Once a pilot, now a computer's sidekick
07-23-2012, 08:59 AM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
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Joined APC: Feb 2008
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Posts: 771
Once a pilot, now a computer's sidekick
Once a pilot, now a computer’s sidekick
Industry analysts estimated last week that in the next 20 years, the airlines are going to need 466,000 new pilots. When I said to an airline pilot friend that such a job market would make it easy for his son to follow in his footsteps, he smiled.
“I think he wants a flying job instead,” he replied.
I noted that this sounded odd coming from a fellow who just flew a planeload of passengers back from overseas.
“I didn’t fly,” he replied. “The computer flew. I sat in the front office, monitoring systems.”
“Who flies better,” I asked, “you or the computer?”
“Oh, the computer,” he replied. “No contest, as long as things function. When they stop functioning, it’s a different story. Then the computer quits, and I go to work. Provided I still remember how.”
The dilemma isn’t new, but it’s being discussed more and more frequently. Pilots don’t fly enough. They get rusty, and when they really need to call upon their flying muscles, they find them either atrophied or insufficiently developed in the first place. The symbol of the problem has become Air France’s Flight 447, an Airbus dropped by its pilots into the ocean three years ago, according to a French inquiry’s final report released last month.
When a faulty speed sensor made the autopilot quit, two co-pilots on the flight deck would have needed to hand-fly their Airbus 330, established in cruise at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic, until the captain, who was taking his scheduled nap, returned to the cockpit. Their task was to fly straight and level for two or three minutes on instruments, with no visual reference to the horizon, without reliable airspeed indication, in light turbulence. They couldn’t do it. By the time the captain came back, the Airbus had stopped flying and was about a minute from contacting the water.
In 1915, Arthur Roy Brown, the flying ace credited with bringing down Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, had his pilot’s license issued with six hours of flight time. By comparison, even the least experienced pilot on AF447 had 2,800 hours in his logbook. It isn’t that today’s pilots train fewer hours; it’s that the study of increasingly complex systems and regulations compete for time and emphasis with flying skills. Airmanship and command authority are being boxed in by petty rules, for the comfort of lawyers and bureaucrats rather than to enhance operational efficiency and flight safety.
Before leaving the flight deck for his scheduled rest, the captain of Air France’s ill-fated Flight 447 was obliged, as part of his briefing, to ask his relief pilot if he had a commercial pilot’s license. Why would anyone weigh down the captain’s workload with such a query? Would an unlicensed impostor say to the captain: “Crikey, skipper, I didn’t know you needed a license for this gig” or would he just lie and say: “Yes, sir.”
The crew whose fate it was to be flying Flight 447 had the necessary qualifications. The problem was that they had them in their wallets, rather than in their heads. Qualifications in wallets satisfy bureaucracies, but only qualifications in heads ensure the safety of a flight.
It was a “Thales”-type speed sensor that iced up as the Airbus was skirting a thunderstorm high above the South Atlantic. Air France, aware of the limitations of the device, had just begun to replace the $3,500 units. It hadn’t gotten around to changing it in the ill-fated airplane before it departed Rio de Janeiro for Paris on the night of June 1, 2009. Grounding the entire Airbus fleet until all units were replaced may have cost only a fraction of what the accident, investigation and lawsuits will end up costing Air France, to say nothing of the tragic loss of 228 lives. Some analysts argue, though, that turning all potential flaws into mandatory “no go” items would make air transportation unaffordable.
The “Thales” sensors were more susceptible to icing than other designs, but they didn’t all ice up, and the planes carrying those that did remained flyable and were landed safely by their Air France crews. So were two other Airbus 330s belonging to Paris-based Air Caraibes Atlantique. Only Flight 447 fell into the ocean. One disaster is one too many, of course, but it was no more an inevitable consequence than it would be for a blown tire to flip a car.
Airspeed is crucial to flight. Too fast and the plane can break up; too slow and it can fall out of the sky. When airspeed indicators become unreliable, the computerized systems — autopilot and auto-throttles — quit. On the Airbus, this is announced by the aural warning of a cavalry charge, the computer’s way of calling the human pilot to the rescue.
Aviation is full of pithy sayings. One is that an airspeed sensor has no backup except airmanship. Losing airspeed readings can range from a non-event to a dire emergency depending on the pilot’s skill and additional circumstances. The autopilot quitting on AF447, as it was designed to do after losing reliable airspeed indication, could and should have been a non-event. It left an airworthy aircraft flying straight and level in light turbulence. All Flight 447 needed was a pilot to fly it — or just let the plane fly itself, which is what planes trimmed for cruise flight tend to do in stable air, especially if their wings are kept level — but, as the cockpit voice recorder revealed, there were no pilots on the flight deck. There were two systems managers being confronted by a system that suddenly had become unmanageable.
Real pilots would have disregarded the rebellious computers going viral with flashing lights, cavalry charges, buzzers and bells, huffily announcing all the things they stopped doing for the humans aboard or required the humans to do for them. They would have let the computers crash and concentrated on flying the plane. The systems managers stopped flying and crashed with their computers.
This isn’t how the French inquiry puts it, needless to say. I wouldn’t put it this way in an inquiry myself. I’m exaggerating to make the point that our technology may be getting ahead of itself. If so, we may hire 466,000 systems managers of an unmanageable system in the next 20 years.
Once a pilot, now a computer
Industry analysts estimated last week that in the next 20 years, the airlines are going to need 466,000 new pilots. When I said to an airline pilot friend that such a job market would make it easy for his son to follow in his footsteps, he smiled.
“I think he wants a flying job instead,” he replied.
I noted that this sounded odd coming from a fellow who just flew a planeload of passengers back from overseas.
“I didn’t fly,” he replied. “The computer flew. I sat in the front office, monitoring systems.”
“Who flies better,” I asked, “you or the computer?”
“Oh, the computer,” he replied. “No contest, as long as things function. When they stop functioning, it’s a different story. Then the computer quits, and I go to work. Provided I still remember how.”
The dilemma isn’t new, but it’s being discussed more and more frequently. Pilots don’t fly enough. They get rusty, and when they really need to call upon their flying muscles, they find them either atrophied or insufficiently developed in the first place. The symbol of the problem has become Air France’s Flight 447, an Airbus dropped by its pilots into the ocean three years ago, according to a French inquiry’s final report released last month.
When a faulty speed sensor made the autopilot quit, two co-pilots on the flight deck would have needed to hand-fly their Airbus 330, established in cruise at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic, until the captain, who was taking his scheduled nap, returned to the cockpit. Their task was to fly straight and level for two or three minutes on instruments, with no visual reference to the horizon, without reliable airspeed indication, in light turbulence. They couldn’t do it. By the time the captain came back, the Airbus had stopped flying and was about a minute from contacting the water.
In 1915, Arthur Roy Brown, the flying ace credited with bringing down Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, had his pilot’s license issued with six hours of flight time. By comparison, even the least experienced pilot on AF447 had 2,800 hours in his logbook. It isn’t that today’s pilots train fewer hours; it’s that the study of increasingly complex systems and regulations compete for time and emphasis with flying skills. Airmanship and command authority are being boxed in by petty rules, for the comfort of lawyers and bureaucrats rather than to enhance operational efficiency and flight safety.
Before leaving the flight deck for his scheduled rest, the captain of Air France’s ill-fated Flight 447 was obliged, as part of his briefing, to ask his relief pilot if he had a commercial pilot’s license. Why would anyone weigh down the captain’s workload with such a query? Would an unlicensed impostor say to the captain: “Crikey, skipper, I didn’t know you needed a license for this gig” or would he just lie and say: “Yes, sir.”
The crew whose fate it was to be flying Flight 447 had the necessary qualifications. The problem was that they had them in their wallets, rather than in their heads. Qualifications in wallets satisfy bureaucracies, but only qualifications in heads ensure the safety of a flight.
It was a “Thales”-type speed sensor that iced up as the Airbus was skirting a thunderstorm high above the South Atlantic. Air France, aware of the limitations of the device, had just begun to replace the $3,500 units. It hadn’t gotten around to changing it in the ill-fated airplane before it departed Rio de Janeiro for Paris on the night of June 1, 2009. Grounding the entire Airbus fleet until all units were replaced may have cost only a fraction of what the accident, investigation and lawsuits will end up costing Air France, to say nothing of the tragic loss of 228 lives. Some analysts argue, though, that turning all potential flaws into mandatory “no go” items would make air transportation unaffordable.
The “Thales” sensors were more susceptible to icing than other designs, but they didn’t all ice up, and the planes carrying those that did remained flyable and were landed safely by their Air France crews. So were two other Airbus 330s belonging to Paris-based Air Caraibes Atlantique. Only Flight 447 fell into the ocean. One disaster is one too many, of course, but it was no more an inevitable consequence than it would be for a blown tire to flip a car.
Airspeed is crucial to flight. Too fast and the plane can break up; too slow and it can fall out of the sky. When airspeed indicators become unreliable, the computerized systems — autopilot and auto-throttles — quit. On the Airbus, this is announced by the aural warning of a cavalry charge, the computer’s way of calling the human pilot to the rescue.
Aviation is full of pithy sayings. One is that an airspeed sensor has no backup except airmanship. Losing airspeed readings can range from a non-event to a dire emergency depending on the pilot’s skill and additional circumstances. The autopilot quitting on AF447, as it was designed to do after losing reliable airspeed indication, could and should have been a non-event. It left an airworthy aircraft flying straight and level in light turbulence. All Flight 447 needed was a pilot to fly it — or just let the plane fly itself, which is what planes trimmed for cruise flight tend to do in stable air, especially if their wings are kept level — but, as the cockpit voice recorder revealed, there were no pilots on the flight deck. There were two systems managers being confronted by a system that suddenly had become unmanageable.
Real pilots would have disregarded the rebellious computers going viral with flashing lights, cavalry charges, buzzers and bells, huffily announcing all the things they stopped doing for the humans aboard or required the humans to do for them. They would have let the computers crash and concentrated on flying the plane. The systems managers stopped flying and crashed with their computers.
This isn’t how the French inquiry puts it, needless to say. I wouldn’t put it this way in an inquiry myself. I’m exaggerating to make the point that our technology may be getting ahead of itself. If so, we may hire 466,000 systems managers of an unmanageable system in the next 20 years.
Once a pilot, now a computer
07-23-2012, 10:18 AM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 514
You can 'fly' the plane as little or as much as you want. That's your choice.
I find increasingly that those I fly with put the A/P on at 2000agl and click it off again descending through 1000. Further, with todays method of teaching yourself the systems via a CD ROM and a completely hollowed out Oral exam, we don't know anything about the complex systems we trust to fly the plane either.
I find increasingly that those I fly with put the A/P on at 2000agl and click it off again descending through 1000. Further, with todays method of teaching yourself the systems via a CD ROM and a completely hollowed out Oral exam, we don't know anything about the complex systems we trust to fly the plane either.
07-23-2012, 10:44 AM
#4
Moderator
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: B757/767
Posts: 13,088
Originally Posted by DelDah Capt
You can 'fly' the plane as little or as much as you want. That's your choice.
I find increasingly that those I fly with put the A/P on at 2000agl and click it off again descending through 1000. Further, with todays method of teaching yourself the systems via a CD ROM and a completely hollowed out Oral exam, we don't know anything about the complex systems we trust to fly the plane either.
I find increasingly that those I fly with put the A/P on at 2000agl and click it off again descending through 1000. Further, with todays method of teaching yourself the systems via a CD ROM and a completely hollowed out Oral exam, we don't know anything about the complex systems we trust to fly the plane either.
07-23-2012, 12:19 PM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2008
Position: forever fo
Posts: 2,413
Originally Posted by johnso29
On departure I prefer to hand fly though 10,000 ft minimum, but if the CA starts getting loaded up with altitude changes, FMS inputs, & radio calls all at once I'll usually put an AP on. On arrival I usually leave it on until we are on the LOC, especially in busy parallel environments like ATL. But if it's clear and traffic is in sight Otto is fired.
I also don't mind the MELd autopilot every few months as long as its a shorter flight. MIA to PIT to JFK is not exactly my favorite way to start a trip.
07-23-2012, 02:58 PM
#6
Kerbal Rocket Surgeon
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Position: DTW 717A
Posts: 1,099
"hand flying" has been extinct since the trim wheel was invented. Y'all can pretend to be macho by programming your servos at 4.2 anu and 0.8 rwd but you aint foolin me. A trimmed airplane climbing thru 15k feet takes no additional skillset. I'll be looking outside and listening up for abnormalities, y'all keep doin that not-so chuck yeager stuff..
07-23-2012, 09:50 PM
#8
Self Employed.
Joined APC: May 2005
Position: Corporate Pilot
Posts: 7,119
My 150 has no AP
I get more hands on time flying my 150 as little as I do then when I was a full time working airline pilot. Shallow turns to headings and following the flight director down the ILS does not count as flying.
If anyone does not believe me then try a raw data ILS to minimums. It is scary how much we depend on the black magic and don't even know it. Take it all away and it is like flight school all over again.
The 150 however keeps a guy honest and scared.
Skyhigh
If anyone does not believe me then try a raw data ILS to minimums. It is scary how much we depend on the black magic and don't even know it. Take it all away and it is like flight school all over again.
The 150 however keeps a guy honest and scared.
Skyhigh
07-23-2012, 09:55 PM
#9
Self Employed.
Joined APC: May 2005
Position: Corporate Pilot
Posts: 7,119
Motorcycle VS Horse
Riding a motorcycle is like flying a Boeing. Turn the handlebars left and it will turn left even it it is straight into a tree.
Riding a horse is more like flying an Airbus. Use the reigns to indicate a left turn and it will decide for itself if it wants to do it or not.
Skyhigh
Riding a horse is more like flying an Airbus. Use the reigns to indicate a left turn and it will decide for itself if it wants to do it or not.
Skyhigh
07-23-2012, 10:08 PM
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2008
Position: Chris's Closet
Posts: 485
Riding a motorcycle is like flying a Boeing. Turn the handlebars left and it will turn left even it it is straight into a tree.
Riding a horse is more like flying an Airbus. Use the reigns to indicate a left turn and it will decide for itself if it wants to do it or not.
Skyhigh
Riding a horse is more like flying an Airbus. Use the reigns to indicate a left turn and it will decide for itself if it wants to do it or not.
Skyhigh
"If you're willing to play in the sandbox, this is a great airplane. If you play in the Boeing sandbox and can't get out, you're gonna hate this thing."
Always stuck with me. As a side note, I don't think I've ever jumpsat with a FiFi crew who didn't love the airplane...
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