Originally Posted by
HIFLYR
Name the aircraft that has a higher crosswind limitation for the autoland system than the pilot can do. Airbus computers can break I know I fly one. I am not missing the point I train and evaluate pilots in the sim and actual aircraft for a living and you still need skills to fly todays aircraft. Who is going to fly the aircraft in a degraded condition? I understand how the certification process works and certification is sometimes limited by finding known xwinds. I think my current Airbus aircraft could be landed in a higher wind than 32 kts but don't know it can because 32 is the limit. So how do you KNOW a 757 can do 40 KT crosswind if it was not certified to do it?
I hate when guys like you say something like you said here
"Unfortunately for us flying an airplane is no longer the domain of skilled aviators. With the adaption of computer assisted controls and limits, manufacturers can make "flying" a plane as simple as pressing a button to takeoff, and one to land."
I see the opposite every day in the sim or when giving IOE.
Ok so picture this. You select the ILS or RNAV X approach to an airport. The box loads it and calculates exactly where the aircraft needs to configure based on present position. You tell it to go direct to the IAF and it does everything, including configuring on schedule. It lands. It taxis to the gate. What skills did the pilot need? Even the approach can be selected by the computer automatically based on METAR data or a digital broadcast from the station that broadcasts to aircraft which approach should be used.
While that sounds far fetched so did being able to pull full aft on the elevator and not stall a couple decades ago. Or being able to tune a radio yourself. Or engines that start themselves. My point in all of this is technology has caught up to us.
As far as auto lands go yes you are correct, aircraft are artificially limited (generally by the FAA here) by current certification standards. That doesn't mean they are not capable of higher limits, don't confuse the two. And don't think that will stop future progress.
This is a pretty quick read about using AI and machine learning to execute go arounds automatically.
http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/h.baomar/files/RP4.pdf