Boeing looking into passenger planes without pilots

[Idiosyncratic]

/snip

Someone repped me and asked about the SAA flight in question. I don't want to give too much detail for my own anonymity's sake (certain details are know by a limited amount of people...I'll pre-empt the obvious question - no I don't fly for SAA) so I'll give the info that should already be available to the public.

A340 took off from the US, gear didn't come up. Computers went haywire - wanted to accelerate to a faster speed and continue with the flight as if nothing happened. Flight attendants started chirping that there's a "wind noise" and ATC wanted info...basically organized chaos ensued. Pilots chose to override the aircraft's systems by forcing an angle of attack that maintained 190 kts - keeping the gear from tearing off. According to SOP, they had to dump fuel and return to the US. Pilot in command chose to circle and check things out first - they were burning fuel anyway so might as well try and see if the issue can be fixed. Nothing worked so the pilots disconnected the power to the system controlling the gear for 1 minute, and after that they were able to retract the gear and continue on to Africa. No, it wasn't a temporary error that just needed a reboot to fix, but somehow cutting the power for a minute did the trick. The pilots saved the airline their entire pensions several times over that day...

 

[garyc]

This is what happens when your aircraft's computer can't make up it's mind if it is landing or taking off.

[video=youtube_share;faB5bIdksi8]https://youtu.be/faB5bIdksi8[/video]

 

[buka001]

This is what happens when your aircraft's computer can't make up it's mind if it is landing or taking off.

[video=youtube_share;faB5bIdksi8]https://youtu.be/faB5bIdksi8[/video]

Test pilots ... didnt even eject

 

[ForceFate]

/growls

 

[AlphaJohn]

If people only knew how little pilots do lately. Most new planes have autoland and take-off.

 

[Vrotappel]

Once they figure out how to make passenger planes without terries they can move on to these more ambitious goals ...

Terries hijacking a computerized plane would be problematic though...

 

[Idiosyncratic]

If people only knew how little pilots do lately. Most new planes have autoland and take-off.

Except most pilots don't opt for full autoland (it's not usually SOP except in crap weather anyway), and I'm not sure about the newest equipment, but it is normal in most airliners that the autopilot cannot be engaged for take-off.
What I do know about the newest equipment is that the average "hands-on" time in an A350 is around 20 minutes. That's still a fair bit of time, and the fact is that pilots are most definitely actively involved in every step of a flight - it's not like we sit on our hands and do nothing (the opposite is true - flying is rather stressful, autopilot or the not). Decisions which the computers aren't going to make for you are constantly made throughout every flight.

 

[konfab]

I think having the option of a ground team being able to override and control the plane is a pretty good option to have.

You could eliminate the threat of terrorism with that option. Simply have security cameras on the plane and have the option for remote override.

 

[BeerIsNotGood...]

I think having the option of a ground team being able to override and control the plane is a pretty good option to have.

You could eliminate the threat of terrorism with that option. Simply have security cameras on the plane and have the option for remote override.

And what if remote override stops working...

 

[WaxLyrical]

As if the AI will say come let's land in the Hudson River.

More like the program has stopped responding - crash.

 

[Oppiekoffie]

I think having the option of a ground team being able to override and control the plane is a pretty good option to have.

You could eliminate the threat of terrorism with that option. Simply have security cameras on the plane and have the option for remote override.

nd what if the communication fails. Just look at the BA computer systems fail 2 weeks ago, and this is on the ground.

 

[konfab]

nd what if the communication fails. Just look at the BA computer systems fail 2 weeks ago, and this is on the ground.

And what if the pilot wants to commit suicide?

I never said that they should get rid of pilots, I just said they should put in more redundancy.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

What about, partial automation?
I mean it's really the same, just with the pilot not on board, but in an office somewhere.

It's been done before, the drones that patrol the gaza fence are unmanned and a human operator sits in a office someplace and can override the ai.

Why not scale it up with cargo first, prove it works,
Even get a success, like landing safely when a fire engulfs the cockpit
And then gradually phase it into passenger planes.

 

[Idiosyncratic]

And what if the pilot wants to commit suicide?

I never said that they should get rid of pilots, I just said they should put in more redundancy.

That's what certain aspects of the psychometric testing and the rather intense analysis in the Class 1 medicals is supposed to be for. Ultimately, the fact the Germanwings pilot got in and continued flying despite all the warning flags was negligence on the part of HR and others within the airline. The few other cases of pilot suicide was also negligence on the part of the operator - with one pilot actually warning the airline not to send him out as he's contemplating suicide. If airlines abide by their own rules there'll be no suicides.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Honestly I think the march of automation is inevitable
Yes we might argue about safety and tradition

Fact is airlines want bums in seats as quickly and as efficiently as possible

If they could they'd replace the flight attendants with robots that don't mind working 24/7/365
And the planes with robots that flown by teams in an office on shifts someplace..

I mean it's possible, including with long distance trucking.
The tech is there, just convincing people to trust it....
Also the unions how would they react.....

And before somebody says what an insane idea , think back to how many people had to harvest corn before combine harvesters.

 

[Idiosyncratic]

Honestly I think the march of automation is inevitable
Yes we might argue about safety and tradition

Fact is airlines want bums in seats as quickly and as efficiently as possible

If they could they'd replace the flight attendants with robots that don't mind working 24/7/365
And the planes with robots that flown by teams in an office on shifts someplace..

I mean it's possible, including with long distance trucking.
The tech is there, just convincing people to trust it....
Also the unions how would they react.....

And before somebody says what an insane idea , think back to how many people had to harvest corn before combine harvesters.

I agree it's inevitable, it can't be trusted yet though. Ignoring convention - it's just not safe yet, and won't be within the next decade. If 8 state of the art flight computers screw up on almost half of flights then we know we've got an issue. AI has to gain the decision making ability of humans for this to work - no computer would have chosen to land on the Hudson and no computer would have saved countless of lives on Flight 32 - the computers would have killed everyone.

Like you say, partial automation might work, but then in the case of Flight 32, everyone would have died also as the plane couldn't determine the most critical fault and isolate it as the cause as many of the faults were in fact critical. Someone on the ground wouldn't be able to teleport to the plane to determine what's actually wrong. Also, airlines like to have their birds in the air and not on the ground, knowing ICAO and the CAA - MELs would become more restrictive, and rightfully so. This will mean in today's world that maybe a third of flights (this could well be more) would be cancelled or delayed. That means lost revenue for airlines.

 

[Oppiekoffie]

And what if the pilot wants to commit suicide?

I never said that they should get rid of pilots, I just said they should put in more redundancy.

ok, thought that you suggested remote control with no pilots, why then if you have pilots have remote? On all flights there are two pilots. mIGHT BE NECESSARY IF they take away 1 pilot leaving only one. then the remote assistance may come in handy.

 

[Arthur]

I know it's a little embarrassing to admit visiting the CNN/FakeNews website, but came across this little video about what they claim to be the world's first driverles train, in China. It's slowly happening, and will reach aviation one day.

 

[The_Assimilator]

So many luddites in this thread. The only reason pilotless aircraft haven't happened yet is because there's been no economic reason for them to exist. After all, if you know there's always going to be a human pilot as backup, why bother investing money into making a foolproof autopilot? The end result is that most autopilot systems are dumb as s**t.

I would wager, in fact, that creating a working self-flying passenger algorithm is simpler than creating one for a self-driving car. It's pretty simple: plane takes off, plane climbs to cruising altitude, plane points its nose in the direction of the destination airport, plane lands. Unlike cars, there are no other vehicles to contend with because of predefined flight paths, the only ordinary hazards are adverse weather conditions that can be flown around or compensated for, and given enough sensors and enough training, a pilot program will be able to figure out what it should do when something goes wrong.

Yes, there probably aren't going to be any "miracles on the Hudson" with autoflying planes, but that particular miracle wouldn't have been needed if people weren't doing stupid things like building airports near bird habitats.

And as for security, both Boeing and Airbus are defence contractors who can't afford to have their image tarnished by a plane getting hijacked due to insecure code.

This is what happens when your aircraft's computer can't make up it's mind if it is landing or taking off.

[video=youtube_share;faB5bIdksi8]https://youtu.be/faB5bIdksi8[/video]

Because an incident from 1992 is completely representative of technology more than two decades later :facepalm:. Remind me, how many self-driving cars were there in 1992?

 

[Idiosyncratic]

The end result is that most autopilot systems are dumb as s**t.

Persistent failures and glitches doesn't make something "dumb as s**t"

It's pretty simple: plane takes off, plane climbs to cruising altitude, plane points its nose in the direction of the destination airport, plane lands. Unlike cars, there are no other vehicles to contend with because of predefined flight paths, the only ordinary hazards are adverse weather conditions that can be flown around or compensated for, and given enough sensors and enough training, a pilot program will be able to figure out what it should do when something goes wrong.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about

Because an incident from 1992 is completely representative of technology more than two decades later :facepalm:. Remind me, how many self-driving cars were there in 1992?

Let's not forget it has been Airbus' mentality to have pilots monitored by computers since their first fly-by-wire system was launched...that hasn't worked out too great either - even in the last 5 years. The systems are imperfect because this is complex stuff we're dealing with, not so much because there's some global conspiracy to keep aviation automation from advancing. Automation is making great inroads into commercial aviation - progressively, at a manageable pace. Every year we see great leaps, and soon, with ADS-B becoming mainstream, we'll see the basic setup behind these systems greatly improving.