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#91
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Neil Gould wrote:
.... All that has happened is that the pilot is outside the cockpit. The UAVs are *not* acting autonomously, which is a pre-requisite for _pilotless_ operation. Right. The SALT II treaty forbids dropping weapons or launching vehicles from _pilotless_ vehicles. But _remotely piloted_ vehicles do not violate this restriction. |
#92
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#93
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Recently, Greg Farris posted:
says... I was talking about autonomous operation. It doesn't matter where that is. The thread is about airline operations without pilots. Not about philosophical considerations of autonomous operation. And, my point is that you won't have pilotless airline operations without autonomous capabilities. It isn't a philosophical matter because the evidence of today's capabilities is pretty clear. If you wish to suggest otherwise, show some proof that it works in any kind of vehicle, anywhere. The difference between autopilots and autonomous airline operations is pretty significant. Regards, Neil |
#94
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#95
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Recently, Greg Farris posted:
says... The thread is about airline operations without pilots. Not about philosophical considerations of autonomous operation. And, my point is that you won't have pilotless airline operations without autonomous capabilities. It isn't a philosophical matter because the evidence of today's capabilities is pretty clear. If you wish to suggest otherwise, show some proof that it works in any kind of vehicle, anywhere. The difference between autopilots and autonomous airline operations is pretty significant. I notice that this thread is cross posted to different newsgroups. Perhaps you are contributing from alt.rec.metaphysics or something :-) Perhaps you're contributing from alt.rec.dream-on? ;-) You are hung up on the idea of autonomous operation, when that wasn't the point at all. Flying airliners without pilots does not imply that they have to fly themselves without human intervention. To most of us, it means they are controlled from the ground, with a level of human supervision and intervention scaled to the complexity of the task. This means, as you say, the pilot is not physically in the airplane. It also means that one 'pilot' (human or otherwise) can manage several airliners, and moreover manage conflict between them better than any one pilot in any one airplane could do. Well, this is a shift to a slightly different approach, and adds both complexity and unnecessary risk. To you, if I understand you correctly, this doesn't pass muster, because it is not true autonomous operation. the planes are not making any decisions by themselves, or very few. This, however, was not the point of the initial thread, which was only concerned with removing costly, error-prone pilots from airliners. Your system of having remote pilots *increases* the potential for errors. How many screens will the pilot have to watch to replace the simple task of scanning (this isn't as simple as it sounds, either)? And, you want to have one guy managing more than one flight? At the very least, this is not likely to improve the loss rate, which would more than offset the cost of the pilot's salary. Add to that the expense of maintaining the requisite systems, and it's easy to see that the cost of operation would be higher, not lower than today. How much will an A&P with a computer science degree cost? Perhaps you are not involved in aviation, or not aware of how the system is organized. The FAA is satisfied that I am involved in aviation by virtue of a certificate and current medical. And, I pass my checkrides without problems, so I suppose I understand, at least to some degree, how "the system is organized". ;-) By the time a plane takes off, under an IFR flight plan, its route has been scheduled, and the airspace is progressively cleared of all conflicts. Except for such things as developing weather (see the thread about XM weather / Garmin 396), which is why we still have PIREPS, for example. In short, *I* won't be flying on any airliner where the pilot is not on board. Neil |
#96
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Greg Farris wrote:
I notice that this thread is cross posted to different newsgroups. Perhaps you are contributing from alt.rec.metaphysics or something :-) You are hung up on the idea of autonomous operation, when that wasn't the point at all. Flying airliners without pilots does not imply that they have to fly themselves without human intervention. To most of us, it means they are controlled from the ground, with a level of human supervision and intervention scaled to the complexity of the task. This means, as you say, the pilot is not physically in the airplane. It also means that one 'pilot' (human or otherwise) can manage several airliners, and moreover manage conflict between them better than any one pilot in any one airplane could do. To you, if I understand you correctly, this doesn't pass muster, because it is not true autonomous operation. the planes are not making any decisions by themselves, or very few. This, however, was not the point of the initial thread, which was only concerned with removing costly, error-prone pilots from airliners. So you want to remove error prone pilot from the aircraft and put him on the ground in charge of several aircrafts? |
#97
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Greg Farris wrote:
snip My argument is that socially, this is not something we would accept today, and I believe there are significant hurdles that argue against the initial premise, which is that within 25 years we will all be flying in planes without pilots. G Faris Well thought out and presented Greg...certainly food for thought... -- -Gord. (use gordon in email) |
#98
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Greg Farris writes:
You are hung up on the idea of autonomous operation, when that wasn't the point at all. Flying airliners without pilots does not imply that they have to fly themselves without human intervention. To most of us, it means they are controlled from the ground, with a level of human supervision and intervention scaled to the complexity of the task. This means, as you say, the pilot is not physically in the airplane. It also means that one 'pilot' (human or otherwise) can manage several airliners, and moreover manage conflict between them better than any one pilot in any one airplane could do. Okay, let's accept that this system is built. What happens when communication is interrupted? Radio failure is not an unheard of event, is it? In the case of communication failure, it would appear that you have two choices. You could have the planes automatically go into a holding pattern of some sort, or you could have the planes act autonomously. If you went into a holding pattern, the planes would have to be able to break out of the holding pattern and land autonomously if they ran low on fuel or detected incoming weather. Having a pilot on the ground remotely controlling the plane does not remove the need for autonomous operation -- it just means that the autonomous operation is only used during unusual situations. I believe that handling these unusual situations are exactly parts of the autonomous controller which will be the most difficult to design correctly. So, you are left with two choices: 1. Try to design a communication system which is so robust that communication failure is virtually impossible; or 2. Include some sort of autonomous system as a backup for when communication fails. Do I think this is impossible? No. Do I think it is quite hard to get right? Yes. It certainly will take quite some time to get this right enough to win the trust of the average passenger. Chris -- Chris Colohan Email: PGP: finger Web: www.colohan.com Phone: (412)268-4751 |
#99
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Recently, Chris Colohan posted:
[...] So, you are left with two choices: 1. Try to design a communication system which is so robust that communication failure is virtually impossible; or 2. Include some sort of autonomous system as a backup for when communication fails. Do I think this is impossible? No. Do I think it is quite hard to get right? Yes. It certainly will take quite some time to get this right enough to win the trust of the average passenger. I completely agree, but as I wrote earlier, by the time this idea is even a remote possibility, we'll have all kinds of autonomous machines running around us, and we'll take it in stride. Neil |
#100
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Neil Gould wrote: Recently, Chris Colohan posted: [...] So, you are left with two choices: 1. Try to design a communication system which is so robust that communication failure is virtually impossible; or 2. Include some sort of autonomous system as a backup for when communication fails. Do I think this is impossible? No. Do I think it is quite hard to get right? Yes. It certainly will take quite some time to get this right enough to win the trust of the average passenger. I completely agree, but as I wrote earlier, by the time this idea is even a remote possibility, we'll have all kinds of autonomous machines running around us, and we'll take it in stride. I see that they ran the 'robot/remote controlled ground vehicle trials again and some actually completed the course. If they're that unreliable on the ground where you can stop and rectify faults I don't think the possibility of pilots being removed from the cockpit is going to arise... |
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