Pilot explains why it is impossible to fly with autopilot only

http://www.askthepilot.com/germanwings-crash/

by znq • 11 years ago

15 12 11 years ago

So, a pilot explains why we all will forever need to have pilots.

I am friends with a pilot (commercial 737 short-haul captain for a 'value' european airline). He will happily tell you that

a) Much of what he does is automatable and rather boring (takeoff, landing interesting; the rest very dull), and that it's mostly punching settings into computers. Indeed, he does not have complete ability to do whatever he pleases - if, for example, he climbs too fast or steps outside flight parameters set by the airline (set mostly for cost issues), he would expect to be facing disciplinary action.

b) That a large amount of the training book-work that they have to go through is irrelevant for flying a modern airliner - but is in place mostly to act as a barrier to entry and to keep wages high.

c) That the biggest barrier to 'self-flying planes' (which doesn't mean 'autonomous', it may be drone-style remote-control or other options) is the perception of safety.

It's the last part that's interesting. The Economist ran an article years ago (I can't find a weblink sadly) about how a UPS cargo plane was flown entirely remotely on a test flight. It noted that humans seem to prefer the risk of a "human being" flying them around vs a "computer" - _Even If_ the data showed that the latter was much safer. It went on to point out that this might well be the case given the proportion of accidents classified as "Controlled flight into terrain" (I.E: the pilot crashed an airworthy plane into the ground).

It will be interesting to see if that public perception shifts given recent events. This article is however exactly how I'd expect a pilot to respond.

ComSubVie2• 11 years ago

Your 3rd point is not only valid for air traffic. Some of our subways are fully automated and the driver just opens/closes the doors - and sits in the front for the perception of the passengers that the train is driven.

cheradenine012• 11 years ago

True. In fact, it's even stranger in the UK, or so I'm told...

Trains have drivers. Some stations have shorter platforms than others. Thus at those stations a smaller number of train doors need to open to allow passengers on and off - as some doors won't be next to a platform, they'll be above fresh air.

You could have a 'open all doors' button and a 'open <x> doors' button. But the driver is not trusted to do this, so instead there is a GPS on board so the train 'knows' where it is, and opens the appropriate number when the button is pressed.

I think in London, certainly for the underground, the lack of driverless trains is more to do with strong unions than it is safety perceptions (the DLR line is driverless). E.g:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transpo...

"Unions have fiercely opposed the introduction of driverless technology on the tube, with the Aslef drivers’ union threatening “all out war”, but the Mayor said drivers would not lose their jobs because "train captains" will still be required."

Train captains! :-)

Though that doesn't mean that risk perception doesn't cause us to make other poor decisions. The UK had some rather bad train accidents (again, human error with 'signal passed at danger'- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_passed_at_danger). Politicians get involved - and phrases like "this must never happen again" get pushed around, and huge cost estimates for the engineering required to chase this improbable 100% 'never again' target (>£1bn in 1988) are submitted. This inevitably delays implementation (if it ever works anyway - governments and big systems after all) - when we could be doing something simple (GPS is a thing. Trains move only in one dimension, and don't suddenly reverse direction. Finite number of tracks. Build system monitor for "train about to hit another train") that gives you 80/20.

coutud• 11 years ago

The fact that there is a routine in the job doesn't make it less necessary for a pilot to be present.

Yes, on a transatlantic flight and once you have reached cruise altitude, you rely on the autopilot to handle the plane while you carry your other tasks : checking fuel levels and consumption, checking new weather reports, etc. Just because you can have a cruise control on your car doesn't mean it is that easy to switch to driverless cars.

b) A large amount of the training book that hey have to go through is relevant to the general practice of flying. Yes, on the very specific airplane that he's using a lot of the calculation is already handled by the fms, but it doesn't mean the pilot shouldn't know about the regulations and workings of his plane, especially for the case where an emergency happens.

c) The biggest barrier to self-flying plane is not the perception of safety. It is the reaction in case of emergency. While one could argue that many accidents can be linked to human error, many are also averted by the pilots onboard reacting correctly to an emergency. And the recent history has shown that even with the huge amount of redundancy that exists in planes computers/sensors/automation systems nowadays, it's not enough to make the plane entirely safe to fly by its own.

Look at AF447, the autopilot disconnected when it couldn't understand the discrepencies between its sensors. And while the pilots didn't have the good reaction, it was due to their lack of proper flying experience (and reliance on automation). Look for the "children of the magenta" video on vimeo for a bit of knowledge about the dangers of relying on automation too much in a cockpit.

ComSubVie2• 11 years ago

So he tells us, that pilots are still flying, and then writes

And though a pilot’s hands aren’t gripping the steering column for hours at a time, as was the case decades ago, they are manipulating, operating, and commanding the various systems and subsystems that carry you to your destination.

Well, I guess that are all things that could be automated and/or remotely controlled?

discardorama• 11 years ago

If blogging were around ~100 years ago:

An abacus operator explains why it is impossible to automate calculations.

A buggy driver explains why it is impossible to automatically control horses.

etc.

I'm not equating being a pilot to one of the occupations above; but just saying that we have successfully automated a whole lot of things (think self-driving cars, for instance), and if the will was there, we could automate piloting too. A majority of the air accidents are caused by pilot error, so it's about time something was done about it.

EpicEng• 11 years ago

but just saying that we have successfully automated a whole lot of things (think self-driving cars, for instance)

We have not automated cars. We can automacar driving under very specific circumstances, but they're nowhere near ready for primetime.

sgnelson• 11 years ago

I'm not a pilot. But did anyone else read what he wrote about the steps of descending to prepare for landing and even not understanding all of the terms (which he intentionally left as acronyms as if that means the reader is incapable of understanding the idea. I've always hated this 'trick' to show people how smart you are.) think too yourself, "that actually sounds rather basic and easy."

Because I did. And I also thought, shit, I can automate that with a raspberry pi.

We can certainly argue over whether having a pilot is a good thing or not. But to say that it's impossible to fly with "autopilot" only (which may be true with 1970's technology, but certainly not true given the technology of today), seems rather short sighted.

upofadown2• 11 years ago

I can automate that with a raspberry pi.

Pretty sure that the Pi would have a hard time talking over the radio to ATC...

Smith isn't claiming that autonomous flight is impossible, just that it can't be done with present systems. He is also suggesting that such a thing doesn't make economic sense at this point in time.

upofadown2• 11 years ago

In a world where subway trains still need an operator (1 dimensional control on a track) it isn't that hard to imagine that we have a ways to go before we trust our lives to an automatic system that needs to do 3 dimensional control in the wildness of the atmosphere.

Pilot explains why it is impossible to fly with autopilot only

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