Ask a Pilot anything....
Discussion
JuniorD said:
I wonder what a pilotless aircraft would do if both engines swallowed geese at under 3000ft while climbing out of La Guardia...
If the film is to be believed, it would have landed the plane back at La Guardia. In simulations, if the pilots made an immediate decision to return, the plane made it back. The trouble was that Sully needed to assess and process what had occurred. The inquiry found that, given normal reaction times, it was virtually impossible to return to La Guardia.TheRainMaker said:
Willy Nilly said:
Would there be much benefit from pilotless aircraft? It would still need crew on board, so a couple might as well drive it.
Cost, safety, lodgistics to name some I guess.Safety: I understand that a lot of crashes are pilot error, but there are no pilotless aeroplanes to provide a meaningful comparison with and while pilots make mistakes, electronics also go wrong frequently. Having used electronics a lot to run machines at work, I'd not trust them as far as I could throw them, they are a great help, but are just that, a help.
Logistics: You can have that.
k right off.Its cheaper to employ two pilots than it would be to design, test, market, regulate and maintain the pilotless replacement. By a factor of about twenty. Plus a lot of what you do isn’t actually flying or pointing or controlling the aeroplane. Its managing the day. From the cabin crew member who is stuck in traffic getting to the airport to the post flight safety report for the incident that occurred. Then for the whole 11hour day you are spotting threats and errors and dealing with people and balancing risks. Stuff like the rear right door emergency exit light has stopped illuminating. The book says you can’t fly back to base because it will be 15 minutes after dusk when you land and the little emergency exit sign MUST be operative to fly at night.
You are in some out of the way airport and there won’t be any spares within three hundred miles and you don’t have an engineering contract for dedicated engineers and you can see their van parked next to the local airlines jet on stand 3 where the engine cowling’s are open so there must be something amiss with an engine. If you write this blown bulb in the tech log the aircraft will be stuck here until tomorrow. That’s £40k in compensation plus 90 hotel rooms plus two missed flights tomorrow morning back at home base.
A computer algorithm would follow the rules and ground the aircraft until the bulb could be replaced.
A human Captain decides to notice the fault and write it up on the way home and balances the risk vs the rules. Happens all the time.
By the same token it goes the other way. Sometimes the book says you are good to fly but your experience says, no, not today, not with this aspect that the rule book when written was not thinking about.
Pilotless airliners will never happen.
You are in some out of the way airport and there won’t be any spares within three hundred miles and you don’t have an engineering contract for dedicated engineers and you can see their van parked next to the local airlines jet on stand 3 where the engine cowling’s are open so there must be something amiss with an engine. If you write this blown bulb in the tech log the aircraft will be stuck here until tomorrow. That’s £40k in compensation plus 90 hotel rooms plus two missed flights tomorrow morning back at home base.
A computer algorithm would follow the rules and ground the aircraft until the bulb could be replaced.
A human Captain decides to notice the fault and write it up on the way home and balances the risk vs the rules. Happens all the time.
By the same token it goes the other way. Sometimes the book says you are good to fly but your experience says, no, not today, not with this aspect that the rule book when written was not thinking about.
Pilotless airliners will never happen.
Just got back from Calgary and landed at Heathrow T2 this morning. The flight was uneventful and we even managed to land a little ahead of schedule. But it then took almost an hour before there was a gate free.
We loitered around just off the runway for a while before being given instructions to drive around for a bit. We then stopped again to hang out studying the scenery some more while waiting for a more suitable place to park.
How common is this? Or was I just unlucky? (well, I wasn't too fussed but my taxi driver was getting angsty) Any potential for technical issues sitting there ticking over for an hour after a long trip?
On an unrelated note, do pilots suffer from crusty noses too or is it just a passenger affliction?
We loitered around just off the runway for a while before being given instructions to drive around for a bit. We then stopped again to hang out studying the scenery some more while waiting for a more suitable place to park.
How common is this? Or was I just unlucky? (well, I wasn't too fussed but my taxi driver was getting angsty) Any potential for technical issues sitting there ticking over for an hour after a long trip?
On an unrelated note, do pilots suffer from crusty noses too or is it just a passenger affliction?
Honeywell said:
Its cheaper to employ two pilots than it would be to design, test, market, regulate and maintain the pilotless replacement. By a factor of about twenty. Plus a lot of what you do isn’t actually flying or pointing or controlling the aeroplane. Its managing the day. From the cabin crew member who is stuck in traffic getting to the airport to the post flight safety report for the incident that occurred. Then for the whole 11hour day you are spotting threats and errors and dealing with people and balancing risks. Stuff like the rear right door emergency exit light has stopped illuminating. The book says you can’t fly back to base because it will be 15 minutes after dusk when you land and the little emergency exit sign MUST be operative to fly at night.
You are in some out of the way airport and there won’t be any spares within three hundred miles and you don’t have an engineering contract for dedicated engineers and you can see their van parked next to the local airlines jet on stand 3 where the engine cowling’s are open so there must be something amiss with an engine. If you write this blown bulb in the tech log the aircraft will be stuck here until tomorrow. That’s £40k in compensation plus 90 hotel rooms plus two missed flights tomorrow morning back at home base.
A computer algorithm would follow the rules and ground the aircraft until the bulb could be replaced.
A human Captain decides to notice the fault and write it up on the way home and balances the risk vs the rules. Happens all the time.
By the same token it goes the other way. Sometimes the book says you are good to fly but your experience says, no, not today, not with this aspect that the rule book when written was not thinking about.
Pilotless airliners will never happen.
You are thinking of autonomy in a very singular way and I’ll be honest, an incorrect one. You are in some out of the way airport and there won’t be any spares within three hundred miles and you don’t have an engineering contract for dedicated engineers and you can see their van parked next to the local airlines jet on stand 3 where the engine cowling’s are open so there must be something amiss with an engine. If you write this blown bulb in the tech log the aircraft will be stuck here until tomorrow. That’s £40k in compensation plus 90 hotel rooms plus two missed flights tomorrow morning back at home base.
A computer algorithm would follow the rules and ground the aircraft until the bulb could be replaced.
A human Captain decides to notice the fault and write it up on the way home and balances the risk vs the rules. Happens all the time.
By the same token it goes the other way. Sometimes the book says you are good to fly but your experience says, no, not today, not with this aspect that the rule book when written was not thinking about.
Pilotless airliners will never happen.
True Autonomy is a long way away, but the ability to build in goal based decision making and an ability to recognise threats and dangers is already there.
I stepped out of the cockpit and the airline world a year ago and am now involved with developing autonomous ships. The maritime world is behind the aviation one and I can tell you that all of the issues you mention are easy to sort and in most cases already have been.
The one area that I think will stop pilotless airliners is simply public perception. Ally that to the fact that whilst it saves a bit of cash, it isn’t really much of a saving when you add in the costs of running and maintaining unmanned systems. The business case just isn’t there. It is the same with large ships. They already use automation to massively reduce the numbers of crew required, removing them altogether isn’t worth it, as there are functions that cannot be replicated.
You will always need cabin crew on board to look after pax, so you may as well have people up the front too.
Honeywell said:
Its cheaper to employ two pilots than it would be to design, test, market, regulate and maintain the pilotless replacement. By a factor of about twenty. Plus a lot of what you do isn’t actually flying or pointing or controlling the aeroplane. Its managing the day. From the cabin crew member who is stuck in traffic getting to the airport to the post flight safety report for the incident that occurred. Then for the whole 11hour day you are spotting threats and errors and dealing with people and balancing risks. Stuff like the rear right door emergency exit light has stopped illuminating. The book says you can’t fly back to base because it will be 15 minutes after dusk when you land and the little emergency exit sign MUST be operative to fly at night.
You are in some out of the way airport and there won’t be any spares within three hundred miles and you don’t have an engineering contract for dedicated engineers and you can see their van parked next to the local airlines jet on stand 3 where the engine cowling’s are open so there must be something amiss with an engine. If you write this blown bulb in the tech log the aircraft will be stuck here until tomorrow. That’s £40k in compensation plus 90 hotel rooms plus two missed flights tomorrow morning back at home base.
A computer algorithm would follow the rules and ground the aircraft until the bulb could be replaced.
A human Captain decides to notice the fault and write it up on the way home and balances the risk vs the rules. Happens all the time.
By the same token it goes the other way. Sometimes the book says you are good to fly but your experience says, no, not today, not with this aspect that the rule book when written was not thinking about.
Pilotless airliners will never happen.
Sounds like my job. The machines I use are largely operating themselves and some people are saying that people like me will be redundant soon. But like the pilot, operating the machine is only part of the job. The flying bit could probably me easily automated, but it still needs a manager on site and they might as well sit in the cockpit with the controls to hand. You are in some out of the way airport and there won’t be any spares within three hundred miles and you don’t have an engineering contract for dedicated engineers and you can see their van parked next to the local airlines jet on stand 3 where the engine cowling’s are open so there must be something amiss with an engine. If you write this blown bulb in the tech log the aircraft will be stuck here until tomorrow. That’s £40k in compensation plus 90 hotel rooms plus two missed flights tomorrow morning back at home base.
A computer algorithm would follow the rules and ground the aircraft until the bulb could be replaced.
A human Captain decides to notice the fault and write it up on the way home and balances the risk vs the rules. Happens all the time.
By the same token it goes the other way. Sometimes the book says you are good to fly but your experience says, no, not today, not with this aspect that the rule book when written was not thinking about.
Pilotless airliners will never happen.
El stovey said:
IforB said:
I stepped out of the cockpit and the airline world a year ago
Totally off track but I thought you lost your medical yonks ago and became a manager with monarch? Did you get it back then? Maybe I’m thinking about someone else. IforB said:
I stepped out of the cockpit and the airline world a year ago and am now involved with developing autonomous ships. The maritime world is behind the aviation one and I can tell you that all of the issues you mention are easy to sort and in most cases already have been.
It’s just occurred to me that we have some mutual friends as I know (or at least used to know) some of the Mersea lads and recently reconnected with Lee C on LinkedIn, low and behold a post on autonomous vessels popped up on my feed & I thought the name looked familiar.Small world!
DJFish said:
IforB said:
I stepped out of the cockpit and the airline world a year ago and am now involved with developing autonomous ships. The maritime world is behind the aviation one and I can tell you that all of the issues you mention are easy to sort and in most cases already have been.
It’s just occurred to me that we have some mutual friends as I know (or at least used to know) some of the Mersea lads and recently reconnected with Lee C on LinkedIn, low and behold a post on autonomous vessels popped up on my feed & I thought the name looked familiar.Small world!
Mr C is a very old and close friend of mine. So we may well have met!
Last night I flew back from the USA into Gatwick and the flight was a little bumpy for a lot of the time, nothing serious but enough for seat belts on for quite a bit.
During this light turbulence what is the pilot actually doing? I am assuming that auto pilot is on, so the pilot is literally sitting back watching the stick vibrate?
During this light turbulence what is the pilot actually doing? I am assuming that auto pilot is on, so the pilot is literally sitting back watching the stick vibrate?
skeeterm5 said:
Last night I flew back from the USA into Gatwick and the flight was a little bumpy for a lot of the time, nothing serious but enough for seat belts on for quite a bit.
During this light turbulence what is the pilot actually doing? I am assuming that auto pilot is on, so the pilot is literally sitting back watching the stick vibrate?
It depends - if the turbulence is light, the autopilot ought to cope just fine in most instances regarding the up/down/left/right. However, when you’re high up, you have greatly reduced speed margins - that is to say that if you speed up or slow down much, you’ll stall. So, my attention is always on speed. Quite often you have to intervene in the thrust management side of things. Especially now on the A350 - it’s a magnificent aircraft, but HUGELY susceptible to speed fluctuations when the wind changes. In which case we need to step in and descend if speed decreases much or retard the thrust levers/judiciously apply the speed brake to avoid an overspeed.During this light turbulence what is the pilot actually doing? I am assuming that auto pilot is on, so the pilot is literally sitting back watching the stick vibrate?
Also, during the turbulence, if it’s ongoing, we generally look to see if it’s worth getting out of it - by contacting other traffic in the area to see if it’s worth climbing or descending to get into smoother pastures.
skeeterm5 said:
Last night I flew back from the USA into Gatwick and the flight was a little bumpy for a lot of the time, nothing serious but enough for seat belts on for quite a bit.
During this light turbulence what is the pilot actually doing? I am assuming that auto pilot is on, so the pilot is literally sitting back watching the stick vibrate?
During this light turbulence what is the pilot actually doing? I am assuming that auto pilot is on, so the pilot is literally sitting back watching the stick vibrate?
I’m going to bring this thread back up. If I wanted to train up to be an airline pilot how old is too old? I’m 28 at the moment but 29 is quickly approaching.
I have next to nothing experience in flying, never sat in a cockpit or anything.
Is there a company that pays for your training?
I did get into it a few years ago, but when I found out it costs something like 90k to get trained I gave up.
So how old is too old and where do I start should I decide to proceed ?
I have next to nothing experience in flying, never sat in a cockpit or anything.
Is there a company that pays for your training?
I did get into it a few years ago, but when I found out it costs something like 90k to get trained I gave up.
So how old is too old and where do I start should I decide to proceed ?
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