND that you're in a spiral dive.
The fact that the computer did not have a backup AoA, but that it is not constantly cross-checking against all the other information it has is malpractice. If the MCAS is meant to avoid a power-on stall, then the computer should also expect to see decreasing airspeed, increasing altitude, and a decreasing engine RPM.
I'd like to think that I'm just being an arm-chair engineer, but....REALLY BOEING!!
People don't tend to buy store/no-name brand. They always seem to be a hit or miss proposition with poor quality control.
Except, now we have Affirmative Action, which is pretty much that some "you got turned away before so the other gets turned away now"
Off the top of my head he advocates for - decency in the way we treat eachother
Let's just deal with that one point. Advocating for feeling good is not a policy position. Every sane person wants that. How does he propose to legislate how we treat each other?
Absorbed more energy.
If the figures are to be believed, and there is no reason not to, the earth is 1.5C warmer than before the Industrial age started. Correct?
So, that is a change from 366C to 367.5C? A 0.41% change.
What heading to take, what altitude to take, and what speed to maintain.
It's a little more than you said, but still FAR easier than a self driving car. I'm never worried about deer jumping in front of me while flying.
At least, not until the last 1000ft. I fly out of a rural, grass strip, and deer like runway grass.
And, so you know, a low pass over the airport to both insure they're not there and to scare them off if they are.
Except it don't work that way on a plane.
https://www.boldmethod.com/blo...
Rule for work travel: It's never fun.
I used to drive a truck. I quickly found out that asphalt looks the same everywhere. That applause gets old after the tenth time, when they all get off to have fun (but you don't), and then you immediately watch the batch you dropped last week get back on (now tanned) while you continue to fill out paperwork.
This plane crashed six minutes after takeoff in clear weather. With the upgraded, more powerful engines, the rustiest of pilots would have been able to keep the plane climbing. It is just NOT that hard. Setting up an airliner for landing is crazy hard. Not hitting the ground is actually EASY.
The more I read, the more I think that recurrent training would have done nothing to help this accident.
It takes practice to make a smooth crosswind landing. Any dolt that has ever played a video game can climb to altitude and fly in circles. Any dolt can NOT HIT THE GROUND in CLEAR weather.
I had to look up the weather conditions for this crash. It was clear skies. It takes very little skill to take off and maintain altitude in clear weather.
Unless, the plane won't let you. In that case. . . FUCK BOEING!!
Yes. It is a numbers game, but an INFORMED numbers game.
If something reduces accidents, go with it, but keep an eye out for any problems it might cause.
This plane crashed on a clear day. The pilot should not have had any difficulty overriding some automatic control with yoke forces. This seems to be a case of either someone at a desk deciding that they can make better decisions than the person holding they yoke, or VERY stupid pilots. Seriously, six minutes after takeoff. You're at full power. Is the horizon somewhere around the normal place on the windshield? Do the engines sound normal? Is altitude increasing normally? Does your GPS agree with the altimeter.
If you can't figure it out, hand fly to altitude and declare an emergency to figure it out. If the plane won't let you climb...FUCK BOEING!!
The "seat" was not required in this case. The plane crashed six minutes after takeoff in CLEAR weather. The number one instrument the pilot has is the big clear one in front of him that shows the world. Instrumentation is a convenience, not a necessity, and the pilot has ONE job. Maintain airspeed in order to not hit the ground.
How about training pilots how to fly?
Also, does anyone else read this story as, "I don't know how to do my job, but I want to keep getting paid to do it."?
Fucking stupid.
Stick and Rudder skills are like playing a musical instrument. They require constant practice and exercise to stay "current".
This is not a new realization, but one that's been enshrined in the FAA regulations for decades longer than I've been alive. Pilots are required to "be current" meaning they have flown a minimum number of landings as PIC in the last few months before they can fly.
Nope. The landing requirement is only to carry passengers.
I am also are required to "be current" with a flight instructor every year.
Nope. It's called a biannual, but it is only required once every TWO years.
Airline pilots must be "current" in their type ratings, which includes both training, check rides and flight time.
So it actually makes sense.. We are taking away the On the Job training opportunity in Stick and Rudder operation, replacing it with button pushing and dial turning. What's a pilot to do?
Join a glider club. One flight a month will keep them MORE than prepared to handle a powered craft.
Like a barrel roll?
The 737 is not primarily fly-by-wire (not even the MAX). Some secondary flight controls are fly-by-wire (electric tail stabilizer trim, spoilers). The problem is that a pilot needs to know how to recover from runaway stabilizer trim and know that the situation is happening. Since the system was poorly documented, this was a problem.
It would seem that watching the ground get closer during a climb would be one indication that the situation is happening.
No.
There should be a move to the government owning and controlling the transmission lines, the allowing anyone to produce and sell electricity in the same way that anyone can start a trucking company.
At that point, you'll see which technology is truly viable.
Cool. Then why bother fighting tooth and nail trying to kill coal off, when you can lay back, relax and watch economy do the dirty (or clean in this case) work for you?
Because, due to the falling curve of renewable prices, it will soon replace everything else without ANY intervention. The political class can't take credit and claim they invented it if that happens. They MUST pass a pointless law legislating the inevitable BEFORE the inevitable happens.
If you're watching the energy market, you would see that they ARE trampling each other. There are solar panel shortages. What is happening is that the "greedy companies" are slurping up the subsidies that were put in place while the panels were more expensive. Now they are getting the benefits of subsidies AND an economically viable solar solution.
More corporate welfare. This time from the left.
Also, molten salt loops only last 6 hours. Not an especially useful grid scale backup storage mechanism.
Interesting. I'd like to see some numbers on that. What is it that limits the size of an underground holding tank?
Use solar thermal to liquify salts (or some other chemical) and store it underground. You can then have a HUGE power reserve. If you need more reserve, just dig another hole and put a tank in it. There are options other than PV.
+1
Which is the only reason the politicals are making up their laws. They're just trying to stay ahead of the parades so that they can keep calling themselves the leader.
If ANY of the 50 united states should be leading in the solar revolution, it should be New Mexico (and it would be a head-to-head race with Arizona and eastern Texas).
The problem with solar is similar to the problem for most energy sources and that is low energy density. Solar at large scale requires lots of land.
I take it you've never driven through New Mexico. The problem with New Mexico is that it is a lot of empty land, that rarely has cloud cover.
And while some PV cells are made with toxic materials, others are made with much less environmental impact. The problem is they are also lower efficiencies.
So? Don't use PV. Thermal solar is much cheaper at grid scale and has the capacity to inherently store energy (through underground liquified salts).
Solar is great for small amounts of power which are far from generation sources. Its just not a useful energy source for large scale grid applications.
My local power company would like to see your analysis, since they've been working on different numbers and quietly building out large PV farms. Considering that thermal solar is even cheaper than PV, my thinking is that they're telling everybody else that it isn't worthwhile to invest in home solar while they build out their own infrastructure.
There is more than one type of solar, you know. In the case of New Mexico, there is no reason not to use thermal solar. In this case, the "panels" could be nothing more than polished sheets of aluminum that all focus the sunlight on a central point.