Stability augmentation promises to give you even less control

This article is strongly slanted in favor of new stability-augmentation
gadgets for light aircraft:

http://www.flyingmag.com/blogs/going...-your-airplane

Not surprisingly, Cirrus is installing the gadget first, and Garmin is writing
the poorly-tested software for it.

Apparently the author does not understand the distinction between flying for
fun and flying for transportation. The pilot who flies for fun is unlikely to
want a computer to fly for him, no matter how well the computer does it or how
safe the computer can make things. A pilot who flies for transportation might
welcome more computer control. But putting gadgets like this on every light
aircraft makes no sense. Sure, it might improve safety, but so would
automating the entire flight, giving the pilot no control at all--and yet
complete automation of flights would defeat the purpose of flying for many
hobby pilots.

Mxsmanic wrote:
This article is strongly slanted in favor of new stability-augmentation
gadgets for light aircraft:

http://www.flyingmag.com/blogs/going...-your-airplane

Not surprisingly, Cirrus is installing the gadget first, and Garmin is writing
the poorly-tested software for it.

And you know the software is "poorly-tested" how?

Apparently the author does not understand the distinction between flying for
fun and flying for transportation. The pilot who flies for fun is unlikely to
want a computer to fly for him, no matter how well the computer does it or how
safe the computer can make things. A pilot who flies for transportation might
welcome more computer control. But putting gadgets like this on every light
aircraft makes no sense. Sure, it might improve safety, but so would
automating the entire flight, giving the pilot no control at all--and yet
complete automation of flights would defeat the purpose of flying for many
hobby pilots.

Apparently if you read the article but you didn't understand it.

The system does not fly the airplane and is not an autopilot.

It "senses that the pilot has lost control" and recovers.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

On Jul 31, 12:44*pm, wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
This article is strongly slanted in favor of new stability-augmentation
gadgets for light aircraft:

http://www.flyingmag.com/blogs/going...trol-your-airp...

Not surprisingly, Cirrus is installing the gadget first, and Garmin is writing
the poorly-tested software for it.

And you know the software is "poorly-tested" how?

Apparently the author does not understand the distinction between flying for
fun and flying for transportation. The pilot who flies for fun is unlikely to
want a computer to fly for him, no matter how well the computer does it or how
safe the computer can make things. A pilot who flies for transportation might
welcome more computer control. But putting gadgets like this on every light
aircraft makes no sense. Sure, it might improve safety, but so would
automating the entire flight, giving the pilot no control at all--and yet
complete automation of flights would defeat the purpose of flying for many
hobby pilots.

Apparently if you read the article but you didn't understand it.

The system does not fly the airplane and is not an autopilot.

It "senses that the pilot has lost control" and recovers.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

The early Mooneys had a vacuum operated wing leveler, don't know if it
was required for airworthiness. It could be disabled with a button on
the yoke, that was handy when turning, the wing leveler really
stiffened the controls. Wing levelers, manual gear retraction,
manually pumped down flaps -- those Mooney Rangers were fun to fly.

On 7/31/2010 2:49 PM, a wrote:

The early Mooneys had a vacuum operated wing leveler, don't know if it
was required for airworthiness. It could be disabled with a button on
the yoke, that was handy when turning, the wing leveler really
stiffened the controls. Wing levelers, manual gear retraction,
manually pumped down flaps -- those Mooney Rangers were fun to fly.

I bought a pilots manual for the C-150 off eBay the other day.
It was in fact, a digitized scan of a manual.
So it could not be cut to size and stapled like the original. Ah well...
Anyway, one of the options (apparently) was a pneumatic wing leveler
driven by the pump.

I never ever saw one with trhat fitted.

Brian W

writes:

And you know the software is "poorly-tested" how?

Decades of software engineering. Thorough testing is a mathematical
impossibility (or, more specifically, it is "computationally infeasible").

The system does not fly the airplane and is not an autopilot.

It "senses that the pilot has lost control" and recovers.

Do you want an airplane that "senses" that you've "lost control" and
"recovers"?

You might want a bus with an automatic system to keep it from drifting into
opposing traffic, but would you want a sports car that tries to keep you in
your lane whenever it "senses" that you might be moving out of it? What's the
point of operating a vehicle for fun if it's going to watch over your shoulder
and try to take over every time you exercise your freedom to drive as you see
fit?

Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

And you know the software is "poorly-tested" how?

Decades of software engineering. Thorough testing is a mathematical
impossibility (or, more specifically, it is "computationally infeasible").

Bull****.

You haven't a clue what goes on inside any particular company.

The system does not fly the airplane and is not an autopilot.

It "senses that the pilot has lost control" and recovers.

Do you want an airplane that "senses" that you've "lost control" and
"recovers"?

It could be handy under certain circumstances.

You might want a bus with an automatic system to keep it from drifting into
opposing traffic, but would you want a sports car that tries to keep you in
your lane whenever it "senses" that you might be moving out of it? What's the
point of operating a vehicle for fun if it's going to watch over your shoulder
and try to take over every time you exercise your freedom to drive as you see
fit?

And yet once again the point sails right over the top of your clueless head.



--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

writes:

It could be handy under certain circumstances.

Such as? For a hobby pilot, remember.

Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

It could be handy under certain circumstances.

Such as? For a hobby pilot, remember.

Define "hobby pilot".

I've heard of recreational, light sport, private, and commercial pilots,
but never "hobby pilots".

Is this a pilot class in France?


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Mxsmanic wrote:
This article is strongly slanted in favor of new
stability-augmentation gadgets for light aircraft:

http://www.flyingmag.com/blogs/going...-your-airplane

Not surprisingly, Cirrus is installing the gadget first, and Garmin
is writing the poorly-tested software for it.

Apparently the author does not understand the distinction between
flying for fun and flying for transportation. The pilot who flies for
fun is unlikely to want a computer to fly for him, no matter how well
the computer does it or how safe the computer can make things. A
pilot who flies for transportation might welcome more computer
control. But putting gadgets like this on every light aircraft makes
no sense. Sure, it might improve safety, but so would automating the
entire flight, giving the pilot no control at all--and yet complete
automation of flights would defeat the purpose of flying for many
hobby pilots.

This is sort of like saying that electronic stabilisation systems common in
todays cars take all the fun out of driving. Sure they do, if you're trying
to skid sideways on a frozen lake or push the envelope on a racetrack. But
flying for fun, just like driving for recreational reasons, rather seldomly
involves going to the edge like that. I guess that 99% of drivers never even
notice any override from the electronics unless they are about to loose
control of their car. In which case they will be very thankful for having
them aboard. The fun neither in driving nor in flying is in loosing control.
ESP undenieably saved thousands of lifes, and the conceived systems for
airplanes could possibly do the same.

Just like in cars electronic systems can also outperform humans in airplanes
when it comes to tasks involving very rapid an precise reactions. No need to
feel embarrassed about that. There is really not much point in arguing about
stability systems taking away authority from the pilot. Remember how pilots
first detested the stall prevention systems implemented by airbus? Not one
case has been proven, where a system override over the pilots stick input
has been to the worse and caused an undesireable result.

And just like ESP on a car I would imagine that the stability augmentation
systems in airplanes could be disabled if you intendedly want to push the
envelope of your plane and know what you are doing.

regards,
Friedrich

Friedrich Ostertag writes:

ESP undenieably saved thousands of lifes, and the conceived systems for
airplanes could possibly do the same.

ESP is nonexistent in most cars (maybe BMW or someone like that is
implementing it), so how can it be saving thousands of lives?

Just like in cars electronic systems can also outperform humans in airplanes
when it comes to tasks involving very rapid an precise reactions.

And just as in cars, digital systems have catastrophic modes of failure when
confronted with situations that were not foreseen and programmed for during
the design of the systems.

There is really not much point in arguing about stability systems
taking away authority from the pilot.

Why not? It has been hotly debated for decades, and there is still no
consensus on it.

Remember how pilots first detested the stall prevention systems
implemented by airbus?

Some pilots still detest the systems on Airbus. In any case, small aircraft
don't have stall prevention systems, as a general rule.

Not one case has been proven, where a system override over the pilots
stick input has been to the worse and caused an undesireable result.

Not one case has been proven where a system override prevented a crash.

And just like ESP on a car I would imagine that the stability augmentation
systems in airplanes could be disabled if you intendedly want to push the
envelope of your plane and know what you are doing.

I prefer a system that needs to enabled explicitly to a system that needs to
be disabled explicitly (and I don't even want to think about a system that
cannot be disabled).