Airbus A320 Down

Sluggo63 said:
Well, crap... I was going to get into machine maintenance and raw material servicing as my post airline pilot gig in a couple of years, but if I'm replaced as a pilot, I'm sure all these maintenance jobs on the machine floor will have already been taken over by robots.

Now I have no idea what I'm going to do with my time. Maybe I'll get my Coast Guard NMC Charter Boat Captain's license. It sounds like those guys are irreplaceable...
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Are you really just that stupid? Seriously? Holy ****, and they gave you a pilot's license? **** me dead.
 
Henning said:
:confused: Haven't we been actually doing this with TCAS for a long time?
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Personally I think it's a good idea for autonomous airplanes to detect and avoid things without transponders as well. But what do I know?

A safety system that relies on absolute compliance and constant functionality is doomed to fail.

Nauga,
who knows the difference between fail/safe and fail/operate
 
Sluggo63 said:
Not insulted at all. I know what you're saying, but if the ground station can take control from me at any time, what if the bad guy is on the ground. Then we have a new scenario, just with the perpetrator sitting on the ground and both pilots locked out from saving the aircraft. If the pilots can override the ground station in that scenario, then we're back to square one with the bad actor in the plane.
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I would imagine any such station would be run from a very secure location to start. And it is why I said a good hacker could be an issue.
 
Sluggo63 said:
I'm sure all these maintenance jobs on the machine floor will have already been taken over by robots.
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I for one welcome our new electronic overlords.

Nauga,
and Kent Brockman
 
Henning said:
Are you really just that stupid? Seriously? Holy ****, and they gave you a pilot's license? **** me dead.
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I guess I really am that stupid. Sucks to be me. I'll live.

Explain to me how servicing machines is a tougher problem to solve with automation than flying an airplane. Or a captaining a yacht.

I'll be sitting here in the corner with my dunce cap on waiting for your reply.
 
drotto said:
I would imagine any such station would be run from a very secure location to start. And it is why I said a good hacker could be an issue.
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Sure it would be. But if there's a human on the ground, in that station, then we can always run into the same issue of mass murder. And, like you said, it would have to be a pretty secure link to prevent hacking.
 
nauga said:
I for one welcome our new electronic overlords.

Nauga,
and Kent Brockman
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You're too pliable dude, show some backbone!

throttle
adding to the post count
 
nauga said:
Personally I think it's a good idea for autonomous airplanes to detect and avoid things without transponders as well. But what do I know?

A safety system that relies on absolute compliance and constant functionality is doomed to fail.

Nauga,
who knows the difference between fail/safe and fail/operate
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Onboard radar avoidance is available with off the shelf technology, completely non dependent on anything else for detection except a primary target. That target can enter information into the same TCAS protocol system. WTF people, this **** is not that difficult, the processor power now exists at a price that we can afford to do it.

There are no problems that exist that do not have solutions. If you look for solutions, you find solutions. If you look for defeat, you will find defeat. Simple as that.
 
drotto said:
I know that pilots may see this comment as insulting, and with master hackers around it may even be a bad idea. Would it be possible to have a emergency ground based control override for airplanes? That way in the even that something like this happens, a terrorist gets control of the plane, or crew becomes incapacitated, the plane could be controlled by a ground based pilot.
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I'm aware of at least one patent for just such a system. ;)

Nauga,
and his contingencies
 
Henning said:
There are no problems that exist that do not have solutions. If you look for solutions, you find solutions. If you look for defeat, you will find defeat. Simple as that.
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You assume that no one here is looking for solutions. Like much of what you have posted regarding technology, its application, and implementation for autonomy in the global airspace system, this is incorrect.

On the other hand, many problems look easy to the one who doesn't have to do the work.

Nauga,
who has to do the work
 
drotto said:
I would imagine any such station would be run from a very secure location to start. And it is why I said a good hacker could be an issue.
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Well, to start with, it can't be one single station. It has to be at least two different stations, separated by not less than about 300 miles to be secure from radio interference. Then, I'm pretty sure I want it to do freq hopping, and that's another layer of complexity, after that you've got encryption, and after that you've got the signaler/responder link, so that there's constant feedback, and what about latency? 600 miles plus azimuth is about 3mS latency, double that for the sync link and it's up to 6mS, and you've got to syncronize, or is this going to be an async link? Yikes. I'm getting a headache and just getting started on the problem.

Can it be done? Sure, anything can be done. Will it be more safe? Ruh-roh...
 
While I think autonomous airplanes are a good ways off (there are still some interesting corners of the envelope that the cars can't do either, and they can just stop when they get confused), harping on the cost is probably the wrong weak spot to pick on. The beauty of automation systems is they may have a high acquisition cost, but people have high ongoing costs. Salaries (just the tip of the iceberg) are annual. Then's there's recruiting, training and replacing because, darn it, they get old and retire-and that's the best case. Oh and medical and HR folks and policies and taxes and regulations to be adhered to because you have to to have employees. All those are ongoing costs of employees.

While automation systems will have ongoing maintenance, it won't be nearly as high as ongoing costs for people. At least that's how it's played out in other fields.

Oh, and if we have to limit or annoy our customers a bit for the reduced costs, guess what? They're already trained for that. Phone menus anyone?

So while I firmly believe that the technology problems are bigger by far than Henning understands, the cost saving would be real even given the staggeringly high acquisition costs.

John
 
Sluggo63 said:
I don't know about the technology issue, and I understand what you're saying bout the electrical issues, but I'll tell you about aircraft retrofit. FedEx is the only company to fly the MD-10. We took our DC-10-10s and DC-10-30s and paid for a conversion to take the cockpit from a 3-person DC-10 flightdeck to a pseudo-MD-11 one with only 2 people. It was an unmitigated disaster. By the time everything was all said and done, we were paying more per copy for a converted DC-10 than we could have bought a used MD-11 for. And even with that, they were never able to get the Air System to interface properly with the automatic controllers, so the MD-10s always had the Air System in manual mode. And that conversion wasn't even on the scale of what would be attempted here.

Again, even on the planes I fly, there are still steps that have to be accomplished manually. It's going to take a lot of redundant servos to get to where you won't need me to pull the occasional circuit breaker or turn off hydraulic pumps.
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Yes, I understand your point that upgrades of any kind (beyond the trivial) are hard, expensive, and in many cases not economically viable.

But the more I think about this issue of complete automation, it seems to me my other point may be the dominant factor: how do you handle the unexpected, i.e. emergencies? Like fire on board, bomb going off, collision with a flock of birds or other objects, etc. etc.
Sure, no guarantee a human crew is going to save the day either, but ideally as a pax, I'd like the human crew having access to the fancy automation, to get the best of both worlds.
 
jsstevens said:
So while I firmly believe that the technology problems are bigger by far than Henning understands, the cost saving would be real even given the staggeringly high acquisition costs.
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The recurring costs *should* be *reduced* but whether that results in an actual savings when combined with the amortized research, development, and acquisition costs remains to be seen.

Nauga,
and his life-cycle management
 
Turns out the FO was being treated for psychological issues without telling his employer about it...that probably means the German Federal Aviation Office does not have the ability to access his private medical records to discover this...

Perhaps it is not an altogether bad thing to have big brother FAA watch over us and our medical files?

:popcorn:
 
RotorDude said:
Yes, I understand your point that upgrades of any kind (beyond the trivial) are hard, expensive, and in many cases not economically viable.

But the more I think about this issue of complete automation, it seems to me my other point may be the dominant factor: how do you handle the unexpected, i.e. emergencies? Like fire on board, bomb going off, collision with a flock of birds or other objects, etc. etc.
Sure, no guarantee a human crew is going to save the day either, but ideally as a pax, I'd like the human crew having access to the fancy automation, to get the best of both worlds.
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You're right. There are so many facets to this "problem" that it's mind boggling. I'm not saying that it couldn't be solved, and I'm sure people much smarter than I (as Henning so nicely pointed out) are working on the "solution."

What you outlined is just one facet. Like Cowboy started to point out with the datalink ground station solution, there is a huge jump in resources needed to implement a "solution" to a "problem" that really isn't there.

Would you pay $500 for an upgrade to your car if I guaranteed with 99.9% certainty that you would never get into an accident? Probably. How about $1,000? $10,000? 100,000? At what point is the crashless car upgrade not going to be worth the added benefit to your already really good driving record (I'm assuming)?

And as you point out, and maybe I'm different... But I think people like the fact that there's someone sitting in the pointy end of an airplane with "some skin in the game." If you've ever had a serious emergency... an engine failure, a flight control malfunction... were you thinking about "I better get this to a safe conclusion so my passenger is okay"? Maybe, maybe not. You're probably thinking, I better do some of that pilot stuff so I can walk away from this. Your passenger surviving is just a fortuitous benefit to you saving your own bacon. I think people get that...
 
Henning said:
**** you you little inbred ****.
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Henning said:
Are you really just that stupid? Seriously? Holy ****, and they gave you a pilot's license? **** me dead.
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Wow, two really over the top personal attacks on two well reasoned individuals in a span of less than 15 minutes. Set the bong down Henning. It's triggering your bipolar disorder again.
 
Henning said:
There are no problems that exist that do not have solutions. If you look for solutions, you find solutions. If you look for defeat, you will find defeat. Simple as that.
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You're right... nothing is impossible and anybody who says so is a defeatist! That's a great attitude to have, one I'm going to adopt more in my life.
Henning said:
:rofl: Welcome to my world.:lol: More than once I have asked an owner, "Excuse me, but are ****ing nuts? Do you realize what you're asking for is impossible?":rofl: I'm consistently surprised at still getting the jobs after dashing their delusions.:rofl:
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Ahhh... never mind...
 
timwinters said:
Wow, two really over the top personal attacks on two well reasoned individuals in a span of less than 15 minutes. Set the bong down Henning. It's triggering your bipolar disorder again.
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One of the most important rules of internet forums is figuring out who the attention seeking whores are. If Henning doesn't qualify as that, I don't know who does :lol: Seriously though I have trouble reading his posts. The BS factor is so high in the majority I'm thinking he must be a troll.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Not insulted at all. I know what you're saying, but if the ground station can take control from me at any time, what if the bad guy is on the ground. Then we have a new scenario, just with the perpetrator sitting on the ground and both pilots locked out from saving the aircraft. If the pilots can override the ground station in that scenario, then we're back to square one with the bad actor in the plane.
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And if the bad guy's on the ground, he has no skin in the game.

Rich
 
Sluggo63 said:
And as you point out, and maybe I'm different... But I think people like the fact that there's someone sitting in the pointy end of an airplane with "some skin in the game." If you've ever had a serious emergency... an engine failure, a flight control malfunction... were you thinking about "I better get this to a safe conclusion so my passenger is okay"? Maybe, maybe not. You're probably thinking, I better do some of that pilot stuff so I can walk away from this. Your passenger surviving is just a fortuitous benefit to you saving your own bacon. I think people get that...
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I certainly do. It's one reason why I would never set foot on a remotely piloted airliner. (The many, many ways that something could go wrong in an unanticipated manner would be another.)
 
Sluggo63 said:
You're right... nothing is impossible and anybody who says so is a defeatist! That's a great attitude to have, one I'm going to adopt more in my life.

Ahhh... never mind...
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Isn't it interesting how his attitude changes when he's talking about a subject he's highly experienced in!
 
Sluggo63 said:
Maybe you'll go from 99.9% accident free to 99.99% accident free. What is the cost to get an extra nine hundredths of a percent better? More than the cost of what the airlines are paying now for us.
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Highly unlikely that the road from 99.9% accident free to 99.99% accident free would be linear. I would bet there would be some dips as the technology matures and new, unforeseen problems are dealt with. Would the public accept, say, 99.3% (or less -- maybe much less) for a time, as a tradeoff for a hoped-for 99.99% someday in the future?

I can readily visualize an automated airliner full of passengers pushing back from a gate at City A, and a few hours later taxiing safely into a gate at City B, under carefully controlled conditions. But maybe I'm just short-sighted enough that I cannot visualize that happening 28,500 times a day in the real world. In our lifetime, anyway.

Once upon a time we thought that we needed universal Mach 3 airline travel, and all that was keeping us from it was refining the technology and spending more money. We had no idea what supersonic airline travel was up against.

I haven't yet seen the automation technology that can fully replicate a pilot's senses. "I don't like the way this looks/sounds/feels/smells ... " Will the machine tell Center, "Y'know the ride's kinda crummy here at 350 ... can you give us higher?"

I'm not all that crazy about the automated trams that shuttle between the terminals at O'Hare. I could not imagine getting on an automated airliner.
 
Henning said:
Since you're young I'll give you a piece of advice; when you limit thinking, you limit opportunity. Your attitude does not serve you well, and the way you project yourself is probably why you can't get a job. You don't even know me, and you believe you have earned the right to insult me.:lol: **** you you little inbred ****.
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You know, I could come back with some choice words and examples of why you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I think you exemplified yourself in a light I couldn't though - I'm not gonna wrestle with the pig.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Would you pay $500 for an upgrade to your car if I guaranteed with 99.9% certainty that you would never get into an accident? ..
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No I wouldn't. For the same reason I wouldn buy magic beans - because I know that no such device exists. Nor will it ever as long as things are built by humans and maintained by humans.
 
narchee said:
One of the most important rules of internet forums is figuring out who the attention seeking whores are. If Henning doesn't qualify as that, I don't know who does :lol: Seriously though I have trouble reading his posts. The BS factor is so high in the majority I'm thinking he must be a troll.
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I am a close 2nd :goofy:
 
nauga said:
You assume that no one here is looking for solutions. Like much of what you have posted regarding technology, its application, and implementation for autonomy in the global airspace system, this is incorrect.

On the other hand, many problems look easy to the one who doesn't have to do the work.

Nauga,
who has to do the work
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People aren't only looking for solutions, they are creating them. I've been putting in work on these processes for years starting with Dynamic Positioning.

In any technology based industry there are always 2 groups of people. The group shouting "Impossible!!!" at the top of their lungs, and those who go out and build it anyway.
 
Flying Viking said:
Turns out the FO was being treated for psychological issues without telling his employer about it...that probably means the German Federal Aviation Office does not have the ability to access his private medical records to discover this...



Perhaps it is not an altogether bad thing to have big brother FAA watch over us and our medical files?



:popcorn:
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This exact thing could also happen in the US.

Everyone says this, yet other than the SS disability database cross check, I've never heard of any other database checks.

Can someone cite one? Bueller? Bueller? ;)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Henning said:
People aren't only looking for solutions, they are creating them. I've been putting in work on these processes for years starting with Dynamic Positioning.
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Do you mean Dynamic Positioning like keeping a ship in one place? I don't know anything about it, but it looks interesting. Also looks like a much easier problem to solve than autonomous commercial flying. Are these DP ships completely autonomous, or is there someone (a human) on board or in a base station watching the systems? When do you think that they'll be able to completely autonomous with a DP ship and have zero human interaction?

Henning said:
In any technology based industry there are always 2 groups of people. The group shouting "Impossible!!!" at the top of their lungs, and those who go out and build it anyway.
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I refer you to a previous quote of yours...
Henning said:
More than once I have asked an owner, "Excuse me, but are ****ing nuts? Do you realize what you're asking for is impossible?"
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I don't think anyone here is shouting "Impossible!"

Most people here are shouting "So much harder than anyone thinks!" and some, like me, are shouting "Make no economic sense!"

Like someone astutely pointed out above, we certainly have the technology-right now-to build and fly a supersonic passenger airliner. We did it in the 70s. Why are we not jetting across the Atlantic at Mach 3 right now? It doesn't make money; if it did, the airlines would be doing it. The incremental gain in speed is not worth the additional cost of that speed. AF4590 didn't kill off the Concorde, economics did.

Will you admit that we'll never be able to build a 100% safe airliner... manned or not? If you admit that there will always be the chance for a fatal mishap, then you're paying lots of money to improve one of the already safest means of transportation in the world.

Trust me, there are many reasons that airlines would love to get rid of their pilots. They hate unions. They hate pilots. We get all the chicks. Who knows? If it made sense, they'd be finding a way to do it, no doubt. But right now, airlines are putting in orders for brand new Boeings, Airbuses and Embraers. All of them will be manned and they'll be rolling off the assembly line for years to come.
 
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I'm pretty sure autonomous comm planes has been brought up in the board-rooms of most major carries more than once. Or, if not fully autonomous then a plane with an onboard manned monitoring station(nee pilot) in case of emergency he could take over.

I suspect that the idea of a monitor on board would go a long way to assuage the flying public, and the fact that the plane were remotely piloted would be downplayed significantly. The role of onboard 'pilot' would also be more of a systems manager than stick-and-rudder guy. But there are sooooooooooooo many variables involved that I doubt any gain by remote piloting will ever catch on. Just think of fast moving weather systems, and how pilots are routed and how they avoid system today, and see if you can do the same thing without a pilot observing. Of course, you could put accelerometers in the plane, and video, and even have a ground based motion sim for the remote pilot, but that all cost mega-money to down-link and don't forget about the latency problem while the signal is in transit, and being decoded, and compared, and then sent to the sim.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Do you mean Dynamic Positioning like keeping a ship in one place? I don't know anything about it, but it looks interesting. Also looks like a much easier problem to solve than autonomous commercial flying. Are these DP ships completely autonomous, or is there someone (a human) on board or in a base station watching the systems? When do you think that they'll be able to completely autonomous with a DP ship and have zero human interaction?
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DP ships have a watchstander for the actual control. Then ya need an engine room crew to keep the lights on, then ya gotta feed and house the crew. And then there is the crew that performs the work which is the reason the ship is out there.

Easier than commercial aircraft to remove the crew? Nope. The ships remain on station for weeks or months at a time so routine maintenance is required along with refilling food and fuel stores. They make their own water. I won't even get into the repairs required but I will say that it's impressive when an EMD comes from together spontaneously.
 
Clark1961 said:
DP ships have a watchstander for the actual control. Then ya need an engine room crew to keep the lights on, then ya gotta feed and house the crew. And then there is the crew that performs the work which is the reason the ship is out there.
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Automated airliners will still have a watch-stander, mostly there to keep the self-loading cargo placated and as a backup if the data connection breaks down. Unlike the drones, you can't just turn the airliner out towards the ocean if you loose the sat-link.

The first fully automated airliners will fly little boxes into Memphis every night.
 
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