| General > General Technical Chat |
| Wreckage of MH370 washing up on Reunion Island? |
| << < (28/33) > >> |
| janoc:
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 22, 2020, 01:51:38 pm ---It has been suggested in the industry but the pilots pushed back as you'd expect and the airlines have the cost of training pilots so it's a bit of sticking point. --- End quote --- That's nonsense. If airlines could get rid of the pilots they would do it faster than you can blink an eye, because pilots are extremely expensive - both in terms of salaries and in terms of training. Even worse, there is a world-wide shortage of them because it takes years to train an airline pilot and the license is very easy to lose, e.g. on medical grounds as you age. The regulations don't specify that planes above 19 passengers must always have two pilots on board because the regulators want to ensure jobs for pilots but because it is necessary for safety. The pilot is the last level of redundancy should anything go wrong, regardless of how much automation you have. There is no computer system in the world today that can fly the plane from point A to point B fully autonomously, in adverse weather and with a bunch of malfunctions, either on board or on the ground (e.g. ILS out of service). At best it can do some parts of it (e.g. auto landing or following waypoints) when nothing goes wrong. The moment something is out of whack, the automation disconnects and drops the mess in the lap of the human that is hopefully still awake and sitting there in front. Even remote control won't help you if there is e.g. an electrical or radio problem on board. That is way more likely than someone hacking something (there are multiple fighter jet scrambles because of lost comms every day), even though it would be a juicy target for attackers - who needs missiles when you can make a plane blow up by remote control ... This isn't a military drone where should anything go wrong the thing just makes a smoking crater somewhere and you write it off, at taxpayer's expense. E.g. look at how well are the US military drones performing: https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/aaaa/2018/04/25/these-two-drones-are-leaders-in-accident-rates-how-is-the-us-army-responding/ If a passenger plane had such abysmal reliability and crash statistics (one crash every ~1500 flight hours), it would be banned from the skies and the manufacturer bankrupted by lawsuits ... Oh and the drones were apparently jammed and hacked too already: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/17/skygrabber-american-drones-hacked And all that ignores the fact that passengers may have a big problem with getting stuffed and locked up in a metal tube with no pilot on board. |
| Ed.Kloonk:
--- Quote from: janoc on February 22, 2020, 03:05:31 pm --- --- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 22, 2020, 01:51:38 pm ---It has been suggested in the industry but the pilots pushed back as you'd expect and the airlines have the cost of training pilots so it's a bit of sticking point. --- End quote --- That's nonsense. If airlines could get rid of the pilots they would do it faster than you can blink an eye, because pilots are extremely expensive - both in terms of salaries and in terms of training. Even worse, there is a world-wide shortage of them because it takes years to train an airline pilot and the license is very easy to lose, e.g. on medical grounds as you age. And all that ignores the fact that passengers may have a big problem with getting stuffed and locked up in a metal tube with no pilot on board. --- End quote --- I'm with you. I was alluding to the threat of another pilots strike here. I agree. Try as they might, pilots aren't going anywhere. |
| janoc:
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 22, 2020, 03:10:55 pm ---I'm with you. I was alluding to the threat of another pilots strike here. I agree. Try as they might, pilots aren't going anywhere. --- End quote --- But the trouble isn't them striking - if the tech was there they could strike as much as they wanted and they would be still out of work. Companies like Ryanair would be all over the idea because it would save them a huge chunk of money (btw, Ryanair runs their own flight school/training program). Here is an actual airline captain explaining the level where these systems are today and what the issues are: On Boeing single-pilot system for airliners: Garmin Autoland for general aviation planes: Automatic takeoff on A350: Pilots vs robots: He has probably a few more touching on this subject but you can easily find them yourself on his channel. |
| Mr. Scram:
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 22, 2020, 02:35:38 pm ---When this story broke, I remember the news hounds saying that the black box needs to be recovered in 2 - 3 weeks. There are a few youtube vids where people teardown flight recorders of various vintages. Watch some of those. Your guess is as good as mine. --- End quote --- Those three weeks stem from the signal battery running out making it much harder and probably nearly impossible to find the black box after. If it initially survives the dept it's at it can likely survive for a fairly long time. |
| Mr. Scram:
--- Quote from: coppice on February 21, 2020, 05:11:30 pm ---Unless they are required to have at least one unusually robust flight attendant on each flight, I can't see that providing any improvement in safety. --- End quote --- Having a "robust" flight attendant in the sealed cockpit with a pilot focused on flying an aircraft doesn't sound like a risk in itself at all. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |