MEDICAL CERTIFICATION FOR UNMANNED AIRCRAFT PILOTS

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

george writes:

Never read up on the Regs have you !

I wasn't talking about regulations.


Dodge, obfuscate, lie lie lie.

Bertie

Richard Riley writes:

It is perfectly capable of flying an entire mission, from engine
start, to cruise flight, to touchdown and engine stop, autonomously.

That does not surprise me. I recall reading about proof-of-concept studies
along these lines when I was a kid, and I'm sure the field hasn't stood still
since then. The principle is pretty straightforward, although the devil is in
the details, as usual.

In the US, at least, we are required to have a set of mark 1 pilot
eyeballs on it at all times to maintain separation. And the pilot has
to have a class 2 medical and a commercial certificate.

So the pilot is a regulatory requirement ... not a technical one.

Visual separation is only needed because other aircraft in the area are not
autonomous and in communication with yours. But imagine, say, Class A
airspace in which all aircraft are similarly equipped. Nothing up there but
other aircraft of the same breed, and no obstacles or terrain. It would be
much easier to fully automate things there. Later, it could be automated at
lower altitudes and in different flight phases.

Unfortunately, this implies either severe restrictions on small GA aircraft,
or extremely expensive upgrades to those aircraft to make them compatible with
automated aircraft. The other option--making autonomous unmanned aircraft
capable of maintaining visual separation--is probably not feasible technically
and economically.

Already, RVSM requires autopilots. The trend will probably continue, with
pilots becoming more and more peripheral to the flying task.

There may come a time when the only real flying that pilots will be permitted
to do is private GA. All commercial aviation will be handled by robots, and
if human "pilots" are present at all it will only be as emergency attendants.

In some ways, this is easier for aviation than for road vehicles, although
it's easier still for trains, I think.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
news
Richard Riley writes:

It is perfectly capable of flying an entire mission, from engine
start, to cruise flight, to touchdown and engine stop, autonomously.

That does not surprise me. I recall reading about proof-of-concept
studies along these lines when I was a kid, and I'm sure the field
hasn't stood still since then. The principle is pretty
straightforward, although the devil is in the details, as usual.

In the US, at least, we are required to have a set of mark 1 pilot
eyeballs on it at all times to maintain separation. And the pilot
has to have a class 2 medical and a commercial certificate.

So the pilot is a regulatory requirement ... not a technical one.

Visual separation is only needed because other aircraft in the area
are not autonomous and in communication with yours. But imagine, say,
Class A airspace in which all aircraft are similarly equipped.
Nothing up there but other aircraft of the same breed, and no
obstacles or terrain. It would be much easier to fully automate
things there. Later, it could be automated at lower altitudes and in
different flight phases.

Unfortunately, this implies either severe restrictions on small GA
aircraft, or extremely expensive upgrades to those aircraft to make
them compatible with automated aircraft. The other option--making
autonomous unmanned aircraft capable of maintaining visual
separation--is probably not feasible technically and economically.

Already, RVSM requires autopilots.

And you don't even know why.


bertie

Mxsmanic wrote:

:
:Unfortunately, this implies either severe restrictions on small GA aircraft,
r extremely expensive upgrades to those aircraft to make them compatible with
:automated aircraft. The other option--making autonomous unmanned aircraft
:capable of maintaining visual separation--is probably not feasible technically
:and economically.

I would not expect it to be THAT technically difficult. The question
is trusting the technology that does it and what happens when you take
a casualty. Oddly, we insist on having a fragile human as a backup to
technology when it's the human that is the most failure prone part of
the overall system.

:There may come a time when the only real flying that pilots will be permitted
:to do is private GA. All commercial aviation will be handled by robots, and
:if human "pilots" are present at all it will only be as emergency attendants.

It's largely that way now for large modern airliners. Driving them
around on taxiways still requires a human being, but the airplane can
pretty much do everything else by itself.

It's my understanding that F/A-18s can take off and land all by
themselves (and this from an aircraft carrier, which is a bit more
difficult than using one of those big concrete ribbons on solid
ground). I gather that the automated cat sequence is used but the
automated trap sequence is typically not. Fighter pilots are not a
particularly trusting lot... :-)

:In some ways, this is easier for aviation than for road vehicles, although
:it's easier still for trains, I think.

I believe we still have a requirement for trains that they have a
'dead man' throttle. Somebody has to be holding the control or the
train will stop itself.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

Fred J. McCall writes:

I would not expect it to be THAT technically difficult.

Not difficult so much as expensive. If every aircraft can be guaranteed to
carry the necessary equipment, it should be possible to get it all to work.
But stuff like this is going to be really expensive, and how many owners of
small GA aircraft could afford avionics that cost several times more than the
airframe? And if everyone isn't using it, that leaves loopholes through which
accidents can occur.

So you either have to sterilize the airspace in which it is used, so that no
unequipped aircraft enter it, or you have to force everyone to become equipped
before they fly. If you restrict the system to Class A or something, you
might have a useful compromise, but extending it to the entire airspace would
be problematic.

Technically, though, it should work just fine, as long as everyone has the
gear.

The question is trusting the technology that does it and what happens
when you take a casualty. Oddly, we insist on having a fragile human
as a backup to technology when it's the human that is the most failure
prone part of the overall system.

Only because that's not entirely true. Human beings aren't that fragile, for
one thing. For another, they are very, very good at dealing with completely
unexpected and unanticipated situations, whereas digital systems fail
catastrophically when confronted with anything that their designers did not
foresee. An automated system might not see anything wrong with flying an
aircraft inverted if it comes upon a situation that it isn't programmed to
handle, whereas a human pilot immediately sees that there's something
unacceptable going on, and moves to correct it.

For situations that you've anticipated and designed for, the computers will
always outperform the human beings. But for situations that you've neglected
to plan for in your design, a human being is the best possible fail-safe
mechanism. This is why pilots will be in cockpits long after the cockpits are
completely automated. Only when experience proves that the digital systems
are reliable enough to not cause unacceptable rates of accidents will the
pilots be removed.

That point can eventually be reached. Notice that you have a timer on your
microwave oven, not merely an on/off switch. That's because the digital timer
system is reliable enough nowadays that it doesn't require a human back-up for
unanticipated situations. But we are still a long way from that in aviation.

It's largely that way now for large modern airliners. Driving them
around on taxiways still requires a human being, but the airplane can
pretty much do everything else by itself.

That's not what all the "real" pilots say here in this newsgroup. They
stridently insist that it cannot be done. But, like you, I know that it can
be done, and it is being done now.

It's my understanding that F/A-18s can take off and land all by
themselves (and this from an aircraft carrier, which is a bit more
difficult than using one of those big concrete ribbons on solid
ground). I gather that the automated cat sequence is used but the
automated trap sequence is typically not. Fighter pilots are not a
particularly trusting lot... :-)

It's good to be cautious. I didn't know that the aircraft could do that, but
it's interesting to learn. Somehow I'd expect fighters to be the last
aircraft to fully automate ... although it's also true that the weakest
component in a fighter aircraft is the pilot (because the performance of the
aircraft has to be limited in order to keep the pilot alive).

I believe we still have a requirement for trains that they have a
'dead man' throttle. Somebody has to be holding the control or the
train will stop itself.

For regular railways, yes, but for things like subways, sometimes the system
is fully automated, with no human beings at all. Subways have fewer variables
than outdoor railways, though.

I've heard that there are "dead man's throttles" on some aircraft, too, but I
don't have much in the way of details. Traditionally pilots have been so busy
in the cockpit that they couldn't really doze off, but with increasing
automation it becomes a concern. It's easy to fall asleep on a long flight
where the FMC is in control for several hours at a time.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Fred J. McCall writes:

I would not expect it to be THAT technically difficult.

Not difficult so much as expensive. If every aircraft can be
guaranteed to carry the necessary equipment, it should be possible to
get it all to work. But stuff like this is going to be really
expensive, and how many owners of small GA aircraft could afford
avionics that cost several times more than the airframe? And if
everyone isn't using it, that leaves loopholes through which accidents
can occur.

So you either have to sterilize the airspace in which it is used, so
that no unequipped aircraft enter it, or you have to force everyone to
become equipped before they fly. If you restrict the system to Class
A or something, you might have a useful compromise, but extending it
to the entire airspace would be problematic.

Technically, though, it should work just fine, as long as everyone has
the gear.

The question is trusting the technology that does it and what happens
when you take a casualty. Oddly, we insist on having a fragile human
as a backup to technology when it's the human that is the most
failure prone part of the overall system.

Only because that's not entirely true. Human beings aren't that
fragile, for one thing. For another, they are very, very good at
dealing with completely unexpected and unanticipated situations,
whereas digital systems fail catastrophically when confronted with
anything that their designers did not foresee. An automated system
might not see anything wrong with flying an aircraft inverted if it
comes upon a situation that it isn't programmed to handle, whereas a
human pilot immediately sees that there's something unacceptable going
on, and moves to correct it.

For situations that you've anticipated and designed for, the computers
will always outperform the human beings. But for situations that
you've neglected to plan for in your design, a human being is the best
possible fail-safe mechanism. This is why pilots will be in cockpits
long after the cockpits are completely automated. Only when
experience proves that the digital systems are reliable enough to not
cause unacceptable rates of accidents will the pilots be removed.

That point can eventually be reached. Notice that you have a timer on
your microwave oven, not merely an on/off switch. That's because the
digital timer system is reliable enough nowadays that it doesn't
require a human back-up for unanticipated situations. But we are
still a long way from that in aviation.

It's largely that way now for large modern airliners. Driving them
around on taxiways still requires a human being, but the airplane can
pretty much do everything else by itself.

That's not what all the "real" pilots say here in this newsgroup.
They stridently insist that it cannot be done. But, like you, I know
that it can be done, and it is being done now.

It's my understanding that F/A-18s can take off and land all by
themselves (and this from an aircraft carrier, which is a bit more
difficult than using one of those big concrete ribbons on solid
ground). I gather that the automated cat sequence is used but the
automated trap sequence is typically not. Fighter pilots are not a
particularly trusting lot... :-)

It's good to be cautious. I didn't know that the aircraft could do
that, but it's interesting to learn. Somehow I'd expect fighters to
be the last aircraft to fully automate ... although it's also true
that the weakest component in a fighter aircraft is the pilot (because
the performance of the aircraft has to be limited in order to keep the
pilot alive).

I believe we still have a requirement for trains that they have a
'dead man' throttle. Somebody has to be holding the control or the
train will stop itself.

For regular railways, yes, but for things like subways, sometimes the
system is fully automated, with no human beings at all. Subways have
fewer variables than outdoor railways, though.

I've heard that there are "dead man's throttles" on some aircraft,
too, but I don't have much in the way of details.

No there aren't, fjukktard


bertie

"george" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Mar 31, 1:02 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
george writes:
Never read up on the Regs have you !

I wasn't talking about regulations.

In our world (you know, the one with aeroplanes, ratings and stuff) we
have regulations.
It's part of the PPL and CPL license examinations (Air law and
publications)
We also have funny stuff like NOTAMS and AIPs to keep us updated as to
what is current out there in the big world ..


When all you ever fly is your desk, the only regulations you have to worry
about is when Mom says it's bedtime.

Mxsmanic wrote:

:Fred J. McCall writes:
:
: I would not expect it to be THAT technically difficult.
:
:Not difficult so much as expensive. If every aircraft can be guaranteed to
:carry the necessary equipment, it should be possible to get it all to work.

But every aircraft doesn't have to carry it. You handle it the way
the disparity in equipment between big airliners and little general
aviation aircraft is handled now.

:But stuff like this is going to be really expensive, and how many owners of
:small GA aircraft could afford avionics that cost several times more than the
:airframe? And if everyone isn't using it, that leaves loopholes through which
:accidents can occur.

But you know whose fault they are. If they don't have the appropriate
equipment, they are required to operate VFR. You could go further and
ban them from certain TCAs.

:So you either have to sterilize the airspace in which it is used, so that no
:unequipped aircraft enter it, or you have to force everyone to become equipped
:before they fly.

You wouldn't have to do either, any more than you have to require
everyone to have collision avoidance radars and such now.

:If you restrict the system to Class A or something, you
:might have a useful compromise, but extending it to the entire airspace would
:be problematic.

Why?

:Technically, though, it should work just fine, as long as everyone has the
:gear.

And even if everyone doesn't. Just like things work fine now when
everyone doesn't have all the gear.

: The question is trusting the technology that does it and what happens
: when you take a casualty. Oddly, we insist on having a fragile human
: as a backup to technology when it's the human that is the most failure
: prone part of the overall system.
:
:Only because that's not entirely true. Human beings aren't that fragile, for
ne thing.

They're a hell of a lot more fragile than the rest of the technology
in the cockpit.

:For another, they are very, very good at dealing with completely
:unexpected and unanticipated situations, whereas digital systems fail
:catastrophically when confronted with anything that their designers did not
:foresee.

Humans tend to fail catastrophically when confronted with anything
that the designers of their training did not foresee.

:An automated system might not see anything wrong with flying an
:aircraft inverted if it comes upon a situation that it isn't programmed to
:handle, whereas a human pilot immediately sees that there's something
:unacceptable going on, and moves to correct it.

Yes, if you assume that the folks setting up the automated system are
idiots you can assume all sorts of things.

:For situations that you've anticipated and designed for, the computers will
:always outperform the human beings. But for situations that you've neglected
:to plan for in your design, a human being is the best possible fail-safe
:mechanism. This is why pilots will be in cockpits long after the cockpits are
:completely automated. Only when experience proves that the digital systems
:are reliable enough to not cause unacceptable rates of accidents will the
ilots be removed.

Experience right now indicates that human beings make really lousy
fail-safes for automated systems. This is because they are not 'in
the loop' when something goes wrong and by the time they catch up with
the situation it is usually too late to take corrective action. This
is why automated systems frequently wind up not being used and
aircraft flown 'by hand' even though it is not required.

:That point can eventually be reached. Notice that you have a timer on your
:microwave oven, not merely an on/off switch. That's because the digital timer
:system is reliable enough nowadays that it doesn't require a human back-up for
:unanticipated situations. But we are still a long way from that in aviation.

Not really, no. Just how much of the air traffic currently up there
do you think is NOT being flown by automated systems?

: It's largely that way now for large modern airliners. Driving them
: around on taxiways still requires a human being, but the airplane can
: pretty much do everything else by itself.
:
:That's not what all the "real" pilots say here in this newsgroup. They
:stridently insist that it cannot be done.

How many 'heavy' pilots are there here? If they're insisting on 'hand
flying' things, it is for the reason I noted earlier. Humans are very
bad at sitting and WATCHING and maintaining their concentration so
that they can catch things if the automation should fail.

:But, like you, I know that it can
:be done, and it is being done now.
:
: It's my understanding that F/A-18s can take off and land all by
: themselves (and this from an aircraft carrier, which is a bit more
: difficult than using one of those big concrete ribbons on solid
: ground). I gather that the automated cat sequence is used but the
: automated trap sequence is typically not. Fighter pilots are not a
: particularly trusting lot... :-)
:
:It's good to be cautious. I didn't know that the aircraft could do that, but
:it's interesting to learn. Somehow I'd expect fighters to be the last
:aircraft to fully automate ... although it's also true that the weakest
:component in a fighter aircraft is the pilot (because the performance of the
:aircraft has to be limited in order to keep the pilot alive).

Listen to in cockpit tapes of the Blue Angels sometime. You'll hear
the pilot go "Hit it!" and then in the background you'll hear
"Bitchin' Betty" going "Caution ... caution ... caution ... " as they
perform some maneuver too close to the ground or that exceeds the
usual flight standards.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden

Fred J. McCall writes:

But every aircraft doesn't have to carry it. You handle it the way
the disparity in equipment between big airliners and little general
aviation aircraft is handled now.

With human beings, you mean. But the whole idea in this case is presumably to
eliminate the need for human beings, providing some sort of 100%-reliable
automatic separation of traffic.

But you know whose fault they are. If they don't have the appropriate
equipment, they are required to operate VFR. You could go further and
ban them from certain TCAs.

Only the latter would work. If you want a fully reliable system, everyone in
the airspace using it has to have the equipment. If people want to fly
without the gear, they'll have to be segregated into different airspaces.

That is done to some extent now, but it would have to be vastly more strict as
separation becomes more and more automated. Right now, ATC can fill in the
gaps, but if the objective is to eliminate the need for ATC (at least for
purposes of separation), that sets the bar a lot higher.

You wouldn't have to do either, any more than you have to require
everyone to have collision avoidance radars and such now.

Right now you have ATC to provide separation.

Why?

Because any airspace using the new technology would have to be forbidden to
anyone who isn't equipped to use it, which would squeeze out a lot of GA
traffic.

And even if everyone doesn't. Just like things work fine now when
everyone doesn't have all the gear.

They work fine now because human beings fill in the gaps from the ground.
Even then, there are sometimes incidents.

They're a hell of a lot more fragile than the rest of the technology
in the cockpit.

I suppose it depends on how you define fragility. Human beings are
self-contained systems and highly versatile. Technology can fail because of a
single capacitor, but a human being with a broken arm might still be able to
land safely.

Humans tend to fail catastrophically when confronted with anything
that the designers of their training did not foresee.

They may fail, but not usually castrophically. If a human being has not been
trained to limit bank angles to x degrees, he still won't invert the aircraft,
because he can inductively reason that inverted flight is a bad thing, even
without training. A computer, on the other hand, with no understanding of
what is "reasonable" or not, would cheerfully roll the aircraft until it is
inverted, if it isn't programmed in advance to stop at some point.

Yes, if you assume that the folks setting up the automated system are
idiots you can assume all sorts of things.

The designers don't have to be idiots, they only have to be imperfect (and
they are).

Experience right now indicates that human beings make really lousy
fail-safes for automated systems.

They are still preferable to letting the automated systems fail unattended.

Just how much of the air traffic currently up there
do you think is NOT being flown by automated systems?

Most of the smaller GA traffic. Anyway, these automated systems are operating
within their design envelopes, so they work very well. They only fail
(usually catastrophically) when they are pushed outside the design envelope,
which can happen in emergencies.

How many 'heavy' pilots are there here?

Very few, I think, but of course it's impossible to know for sure on USENET.
Many of them appear to have no clue concerning heavies, so I presume they are
not pilots of large airliners.

Listen to in cockpit tapes of the Blue Angels sometime. You'll hear
the pilot go "Hit it!" and then in the background you'll hear
"Bitchin' Betty" going "Caution ... caution ... caution ... " as they
perform some maneuver too close to the ground or that exceeds the
usual flight standards.

But in that case they are obviously flying the aircraft by hand.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Fred J. McCall writes:

But every aircraft doesn't have to carry it. You handle it the way
the disparity in equipment between big airliners and little general
aviation aircraft is handled now.

With human beings, you mean. But the whole idea in this case is
presumably to eliminate the need for human beings, providing some sort
of 100%-reliable automatic separation of traffic.

But you know whose fault they are. If they don't have the
appropriate equipment, they are required to operate VFR. You could
go further and ban them from certain TCAs.

Only the latter would work. If you want a fully reliable system,
everyone in the airspace using it has to have the equipment. If
people want to fly without the gear, they'll have to be segregated
into different airspaces.

That is done to some extent now, but it would have to be vastly more
strict as separation becomes more and more automated. Right now, ATC
can fill in the gaps, but if the objective is to eliminate the need
for ATC (at least for purposes of separation), that sets the bar a lot
higher.

You wouldn't have to do either, any more than you have to require
everyone to have collision avoidance radars and such now.

Right now you have ATC to provide separation.

Why?

Because any airspace using the new technology would have to be
forbidden to anyone who isn't equipped to use it, which would squeeze
out a lot of GA traffic.

And even if everyone doesn't. Just like things work fine now when
everyone doesn't have all the gear.

They work fine now because human beings fill in the gaps from the
ground. Even then, there are sometimes incidents.

They're a hell of a lot more fragile than the rest of the technology
in the cockpit.

I suppose it depends on how you define fragility. Human beings are
self-contained systems and highly versatile. Technology can fail
because of a single capacitor, but a human being with a broken arm
might still be able to land safely.

Humans tend to fail catastrophically when confronted with anything
that the designers of their training did not foresee.

They may fail, but not usually castrophically. If a human being has
not been trained to limit bank angles to x degrees, he still won't
invert the aircraft, because he can inductively reason that inverted
flight is a bad thing, even without training. A computer, on the
other hand, with no understanding of what is "reasonable" or not,
would cheerfully roll the aircraft until it is inverted, if it isn't
programmed in advance to stop at some point.

Yes, if you assume that the folks setting up the automated system are
idiots you can assume all sorts of things.

The designers don't have to be idiots, they only have to be imperfect
(and they are).

Experience right now indicates that human beings make really lousy
fail-safes for automated systems.

They are still preferable to letting the automated systems fail
unattended.

Just how much of the air traffic currently up there
do you think is NOT being flown by automated systems?

Most of the smaller GA traffic. Anyway, these automated systems are
operating within their design envelopes, so they work very well. They
only fail (usually catastrophically) when they are pushed outside the
design envelope, which can happen in emergencies.

How many 'heavy' pilots are there here?

Very few, I think, but of course it's impossible to know for sure on
USENET. Many of them appear to have no clue concerning heavies, so I
presume they are not pilots of large airliners.

And the ones that are you ignore.


Fjukktard

Bertie