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A comment on Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill pilots?. Parent comment

Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by moe on Saturday March 28, 2015 @06:57AM (#9281059)
we're about 40-50 years out

More like 10-15 years.

Airliners already spend most of their life on autopilot today. Many (including the Airbus that crashed here) have auto-landing systems[1], too.

Fully autonomous passenger aircraft are being tested[2] in shared airspace since 2012.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

[2] http://www.baesystems.com/magazine/BAES_051920/look-no-hands

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Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by will_asouka on Saturday March 28, 2015 @09:33AM (#9281430)
The utility of autopilot to a pilot is comparable to that of cruise control to a driver, it takes away some of the drudgery. It is not robust enough to be unmonitored by a human. It can not make the many decisions that arise every day in aviation, such as if and how to avoid a thunderstorm.

Autoland needs ground equipment that is expensive to install and has stringent requirements on the surrounding topography that means many airports can not install it. It also takes 2 people's full attention to make the autoland happen in a consistently safe manner, it's not a case of pressing the LAND button and sitting back sipping tea. This video shows a bit of that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMydKAcqKCg

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Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by moe on Saturday March 28, 2015 @10:18AM (#9281552)
It is not robust enough to be unmonitored by a human.

I'm no aviation expert, but isn't that only because the systems in civilian aircraft are decades old?

The state of the art in military drones seems to be autonomous landings on aircraft carriers[1]. The safety requirements for an Airliner are of course much higher than for an UAV, but the underlying technologies seem to be rather mature already.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/10/4511476/autonomous-drone-f...

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Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by ghshephard on Saturday March 28, 2015 @09:26AM (#9281417)
Landing is (as you've already noticed) the least significant reason as to why we have a human piloting team in an airplane.

If I could afford it, I would love to make a $10,000 long bet as to when we will see a major airline routinely (1/day) fly a route with > 200 passengers.

I'm saying it won't be later than 2065, but also won't be sooner than 2050.

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Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by seanmcdirmid on Saturday March 28, 2015 @08:13PM (#9283319)
I would take you up on that bet, and go for around 2025. Technology is progressing pretty fast in this area.
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Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by ghshephard on Sunday March 29, 2015 @07:18AM (#9284487)
100% agree that the tactical technologies are racing forward, and it's apparent to everyone that things like self driving cars on freeways will be available within the next two-three years, and that sensor and response technologies will make a lot of the typical flying events a lot safer - takeoffs and landings are just two of them.

Where I don't think the technology is moving is on the executive level, which is where having a highly trained and knowledgeable flight crew in the plane is invaluable.

I'm guessing that any trained and qualified pilot of a large commercial airliner (which I am not), can immediately come up with 100 different scenarios for which there is no technology apparent in the next 15 years.

Put another way, in 10 years, 99.99%+ of the time, automated systems will be doing all of the actual takeoffs/flying/landing, but that 0.01% of the time is why we'll keep a flight crew in the cockpit.

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Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by seanmcdirmid on Sunday March 29, 2015 @08:48AM (#9284638)
Even the amount of automation we have today leads to the very real danger of pilot boredom: what do they do to keep busy when the flight is on auto for most of the trip and they are stuck in the cockpit just monitoring things? At least if they could fly the plane, they would have something to do! Imagine if your job was just to monitor the computer program itself, you'd get paid (yeh!), but not having anything to do would take a toll!

Check out:

http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/hazards-aut...

If we automate even more, the problem just becomes worse. We could pull back on automation to keep the pilots alert, but we are increasingly relying on it to optimize resources (air space, fuel, airport take off and landing slots, and ya safety).

And...that's just it. Computers don't get bored. I suffer from some depression also (who doesn't!), but I find that my job keeps me busy enough that I can keep it in check. Imagine being a bit depressed and sitting in a cockpit doing nothing for a few hours at a time.

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Re:Germanwings Tragedy: How to protect against mentally ill ... by moray on Saturday March 28, 2015 @07:11AM (#9281103)
A comple of months ago I experienced the auto-landing system (as a passenger of course). The captain made the announcement before landing as meteorological conditions weren't that good (fog). I must admit I felt a little uneasy...and I am an engineer (maybe that's the reason :))
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