CREWLESS PASSENGER AIRCRAFT - BAE SYSTEMS.

[Phil Perry]

Engineers developing pilotless aircraft that flies itself using computers | Daily Mail Online

[storchy neil]

Be my luck some prxxhack it I end up in pommy land got any red phill Neil

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Be my luck some prxxhack it I end up in pommy land got any red phill Neil

Got some Chateau du nuisance Wagga Wagga left I think,. . . still goin' thru those bottles I told yez about last year, Yknow, where the Off Licence ( Bottle Shop ) got it's basement drinks storage flooded out, and a load of labels washed off. . . I bought 100 assorted bottles for £200.00. . .still got plenty of red looking stuff I think . . .given a lot of it away to rellies and mates though. . .

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Until the development of ‘Self Aware’ Pure Artificial intelligence, (ie Never IMHO) no bank of computers, however well designed. . . is going to replace a highly trained / experienced Pilot / crew. .

 

Would a computer system have had the inventive presence of mind to weigh up the limited options and elect to land that aircraft in the Hudson River ? Of course not. It would have crashed into the buildings in New York , whilst bleeping and flashing lots of useful safety warnings and killed many people. . .Fortunately in that particular case, Captain Chesly Sullenberger ( Highly experienced pilot ) was in command that day, he saw a slender possibilty and, ably assisted by his experienced first officer, performed a feat which no pilot ever did before, and saved everyone on the flight.

 

Beat that 'Programming' Microsoft. . . .

 

 

[dutchroll]

My prediction is that they will prove beyond any doubt that the pilotless plane is a perfectly safe and viable option.

 

Until it crashes.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

My prediction is that they will prove beyond any doubt that the pilotless plane is a perfectly safe and viable option.Until it crashes.

Qantas A-380 @ Singapore,. . . / Sully and his Hudson gig . . .more or less puts AI in perspective I think Sir,. . . Could the Super computers have done a better job ? ? ? but jocularity aside for a moment, maybe we are Wrong ?. . .perhaps a newer technology will consign our opinions to the dustcart of ancient history. . . ?

 

Somehow, . . .wearing my cynical hat,. . .I strongly doubt it with present and recently promulgated 'Future' technology. . . .we ought to be whizzing to Mars on vacation by now, . . .according to 'Tomorrow's World, BBC, 1965. . . . .what the hell went wrong with that ?

 

 

[dutchroll]

A number of times we have rejected an aircraft due to our dissatisfaction with its serviceability status, despite being pressured to take it by everyone who didn't actually have to fly in it. These are the everyday pressures which come from people trying to make money out of an operation.

 

No such back-stop when there is no PIC! It'll just be dispatched regardless.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

A number of times we have rejected an aircraft due to our dissatisfaction with its serviceability status, despite being pressured to take it by everyone who didn't actually have to fly in it. These are the everyday pressures which come from people trying to make money out of an operation.No such back-stop when there is no PIC! It'll just be dispatched regardless.

THAT, Sir,. . . .is something which I had not even considered in my usually cynical and oft uneducated rant. . . .The Bean counters. . .of course,. . .they who currently run our world for us. . . . no wonder it's such a sack of $hit generally. . . .

 

I have to admit that I have once travelled on the 'Docklands Light Railway' in Londonistan, which is totally automatic. I survived this experience with some trpididation BUT. . .it is a tiny little service, which only goes for a couple of miles. . .and has regular breakdowns, ( unpublished of course ) but surely, this is just a small technical glitch. . .

 

What I do not want to experience, on a flight to the States, is a robotic aircraft which suffers a small technical glitch, and to have a robotic voice over the PA telling me not to worry, . . .'We will land shortly, using the well proven 'Sullenberger' technique. in the Atlantic, and we are already arranging for your collection and forward travel by small boats. . .Do not take any hand baggage from the overhead storage lockers. . .as this may impede your dis-embarkation. . .Thank you for choosing to fly with Perry Discount Airways. . .Have a nice day. . . .'

 

 

[Oscar]

Until the development of ‘Self Aware’ Pure Artificial intelligence, (ie Never IMHO) no bank of computers, however well designed. . . is going to replace a highly trained / experienced Pilot / crew. .Would a computer system have had the inventive presence of mind to weigh up the limited options and elect to land that aircraft in the Hudson River ? Of course not. It would have crashed into the buildings in New York , whilst bleeping and flashing lots of useful safety warnings and killed many people. . .Fortunately in that particular case, Captain Chesly Sullenberger ( Highly experienced pilot ) was in command that day, he saw a slender possibilty and, ably assisted by his experienced first officer, performed a feat which no pilot ever did before, and saved everyone on the flight.

 

Beat that 'Programming' Microsoft. . . .

Phil: Sullenberger and his F.O certainly did a magnificent job, no question, but you should also read this, about the 'Gimli Glider' action, which I think was up there with the Hudson incident: Canadian Airlines Flight 143

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Phil: Sullenberger and his F.O certainly did a magnificent job, no question, but you should also read this, about the 'Gimli Glider' action, which I think was up there with the Hudson incident: Canadian Airlines Flight 143

Thank you Oscar, read it, seen the Movie, starring, oh, what was his name now, . . .can't remember, same bloke played a Mafia Don in the Mel Gibson film 'Payback'. . .Arrrgh. . .I can see his face. . . . can't remember. Yes, this was a fuel emergency caused when the airline were switching over from Gallons, or Litres or Pounds, to describe and order fuel quantities and the aircraft ran out of fuel in flight well short of it's Planned destination.. 'Freefall Flight 143' if you want to see it again on Youtube. . .. The Actual Captain, being an experienced Glider pilot, remembered an old, then uncharted airfield called 'Gimli' and he managed to manouvre the aircraft VFR, and land it there 'deadstick' . . .thanks also to his First officer, who did all the Arithmetic and calculated that they could actually make it. . . .

 

Fascinating bit of real aviation history. . .how 'bout the guy who landed 'deadstick' in the Azores, after losing fuel from a pipe which was rubbing against something else and leaking fuel. . .they kept transferring fuel to the emptying tank and the aircraft systems didn't alert them ( they were not that clever then ) to the fact. . . .another good one, but I don't think that anyone made a Drama movie of that one. . . . the Captain landed it way too fast, but fortuantely the Runway was 10,000 feet long,. .. he still burnt out all the tyres though. . . .no reverse thrust. . .

 

 

[cooperplace]

the very poor safety record of drones argues against pilot-less craft.

 

 

[facthunter]

There's been plenty of corrupted systems in microprocessors and sensor failures that even pilots had difficulty handling but at least you have a fighting chance when you are up the front.(that's why I hate being a passenger). There have also been instances of planes being flown that the designers thought could not be done, in the damaged condition they were in, after failures.

 

There have also been many instances of pilots crashing perfectly serviceable good aeroplanes. You need to choose and train your pilots well and the customers should be prepared to pay a bit more for properly crewed and serviced aircraft. Not everyone buys the absolute cheapest car or suit or shoes but when it's your LIFE at stake , buy the cheapest most horrific airline's seats..??????? and take ALL your family along with you. Nev

 

 

[Birdseye]

On Sunday the 1st of September 1968, the London Underground Victoria Line commenced operations. It was equipped with driver-less trains, but still to this day has a driver sitting in the cab monitoring operation........................

 

 

[facthunter]

How does he/she stay awake? You would need a programmed "prodder" (knuckle duster gloved arm) to ensure alertness. They fall asleep when driving and have a dead man function fiited. They operate in one less plane than does a plane, as well. Nev

 

 

[Birdseye]

No 'dead man' to acknowledge. Totally superfluous, but still there after 48 years.

 

 

[Yenn]

there have been some magnificent flying feats by pilots like Sully and Richard de Crespigny, but there have beenplenty of other lesser flying feats such as the Air France which crashed in the Atlantic, The KLM with over 500 dead and the Malaysian flight to China which hasn't been found yet. I don't want to fly with poor quality pilots, only with well trained and highly capable ones.

 

It is hard to tell which would be safer, flying with no pilot or a poor pilot.

 

 

[dutchroll]

It is hard to tell which would be safer, flying with no pilot or a poor pilot.

That's a choice you shouldn't have to make.

However with a pilot, the computers can spit out garbage (as can and does happen from time to time) and you still have a chance. With a good pilot, an excellent chance.

 

Without a pilot, the computers spitting out garbage gives you a few moments to reflect on your life, which is about to end.

 

 

[rmorton]

Qantas A-380 @ Singapore,. . . / Sully and his Hudson gig . . .more or less puts AI in perspective I think Sir,. . . Could the Super computers have done a better job ? ? ? but jocularity aside for a moment, maybe we are Wrong ?. . .perhaps a newer technology will consign our opinions to the dustcart of ancient history. . . ?Somehow, . . .wearing my cynical hat,. . .I strongly doubt it with present and recently promulgated 'Future' technology. . . .we ought to be whizzing to Mars on vacation by now, . . .according to 'Tomorrow's World, BBC, 1965. . . . .what the hell went wrong with that ?

I think we have spent too long developing clever software and not enough time doing things. Since all our brightest minds spend their time simulating or programming they are not out in the shed making those Mars bound rocket ships.

I remember thinking when I was a child that for a computer to replace a human it would have to be programmed the same way as we were, it would need the same senses and experiences and would take roughly as long to programme. So why bother making an artificial human when making a real one is relatively easy and fun? That way more time in the shed too.

 

 

[Birdseye]

The South Atlantic AF incident highlighted two issues; one being the risk of the system generating incorrect data and secondly the risk of blindly following the incorrect data over following good pilotage principles. When programming intelligent software we also need to avoid programming out the human intelligence.

 

 

[Oscar]

Thank you Oscar, read it, seen the Movie, starring, oh, what was his name now, . . .can't remember, same bloke played a Mafia Don in the Mel Gibson film 'Payback'. . .Arrrgh. . .I can see his face. . . . can't remember. Yes, this was a fuel emergency caused when the airline were switching over from Gallons, or Litres or Pounds, to describe and order fuel quantities and the aircraft ran out of fuel in flight well short of it's Planned destination.. 'Freefall Flight 143' if you want to see it again on Youtube. . .. The Actual Captain, being an experienced Glider pilot, remembered an old, then uncharted airfield called 'Gimli' and he managed to manouvre the aircraft VFR, and land it there 'deadstick' . . .thanks also to his First officer, who did all the Arithmetic and calculated that they could actually make it. . . .Fascinating bit of real aviation history. . .how 'bout the guy who landed 'deadstick' in the Azores, after losing fuel from a pipe which was rubbing against something else and leaking fuel. . .they kept transferring fuel to the emptying tank and the aircraft systems didn't alert them ( they were not that clever then ) to the fact. . . .another good one, but I don't think that anyone made a Drama movie of that one. . . . the Captain landed it way too fast, but fortuantely the Runway was 10,000 feet long,. .. he still burnt out all the tyres though. . . .no reverse thrust. . .

Hadn't realised they made a movie about the Gimli incident; watched a wee bit of it, I doubt there was that much emotion going on in the cockpit on the final descent though they made a fair fist of most of it in the movie, to be honest. An experienced crew doesn't waste time being emotional.. it doesn't help.

 

It's an interesting condition of the human brain, that when faced with a hyper-stress situation, it can go into a sort of super-speed mode where both sensory appreciation and decision-making are being processed at a rate that freezes emotion out. Tine seems to progress glacially. I've been there, in a car crash that had every chance of killing me, and when sliding inexorably into a light pole, I was thinking about not just what control inputs to make to miss the thing ( I couldn't), but even what actions would be necessary post-crash..

 

 

[Oscar]

The South Atlantic AF incident highlighted two issues; one being the risk of the system generating incorrect data and secondly the risk of blindly following the incorrect data over following good pilotage principles. When programming intelligent software we also need to avoid programming out the human intelligence.

We are ALREADY in the era when the major 'heavy' computer systems are potentially over-riding primary pilotage principles. A mate of mine was a Qantas Check Captain, and he gave me some of the skinny re the de Crespigny A380 incident.

 

de Crespigny and his FO were frantically trying to work out how to make sense of the absolute turmoil being reported: a cascading series of computer-generated alarms situations. With all due respect to de Cresigny - and he did a bloody good job - the thing that saved that flight was the presence of at least two check Captains on that flight, one of whom realised that the fuel loss situation was about to render the aircraft uncontrollable due to fuel weight loss off one side, and commanded that they get the damn thing on the ground NOW, while they still had aerodynamic control. de Crespigny's career ended ( I think somewhat unfairly) as a result of the Airbus computer system's total inability to STOP trying to resolve the problem - which it could not - and hand over to manual control. They couldn't even shut down one engine for two hours when on the ground, FFS, and finally had to throw the contents of a fire-tender into the engine intake to stop the bloody thing - co-ordinated by mobile phone to Qantas engineers in Sydney! Seriously: you are on the ground, you are sitting in a pool of Jet A1, and you can't shut the engine down because the control system has gone to 'I'm a Teapot' mode'?

 

Same mate told me about the 'sales' flight of one of the first Airbus aircraft to a US airline (possibly Northwestern? - I don't remember). This was just after the Airbus A320 accident at the Habsheim airshow, where one crashed while trying to pull up after a low demo run. (.Air France Flight 296 - Wikipedia ) Airbus had tweaked the landing control algorithm. The demo flight progressed smoothly until they tried to land, whereupon the engines fired up and forced a go-around; several further attempts had the same result.

 

As it happened, Airbus had a computer-control guy on board, who was able to hook into the control computer system and change the landing parameters while they circled, and so they all got down safely.

 

That airline did NOT buy Airbus.

 

 

[M61A1]

A number of times we have rejected an aircraft due to our dissatisfaction with its serviceability status, despite being pressured to take it by everyone who didn't actually have to fly in it. These are the everyday pressures which come from people trying to make money out of an operation.No such back-stop when there is no PIC! It'll just be dispatched regardless.

If that's one of the criteria, it'll never even start the engines, let alone taxi. I cant's see the computer rationalising an AC reset because something didn't "wake up" properly.

 

 

[Oscar]

You have to be joking.

 

Even in the '70's, DoT (pre-CASA), had issues with Qantas trying to circumvent regulations that prevented flying with not only primary but also redundant systems inoperable.

 

 

[biggles]

" the thing that saved that flight was the presence of at least two check Captains on that flight "

 

Couldn't agree more Oscar , we were just plain bloody lucky .... Bob

 

 

[Oscar]

Bob: you were onboard? That would have me waking up in the early mornings sweating. even now. For anybody with aircraft knowledge, seeing the damage to that A380 would be on the scale of the scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules decides that not being shot was an Act of God.