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By 2030, commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotlessplanes.



 
 
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  #21  
Old September 27th 05, 07:14 PM
Bob Noel
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In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of. It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of


A computer can do a great job, if the solution is properly developed.


The real question is whether pilots on average are able to come up with
inspired solutions to problems more often than they create problems with
perfectly good airplanes.


Another valid question is:

Would the effort required to develop hardware/software for pilotless
aircraft be more or less effective than the effort to develop hardware/software
to help protect pilots from error?

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

  #23  
Old September 27th 05, 07:37 PM
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Peter Duniho wrote:
"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:mle_e.11361$L15.4226@trndny01...
I agree that a computer can do a great job when everything goes more or
less according to plan, but what about when it doesn't?


Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of. It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of


The real question is whether pilots on average are able to come up with
inspired solutions to problems more often than they create problems with
perfectly good airplanes.


Looking at major air accidents in the US over the past 5 years I'd say
humans are doing awfully well. Aside from the AA airbus right after
9/11 (which has lots of question marks) it's not at all clear to me
that well trained pilots in modern airliners don't save more than they
cause. A fairly large chunk of Part 121 accidents involve maintenance
or systemic causes that a computer pilot would not presumably make any
difference with.

OTOH, fully-automated aircraft would probably make a huge difference
for GA safety, where pilot failure is the primary cause of accidents.

This is the same reason that autopilot cars are a good idea, no matter how
offensive they may seem to some people. Yes, there will be failures of the
equipment. But that will happen MUCH less often than the failures of the
humans, and will improve the reliability and efficiency of our
transportation infrastructure at the same time.


Look at this for an idea of the state-of-the-art in robot cars. It's
pretty pathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_DARPA_Grand_Challenge

OTOH, ABS and stability control, etc. have unquestionabaly made driving
much safer. Some high-end cars use forward-looking radar to sound an
alarm if you start closing in on the car ahead of you very quickly and
even cruise control which maintains a following distance rather than
fixed speed. Presumably this trend will continue much as an Airbus
today is a largely automated plane but with big decisions still made by
pilots.

-cwk.

  #24  
Old September 27th 05, 08:36 PM
Peter Duniho
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wrote in message
oups.com...
Looking at major air accidents in the US over the past 5 years I'd say
humans are doing awfully well.


I'm not talking about restricting one's view to "major air accidents". In
any case, if you have actual statistics to refute my intuition, I'm all
ears. Otherwise, your intuitive view is no more compelling than my own (no
less either, granted).

[...]
Look at this for an idea of the state-of-the-art in robot cars. It's
pretty pathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_DARPA_Grand_Challenge


The DARPA event is a completely different scenario from a general
autopiloted transportation infrastructure. For you to use it as a
comparison is laughable. Instead, try the many successful demonstrations of
computer-driven cars on paved roadways with appropriate guidance technology.

Pete


  #25  
Old September 27th 05, 09:29 PM
george
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Bob Fry wrote:
Not my statement. See
http://www.longbets.org/4

What sayeth the group wisdom? I think eventually there will be
pilotless aircraft, the question is when.

In a word no.
Not passenger carrying aircraft.
It may well be that computorised flight systems become more reliable
but people have the capability to think outside the square using
previous experience.

  #26  
Old September 27th 05, 10:49 PM
Casey Wilson
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wrote in message
oups.com...

Peter Duniho wrote:
"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:mle_e.11361$L15.4226@trndny01...
I agree that a computer can do a great job when everything goes more
or
less according to plan, but what about when it doesn't?

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of.
It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of



How about:

Pilots Battle Computer For Control Of 777

Stanley Kubrick couldn't have scripted anything more eerie than the
real-life odyssey of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that seemed hell-bent
on crashing itself on a trip from Perth to Kuala Lumpur last Aug. 1.
According to The Australian newspaper, the Malaysian flight crew had to
literally battle for control of the aircraft after something went wonky with
the computerized controls. The plane was about an hour into the flight when
it suddenly climbed 3,000 feet and almost stalled. The Australian Transport
Safety Bureau
http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/occurs/occurs_detail.cfm?ID=767 report
said the pilot was able to disconnect the autopilot and lower the nose to
prevent the stall but the autothrottles refused to disengage and when the
nose pitched down they increased power. Even pushing the throttles to idle
didn't deter the silicon brains and the plane pitched up again and climbed
2,000 feet the second time. The pilot was able to fly manually back to Perth
but the autothrottles wouldn't turn off. As he was landing, the primary
flight display gave a false low airspeed warning and the throttles
firewalled again. The display also warned of a non-existent wind shear.
Boeing spokesman Ken Morton said it was the only such problem ever
experienced on the 777 but airlines have been told via an emergency AD
http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgad.nsf/0/25F9233FE09B613F8625706C005D0C53?OpenDocument
to load an earlier software version just in case. The investigation is
focusing on the air data inertial data reference unit (HAL for short?),
which apparently supplied false acceleration figures to the primary flight
computer.



  #27  
Old September 28th 05, 12:44 AM
Robert M. Gary
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Certainly techonology isn't a barrier, a lot can be done in 25 years.
The real question is whether or not pax will pay to ride in such a
device. I suspect they would

-Robert

  #28  
Old September 28th 05, 12:44 AM
George Patterson
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Peter Duniho wrote:

I admit, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I suspect that
human error in the cockpit causes more accidents than human novelty recovers
from.


I doubt that anyone has good statistics. People investigating a accident in
which the pilots don't survive are (or at least were) likely to declare it
"pilot error" anytime they couldn't figure out what went wrong. And if the pilot
survives, he's probably going to try very hard to hide any mistakes he might
have made.

There's also the tendency of the NTSB to blame the pilot for *something*, even
if the basic cause was beyond anyone's control. If the engine fell off, one
"cause" of the accident is likely to be "failure to maintain adequate clearance
from terrain."

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.
  #29  
Old September 28th 05, 12:45 AM
Robert M. Gary
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No way. considering the cost of aircraft and the liability of having
passengers it will always be cheaper to have someone there to watch over
things in the case of error.


But without the pilots you may actually have less crashes i.e. less
liability. Pilot error is already the number 1 reference of the NTSB.

-Robert

  #30  
Old September 28th 05, 12:46 AM
Robert M. Gary
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Pilots Battle Computer For Control Of 777

I also remember when it took two people to fire up the Tandem mainframe
computer. Today PCs are more powerful than that old tandem. Don't fall
into the belief that things can't change a lot in 25 years.

-Robert

 




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