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Old August 1st 10, 01:35 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Mxsmanic
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Posts: 9,169
Default Stability augmentation promises to give you even less control

writes:

Not while manuevering, which is when the system would be active.


While maneuvering, you'd want the system inactive, lest it decide that you're
doing something "wrong" and attempt to "help" you.

Though I will admit that since there has to be an autopilot installed which
this thing is installed on top of, it does sound a little like having a
belt and suspenders.


The part I don't like is the decision-making part. It's one thing to have a
wing leveler that you can turn on at your discretion; it's quite another to
have a gadget that turns itself on without warning and tries to override what
you are doing. Even if you can wrestle back control of the aircraft, the mere
fact that it interferes on its own initiative is worrisome and could cause
problems.

I prefer that automation be limited to things that do exactly as they are
told, when they are told, in easy-to-understand ways. Pilots are still
smarter than computers, and computers must not second-guess pilots.

As I've said, decades of experience with computers have made me wary. It's not
the computers themselves that I distrust--they do what they do very
reliably--it's the software, written by human beings, that I distrust.