This is your captain speaking
 

We have just suffered a fatal error

Close Ignore or Crash

Pilotless Airplanes

Re: This is your captain speaking
 

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

Re: This is your captain speaking
 

Too right!!!:eek: :eek: :eek:

The technology has been around for years. It is perfectly possible to build an airplane which will do everything by itself - the ground engineer presses a button marked "New York" and retires to a safe distance"

What is just not possible at present and probably won't be for a long time is making this scenario safe enough for anything but military use.

The argument against human crews in space exploration is more open: an awful lot of equipment has to be included and backed up just to keep them alive. That weight and complexity might be better employed in more sophisticated science. In an airplane, though, the environmental equipment has to be there anyway to keep the passengers alive, so getting rid of the crew seems to me to be technology for its own sake.

Count me out - at least until they can make the IFE work properly 100% of the time!

Just keep Bill gates away from the programming. Seeing all the in flight entertainment screens going blue would be very disturbing. I have found automatic landings much smoother than those done by the pilot.

Re: This is your captain speaking
 

Get humans out of the cockpit I say.

"7/1/2002; Bashkirian Airlines Tu154; near Ueberlingen, Germany. According to initial reports on the 757/Tu-154 collision, the DHL 757 pilots followed TCAS (technology) resolution advisories to descend, but the Russian pilots ignored the commands of their ACAS (technology) to climb and instead obeyed the Swiss controller’s instruction to descend–with tragic results."

"11/3/1973 National Airlines
DC10-10 Albuquerque, New Mexico. Overspeeding of the starboard engine caused the engine to disintegrate. Pieces struck the fuselage, breaking a window, causing rapid explosive decompression and a passenger was sucked out of the plane. The plane landed safely. Out of boredom, the captain and flight engineer decided to experiment and see what would happen to the autothrottle (technology) system if the circuit breakers which supplied power to the instruments which measured the rotational speed of each engine's low pressure compressor were tripped. This led to engine overspeeding and destruction of the engine."

"03/23/1994 Aeroflot
Airbus A310-304 Mezhduretshensk, Russia The aircraft crashed after a captain allowed his child to manipulate the controls of the plane. The pilot's 11 year old daughter and 16 year old son were taking turns in the pilot's seat. While the boy was flying, he inadvertently disengaged the autopilot (technology) linkage to the ailerons and put the airliner in a bank of 90 degrees which caused the nose to drop sharply. The co-pilot pulled back on the yoke to obtain level flight but the plane stalled. With his seat pulled all the way back, the co-pilot in the right hand seat could not properly control the aircraft. After several stalls and rapid pull-ups the plane went into a spiral descent. In the end, the co-pilot initiated a 4.8g pull-up and nearly regained a stable flight path but the aircraft struck the ground in an almost level attitude killing all 75 aboard. "

Just a few, hundreds more...

Re: This is your captain speaking
 

Are you going to list the crashes that have happened due to technology failure aswell?

Re: This is your captain speaking
 

In reality there are not many. Most are an intricate chain with a common link of humans not getting it right...but here is my favorite...the technology that failed...a 2 cent light bulb...

December 29, 1972, holds a dark place in American aviation history. On this day, the first crash of a new "next generation" wide-body aircraft took place on U.S. soil. The airline: Eastern. The location: Miami, Florida.

The Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, which had departed some two hours earlier from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, contacted Miami approach control at approximately 11:15pm. In command of the aircraft was Captain Robert Loft, a 30,000 hour pilot who had flown the Tristar since its introduction. Also on the flight deck were First Officer Albert Stockstill and Flight Engineer Don Repo. At 11:29, the flight was instructed to join the ILS localizer to runway 9L. While turning onto final approach, Captain Loft called the tower and instructed Stocksill to lower the landing gear.

23.32:35 RDO-1 Miami Tower, Eastern 401 just turned on final
23.32:45 TWR Who else called?
23.32:48 CAM-1 Go ahead and throw 'em out [drop the gear]
23.32:52 RDO-1 Miami Tower, do you read, Eastern 401? Just turned on final.
23.32:56 TWR Eastern 401 Heavy, continue approach to 9 left.
23.33:00 RDO-1 Continue approach, roger

Shortly thereafter, the landing checklist was performed. When the landing gear item was reached, Loft noticed that only the two main gear lights had illuminated. Stockstill was then asked to check that the lever had been moved into position, which he did, and then replied "no nose gear!" Loft then called the tower and informed them of the problem.

23.34:05 RDO-1 Well ah, tower, this is Eastern, ah, 401. It looks like we're gonna have to circle, we don't have a light on our nose gear yet
23.34:14 TWR Eastern 401 heavy, roger, pull up, climb straight ahead to two thousand, go back to approach control, one twenty eight six
23.34:19 CAM-2 Twenty-two degrees.
23:34:21 CAM-2 Twenty-two degrees, gear up
23:34:22 CAM-1 Put power on it first, Bert. Thata boy.

During the go around, Repo was troubleshooting the light to see if the problem was simply a defective bulb. Capt. Loft then instructed Stockstill to engage the autopilot so that he himself could check the indicator lights. When it became apparent that jiggling the bulb was doing no good, Repo was instructed to descend into the avionics bay to determine the position of the nose gear visually. Stockstill continued to concentrate on the indicator light, which he had now disassembled and was attempting to remove the bulb from. Repo several minutes later emerged from the avionics bay saying that he could not determine the gear's position. The crew decided that the wheel was, in fact, locked down and they called for a vector back to the airport.

As Stockstill began the turn back toward the field, he noticed that the aircraft's altitude had decreased. The ALT light on his panel, however, was illuminated, indicating that the autopilot was engaged.

23.42:05 CAM-2 We did something to the altitude
CAM-1 What?
23.42:07 CAM-2 We're still at two thousand right?
23.42:09 CAM-1 Hey, what's happening here?
CAM [Sound of click]
23.42:10 CAM [Sound of six beeps similar to radio altimeter increasing in rate]
23.42:12 [Sound of impact]

The right wing impacted the Everglades swamp which led to the total breakup of the aircraft. Ninety-eight people, including the three flight crew members, were killed in the crash.

It was apparent from analysis of the Cockpit Voice Recorder and the lack of desperate communication with Air Traffic Control that no one in the cockpit that day saw anything unusual until seconds before the crash. The accident investigation began to focus on the final minutes before the accident. It was found on the Flight Data Recorder that the aircraft descended slowly at a rate of approximately 200 feet per minute. This descent rate would be totally un-noticable to anyone not looking at flight instruments. Investigators now needed to know why the aircraft descended.

The autoflight system of the L-1011 aircraft consists of a system which automatically disengages the autopilot if 15 pounds of pressure is placed on either control yoke. In 401's case, the Captain's computer was programmed properly to disengage at 15 pounds, but the First Officer's computer was improperly set to disengage at 20 pounds. Investigators concluded that when Loft turned to speak to Stockstill, he applied an inadvertant force on the yoke which disconnected the autopilot. With Stockstill's computer improperly programmed, his light which indicated autopilot engagement and altitude hold remained lit. The crew believed the autopilot was engaged.

Re: This is your captain speaking
 

Oh by the way...more importantly, you may should all ask these questions...

Why did the Airspace changes in Australia result in the resignation of the Chairman of Airservices Australia?

Why was the board of CASA replaced by the minister acting in his own right?

How old are the radars used for the surveillance of Australian airspace?

How old are the maintenance staff servicing these critical safety systems?

What impact would reducing a public-safety organisation's (such as Airservices Australia) staffing levels from 9000 to less than 3000 have on safety?

Ask John Anderson...how safe are Australian skys?

It is amazing how absent minded people can be...

Believe it or not, I used to be an air traffic controller at Biggin Hill airport in Kent. Biggin has a large air display every year, and 3 or 4 years ago i was controlling a segment.

It was a viper i think, an older military jet...the pilot had lined up on the keys and i gave him his clearance. After reading it back the plane instantly sunk to the ground and started spewing fuel all over the place. The daft twit had pulled the undercarriage lever instead of the flaps!!

The very same pilot crashed into a field next the runway the very next day, luckily well away from the crowds. The pilot was a very experience high ranked officer of the RAF, so it just goes to show even the best can have a bad weekend.

Great stuff. Human factors they call it...fascinating...flap levers are now shaped like a flap...undercarriage levers are shaped like a wheel...

Now if we could only get politicians shaped like a statesmen!!!

It is usually "pilot error" that causes the accidents. I used to fly small planes (Cessnas etc) - and almost all the accidents you would read were caused by bad decisions, not technology going wrong. Having said that, the simpler, tried and tested technology was preferred, because it was less likely to fail.

And Aussies can be rightly proud to say that they invented the 'black box' recorder.

I haven't flown under the new Aussie air rules, but I remember pilots debating it. There are the usual vested interests and there are pros and cons for making the change. The biggest risks occur when procedures change, because of training, entrenched habits etc. No doubt there will be a lot of fuss for a while, then pilots will just get on with using the new procedures.

You're right...pilot's and air traffic controllers are thick...

Now don't forget about MLS...some dumb aussies dreamt that up in between a few pots down at the Exchange Hotel one night...

Oi Oi, i know im not one anymore but steady on ;)

Actually....another one you might appreciate.

Ever heard of a yak 52? Its a pretty powerful prop job, ex military training plane i think. Well i was working a shift and some flashy bloke in his yak thought it would be clever to run his engine up on the apron. Thing is he had'nt checked what was behind him, and there was a cessna 152, not tied down i might add, parked behind him. The cessna actually did a back-flip and landed upside down..... The pilot of the yak did'nt believe me when i told him what he'd done....

He should have been really impressed - the Yak is a great aerobatic plane; but can it do a roll like that from a stationary position :)