This. In a universe with infinite possibilities and a planet full of Microsoft programmers there isn’t a practical way to make a plane think for itself. Not that humans have racked up a lot of victories in the last year when things get weird. Hell, we had a plane crash in perfect weather because a check ride pilot didn’t want to be rude to the Captain.
Exactly. Sometimes the human pilot on a doomed flight’s only job is to prevent further loss of life at the crash site. Think that recent flight that flamed an engine and the guy avoided buildings and put it in the river.
There is no way I would believe a computer could have pulled off what Sully did on the Hudson. A spark of Human inspiration! A computer would probably tried to get to an airstrip and maybe killed lots of people.
It’ll never happen. No upside, really.
Sadly he was the cause of the crash in the first place. He made such a glaringly bad decision that a computer would have saved everyone. If the plane had a “save me” button as an additional choice of the auto pilot system it would have autocorrected for lost engine and engaged the rudder.
It was really an area where a computer would have shined as a normal function in the cockpit. The auto pilot systems already have choices for level flight, different climb options, coordinated turns following a specified course… This would have added another level designed to compensate for engine loss just as computers deal with cross winds in level flight.
If I were to try to give an analogy to that flight it would be like someone experiencing a flat tire on the highway and in a panicked response turn the wheel sideways and slamming on the brakes causing the car to roll over into oncoming traffic. A good computer system has anti-yaw and anti-lock brakes that will maintain control of the car without the driver experiencing severe loss of control.
On a related tangent, would a computer-flown aircraft be more hijack-resistant? (that is, physical hijackers in the cockpit)
All said and done, I simply don’t think there will be enough impetus for pilotless commercial jets. How much does it cost to pay an airline pilot’s salary a year? Let’s say $100,000. That is nothing compared to the cost of the new R&D, new design, big changes in technology of future upcoming designs for $160 million airliners.
I just can’t see the compelling business interest.
The cots savings would probably come in the form of increased efficiency. The planes would taxi, take off, and coordinate with other traffic better. If you could make airports ten percent more efficient, that would be a big motivator.
The $100,000 number is incorrect:
- you have either two or three people in the flight crew
- there are 8,765 hours in a year, although an airplane won’t fly all of them. So you need multiple sets of flight crews in a year.
I think another factor is that the public freak-out over the crash of a pilotless airliner will be far more severe than the freak-out over a piloted airliner.
If a piloted airliner crashes due to human error, and kills 200 people, society will think, “That’s bad, but such things happen.”
If a pilotless airliner crashes due to computer glitch, and kills 200 people, the societal panic and recriminations will be ten times worse.
What crash are you thinking about Magiver. Because the flight that Sully landed in the Hudson was caused by a flock of geese that shut down all engines, and all lives where saved. Amazing shit. I’m a programmer myself, and I very much doubt all the computer code in the world would have saved those people. Sully did.
I suspect he’s talking about the crash of TranAsia Airways GE235 last month. When they lost power on one engine, the pilots apparently secured the other engine.
It’s 3AM, the weather is about as bad as it gets. It’s a dark, cold, stormy night. Microbursts reported in the area. Icing too. You’re inbound after a long flight, the fuel is running low. The turbulence has been moderate for the last hour. Passengers are sick and the cabin smells like stale vomit. Just as the pilot is instructed to hold at SHITOUTTALUCK, lightning strikes the aircraft knocking out the computer system and the radios. Superman is on holiday on some other planet.
Choose one.
A. Damn I’m glad we have an experienced flight crew up front.
B. Oh shit, where’s my prayer book.
Here’s a better example of pilots being heros. The Gimli Glider. Those were exceptional pilots, who flew an out of fuel Boeing 767 from 41,000 feet to a safe landing on an abandoned airstrip without benefit of power. Luck, skill and a series of good decisions.
If the computer system gets knocked out in an airliner with a pilot, aren’t the passengers screwed too? Are there back-up hydraulic systems or such on modern airliners?
There are redundant systems for many things. Landing gear, flaps are 2 that come to mind. I know the Airbus A-380 has backup systems for the fly by wire equipment. I’d be willing to bet the Boeing jets are pretty much the same.
This is why IMHO, there is no computer, no system, nothing that will ever replace the judgment of a 15,000 hour captain at the controls of an aircraft in distress.
And sometimes they can all be taken out, as happened with United Airlines Flight 232 in 1989.
As Johnny LA said TranAsia Airways GE235. I was responding to what you said about a crash where the pilot avoided buildings. What Sully did was not a crash but a proper landing under adverse conditions. And as we all appear to agree, something a computer could not have done.
OK, good point. But I still cannot see the savings cost of pilot salaries being worth it to the airlines for the unfavorable passenger perception and the R&D involved in such an aircraft.
Interesting word for an airliner thread. :eek:
My guess is the answer is “no” but I’d be intrigued if I’m wrong.
My mistake.
THe only related things I can find are Concorde design/
Curiously, I see this from last July:
Airbus patents windowless cockpit that would increase pilots’ field of view