Keeping Planes Inside The Lines

Scientists at UC Berkeley have proposed a system that would prevent airplanes from flying into certain areas.

They propose modifying the avionics in aircraft so that the plane would fight any efforts by the pilot to fly into restricted airspace. So if a plane was flying with a no-fly-zone to the left, and the pilot started banking left to enter the zone, the avionics would counter by banking right. Lee's system, called "soft walls", would first gently resist the pilot, and then become increasingly forceful until it prevailed.

An interesting idea, and marginally safer than other proposals (i.e. remote controlled takeovers or automatic landing systems), but not one that I would want to fly with. But I'm not the only one. The pilots themselves are hostile to the idea, and I don't blame them. However, the scientists don't seem to understand why.

He has yet to convince the people who fly the planes. "In general, pilots are openly hostile," he says. "Frankly it surprises me, because of all of the options that they are facing right now - including being shot at or commandeered from the ground - this is their best one."

First, that presupposes that these options are the only ones available. He fails to consider the best option: arming all pilots (which will require getting those idiots at the TSA out of the way). But more importantly, pilots are rightfully reluctant to give up control of the aircraft to the computer.

A perfect example of the disconnect between engineers and (most) pilots can be seen when comparing Airbus verus Boeing commercial passenger jets. It's really a difference in philosophy (and in some ways reflects the problems that have arisen between Europe and the United States recently). The Airbus has hard limits, beyond which it will not go, even if it would be needed to save the aircraft (although they claim that the system tries to prevent the aircraft from getting into those situations to begin with, which is questionable to me). The Boeing uses soft limits, which means that the pilot will receive a warning when the limit is about to be violated, but can still go beyond the limit. It has been shown several times that pilots have saved the plane from disaster by going over the limits, or as one pilot put it.

"Although aircraft structural integrity may be compromised by a G-load in excess of 3.8 Gs, aircraft structural integrity is more severely compromised by terrain impact."

All of which is why I am very wary of getting on an Airbus. If there is any choice at all, I won't fly on one.

Posted by Aubrey at July 3, 2003 02:05 PM | TrackBack