autopilot

Stunts?

By Dave English

Autopilot babies and paint-by-numbers piloting are not new ideas. Back in 1942 a Marine Corps Major wrote about it. People were calling anything past a gentle bank a stunt. We needed pilots to know the full envelope of flight then — and now. You can’t learn this type of flying out of textbooks … It seems rather silly to be explaining the term “airmanship.” But it has been necessary and is still necessary and will be necessary until people learn to speak of perfectly executed aerial maneuvers as “airmanship” instead of “stunts”. Major Al Williams, 29 April 1942.

Fully Automatic?

By Dave English

Guess what year this newspaper article was published: 1946? 1976? 1996? 2016? Answer: Rain, Fog, Snow! Future Airliner to Go Right Thru: Automatic Devices Will Handle It. Chicago Daily Tribune. 6 June 1946. Yep! 1946. And the next year Time magazine reported on a military aircraft flying from Newfoundland to England under the control of an autopilot programmed on punched cards: “The plane behaved as if an invisible crew were working her controls. … The commanding robot was a snarl of electronic equipment affectionately known as “the Brain.” Everything it did on the long flight was “preset” before the start. … Continue reading Fully Automatic?

Your ​​job is

By Dave English

“If you want to fly as [traditional pilots] say they do, then go fly gliders, become test pilots, for all I care go to the moon. But flying for the airlines is not supposed to be an adventure. From takeoff to landing, the autopilots handle the controls. This is routine. In a Boeing as much as an Airbus. And they make better work of it than any pilot can. You’re not supposed to be the blue-eyed hero here. Your job is to make decisions, to stay awake, and to know which buttons to push and when. Your job is to … Continue reading Your ​​job is

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think

By Dave English

Thirty-five years ago a paper was presented at a conference, titled Ironies of Automation, by Lisanne Bainbridge. It included many insightful ideas: The designer’s view of the human operator may be that the operator is unreliable and inefficient… so should be eliminated from the system. There are two ironies of this attitude. One is that designer errors can be a major source of operating problems… The second irony is that the designer who tries to eliminate the operator still leaves the operator to do the tasks which the designer cannot think how to automate…it means that the operator can be … Continue reading Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think

Do not become lazy

By Dave English

Automation complacency, and the need to stay proficient in manual flying are not new ideas. Fifty years ago the chief test pilot of the UK airworthiness authority warned us, in his (clearly) still relevant book Handling the Big Jets.  The full quote, from page 316, is: “Do not become lazy in your professional lives. The autopilot is a great comfort, so are the flight director and approach coupler. But do not get into the position where you need these devices to complete a flight. Keep in practice in raw I.L.S., particularly in crosswinds. Keep in practice in hand-flying the airplane … Continue reading Do not become lazy