Timeline for Why are on-board computers allowed to change controls without notifying the pilots?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 27, 2019 at 0:30 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | I'm saying the infamous Mulhouse demo mis-taught pilots that wrong control inputs will cause right control outputs. Airbuses teach pilots to fly badly and let big brother fix it, as a matter of routine. The design flaw is there. | |
| Mar 26, 2019 at 20:33 | comment | added | Ed999 | SelectStriker2 appears to be advising that this is human error (of the systems designer), while Harper appears to see it as both human error (of the co-pilot) and a design flaw (in not alerting him that the system was in Alt Law 2), and I view it as a (different) design flaw. Is there any consensus as to which it is? The first step in resolving the problem is surely to decide whether the computer system is flawed, and (if it is not) to then decide whether the pilots understand it. | |
| Mar 26, 2019 at 17:59 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | Indeed. In AF447, the fool copilot that got them all killed was pulling all the way back on the stick. Normally you do that to maliciously stall the aircraft and kill everyone, and had he done that in a Boeing it would've been considered mass murder. But the copilot had learned that if you do that on an Airbus, Normal Law will intervene to stop you. He had become trained to avert stall by inducing stall to force Normal Law to fix it. Unfortunately his plane was in Alt Law 2. | |
| Mar 26, 2019 at 13:59 | comment | added | selectstriker2 | @Ed999 the requirements for the MCAS system would have come from someone with experience designing aviation systems. Plus, most people working in DO-178 driven projects are quite aware of the domain in which the software is running. Whether the indication of operation is provided to the pilot is a human factors decision, not one of software. | |
| Mar 26, 2019 at 7:53 | comment | added | Ed999 | The problem is computer systems designed by people with a computer science background, rather than by people with a background in aviation. Computer scientists will add safety subroutines as a matter of course, lacking the necessary judgement of an experienced pilot, ignorant of the fact that information overload is bad for the pilot when reaction time is at a premium. Excessive application of safety systems hides the crucial warnings from the pilot, who may be unable to eliminate the unimportant ones in the available time. This is a design failure, and cannot be cured by pilot training. | |
| Mar 26, 2019 at 7:01 | answer | added | Koyovis | timeline score: 18 | |
| Mar 26, 2019 at 1:51 | vote | accept | Machavity | ||
| Mar 25, 2019 at 21:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackAviation/status/1110285414122881025 | ||
| Mar 25, 2019 at 19:33 | answer | added | 42- | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 19:06 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Mar 25, 2019 at 17:45 | comment | added | Cpt Reynolds | I guess the question to ask is rather not “why don’t all automatic inputs get announced” (as quite often that’s actually OK) but “why would anyone design an automatic that is associated with a risky edge of the flight envelope and then not tell crew about its existence” (because that’s not OK). | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 17:33 | comment | added | Cpt Reynolds | For most modern aircraft, it is a design feature that some intervention is invisible to pilots. The rudder has automatically made invisible small adjustments to maintain symmetrical flight and dampen yaw oscillations for at least half a century, and more modern aircraft alleviate turbulence or other small disturbance from trimmed flight without announcing this either, as that would quite quickly become a nuisance... | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 17:04 | answer | added | RealAnswersNotAI | timeline score: 52 | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 15:45 | comment | added | Ron Beyer | The AF447 flight had an alternate law indication available to the pilots, as well as many other (too many in fact) warnings that caused further confusion. In automation systems, the key is to present the appropriate information without overwhelming the operator with too many conflicting or confusing warnings. AF447 showed that a pilot in the face of too much information will ignore everything the system is telling them and fly with how they think the aircraft should be flown. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 15:24 | history | asked | Machavity | CC BY-SA 4.0 |