Future of Electronics In Aviation

On Jun 20, 8:27*pm, wrote:
* Just a gimmick addict, I think you are. If you want to fly, fly. if
you want to take pictures or listen to music or do a lot of other
things that distract you from paying attention so that you don't
collide with other airplanes or get lost on a cross-country, then find
some other means of travel, like in an airliner.
* * * Super-complex airplanes operated by computers that allow the
dumbest and most inattentive people into the air are just a disaster
waiting to happen, and they'd be so expensive that none of us would be
flying if we had to buy them. We fly the airplanes we fly because we
can afford them and because we want to FLY, not play with computers
and pretend to be pilots. Piloting involves learning some challenging
skills, which is why most of us do it. Restoring an old car or truck
like I did also involves a wide range of skills, which is why I did
it. I could go buy a new car that has so many safety gimmicks, like
antiskid brakes, but that involves nothing more than spending money
and there's absolutely no challenge to that. Besides, things like
antskid brakes are well known to make dumber drivers who just stand on
the brakes and trust the vehicle to prevent a skid into the snowbank,
and soon enough that driver, because he no longer has to learn the
feel of the surface, gets onto a slippery-enough surface that the
system cannot save him and he crashes good and proper. Along the
freeways here during snowstoms the vehicles in the ditch or upside-
down are ALL newer cars and SUVs. The drivers of non-antiskid cars
have to watch what they're doing and it makes them more aware of the
conditions.
Safety systems, indeed. Computers still cannot replace the human brain
and won't be able to do all that that brain can do for a long time, if
ever.
* * * *So use your head. Go learn to fly and stop trolling just to
infuriate us. We'll be asking how the lessons are going.

I think you post gets at the root of the matter.

I think many of the pilots who object to my point of view object on
the grounds that you outline above. Essentially, flying is a hobby
for them, and they take pleasure in the knobs, dials....

I think the day will come when the average person, one who is not
inclined to do all the things that are required in 2008 to earn a PPL,
will be allowed, and even encouraged, to get into the air, by all the
federal agencies that matter, including the FAA.

Then what? Will all the private pilots who like the feel of their
Bravo demand that state-of-art state remain stagnant?

Will you speak for those who might like a vehicle as outlined by NASA/
CAFE/PAV?

If some organization is successful in building such a vehicle, one
that relies mostly on computers, will you object? If the safety is not
as dire as indicated in this thread, on what ground will you object?
"Well, simply put Mr. Administrator, we do not like the idea of
someone flying a vehicle that is insufficiently complex and has too
few knobs and quite frankly is too cheap and does vibrate or make
enough noise or does not overheat or require hangar space or uses fly-
by-wire and has too much cockpit amusement and lends itself to highly-
commoditized components... you see, there is a process that one must
go throuhg, that requires years of hard work and financial
investment...and these new guys are cheating..."

None of these things have anything to do with technical feasibility.
It has more to do with how currents pilots feel about aviation.

At least it seems that way.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

On Jun 20, 9:55*pm, Steve Hix
wrote:
In article
,

wrote:
On Jun 20, 12:15 pm, Le Chaud Lapin wrote stuff:

* Just a gimmick addict, I think you are. If you want to fly, fly. if
you want to take pictures or listen to music or do a lot of other
things that distract you from paying attention

That's my wife's job when we fly.

I'm too busy trying to stay ahead of the airplane, avoid traffic, and
get to where we're headed.

so that you don't
collide with other airplanes or get lost on a cross-country, then find
some other means of travel, like in an airliner.

When she gets her license, then I can take pictures.

I have heard a lot of pilots complain that they cannot enjoy the
scenery when they are PIC. The pilot I flew with said he liked for me
to take the controls because he could enjoy the scenery for a change.

It should be possible to have it both ways - "flying" as Dan calls it,
or sitting back and relaxing and enjoying the scenery, with more
advanced form of auto-pilot, with multiple cameras streaming entire
flight to 1TB hard disk, of course.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

In rec.aviation.piloting Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
On Jun 20, 9:55?pm, Steve Hix
wrote:
In article
,

wrote:
On Jun 20, 12:15 pm, Le Chaud Lapin wrote stuff:

? Just a gimmick addict, I think you are. If you want to fly, fly. if
you want to take pictures or listen to music or do a lot of other
things that distract you from paying attention

That's my wife's job when we fly.

I'm too busy trying to stay ahead of the airplane, avoid traffic, and
get to where we're headed.

so that you don't
collide with other airplanes or get lost on a cross-country, then find
some other means of travel, like in an airliner.

When she gets her license, then I can take pictures.

I have heard a lot of pilots complain that they cannot enjoy the
scenery when they are PIC. The pilot I flew with said he liked for me
to take the controls because he could enjoy the scenery for a change.

It should be possible to have it both ways - "flying" as Dan calls it,
or sitting back and relaxing and enjoying the scenery, with more
advanced form of auto-pilot, with multiple cameras streaming entire
flight to 1TB hard disk, of course.

Pure fantasy.

Someone has to be looking out the window for the no radio, no transponder
and no flight following aircraft no matter how sophisticated the aircraft.

There is now way more realiable than a Mark I eyeball to detect a
typical no radio rag bag airplane.

--
Jim Pennino

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In rec.aviation.piloting Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

I think the day will come when the average person, one who is not
inclined to do all the things that are required in 2008 to earn a PPL,
will be allowed, and even encouraged, to get into the air, by all the
federal agencies that matter, including the FAA.

People have been daydreaming about automatic cars since the 1930's,
which is an extremely simple subset of the automatic airplane problem.

Automatic cars don't exist and there is little likelyhood the will
exist anytime in the near future.

You are a comic book reading babbler with no connection to the real
world.

--
Jim Pennino

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On Jun 21, 12:45*am, wrote:
In rec.aviation.piloting Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

I think the day will come when the average person, one who is not
inclined to do all the things that are required in 2008 to earn a PPL,
will be allowed, and even encouraged, to get into the air, by all the
federal agencies that matter, including the FAA.

People have been daydreaming about automatic cars since the 1930's,
which is an extremely simple subset of the automatic airplane problem.

Automatic cars don't exist and there is little likelyhood the will
exist anytime in the near future.

You are a comic book reading babbler with no connection to the real
world.

So basically you are saying that the FAA, NASA, EAA, AOPA, and Boeing,
are wasting their money sponsoring PAV?

-Le Chaud Lapin-

On Jun 21, 3:43*pm, "Ken S. Tucker" wrote:
On Jun 20, 7:07 pm, More_Flaps wrote:





On Jun 20, 5:52 pm, "Ken S. Tucker" wrote:

Where Electro-Mechanical control of air is concerned,
we've all used a potentiometer to change the volume of
our speaker system...for about 100 years.
You may regard a speaker as an exceptionally finely
controlled servo/solenoid and is pretty damn reliable
and cheap.

A normal speaker is certainly NOT a servo system.
Get the basic ideas straight and you may begin to understnd the
problem.

Cheers

See solenoid + electromagnetic speaker, yawn
It's simple for me.
Ken- Hide quoted text -

Look up servo and try to undersrand that it is closed loop, a
solenoid/speakers is not. Now do you understand?

Simple for you -oh yeh! LOL
Cheers

In article ,
Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

I have heard a lot of pilots complain that they cannot enjoy the
scenery when they are PIC. The pilot I flew with said he liked for me
to take the controls because he could enjoy the scenery for a change.

what? There isn't a flight I've made that I didn't have lots and lots
of time to enjoy the scenary as well as the rest of the flying experience.
(the exception are my flights in IMC or under the hood)

I've never heard one pilot complain about not having time to enjoy
the scenary. Not one.

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

Recently, Le Chaud Lapin posted:

I think the day will come when the average person, one who is not
inclined to do all the things that are required in 2008 to earn a PPL,
will be allowed, and even encouraged, to get into the air, by all the
federal agencies that matter, including the FAA.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that just the opposite is happening in the
real world? Or, perhaps you haven't realized that as GA systems become
more complex, the barrier to entry increases due to training and
certification costs? The only real-world reduction in requirements that
supports your fantasy is the introduction of the Sport Pilot category, so
perhaps you should look at those aircraft for a clue as to the direction
things are going for "the average person" and GA.

Neil

In rec.aviation.student Nomen Nescio wrote:
From: Le Chaud Lapin

In any case, because the material cost of software is $0, the cost of
verification would have to be very high indeed before a point would
reached, beyond which, it did not make sense to make the software
because the market could not support it.

There's a saying in the pharmaceutical industry that seems appropriate, here.

"Sure we can make the pills for a dime each.......but the first one costs
$150 million."

Very nice, and applies well to software too. Of course it's not true that
software has 0 marginal cost. There are support costs, which can be
significant.

But let's say that software really does have zero marginal cost. Well,
this is extremely *bad* news for the use of software in GA, not good news
as has been presented.

Why? Because software costs a *lot* of money to make. And with zero
marginal cost, the price is effectively the development cost divided by
the size of the audience.

GA is a pretty damn small audience. Why do you think you can buy a
perfectly capable car GPS, with a database full of every road in the
country, for under $200 but you'll spend ten times that much on something
that's significantly less capable for your airplane? Certification and
liability come into it, of course, but even ignoring those you would spend
what seems to be an unreasonable amount of money. This is just because the
development costs are fixed but the audience is microscopic.

To keep costs down, you want something with low development costs, even if
the material cost is significant. This mean proven designs, simple
mechanical linkages, etc. And guess what, that's what we have. Software
isn't going to save you any money unless you either find a way to make
multipurpose software that the public can also use, increase the GA pilot
population by an order of magnitude, or create a magical software-making
machine that can cut your development costs by an order of magnitude.

To extend the pharmaceutical analogy a bit, if you want cheap pills then
you'd better contract a really common disease or use a treatment which has
existed for a long time. If you want brand new treatment for a rare
disease then it's going to cost you a whole lot of money.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

In rec.aviation.piloting Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
On Jun 21, 12:45?am, wrote:
In rec.aviation.piloting Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

I think the day will come when the average person, one who is not
inclined to do all the things that are required in 2008 to earn a PPL,
will be allowed, and even encouraged, to get into the air, by all the
federal agencies that matter, including the FAA.

People have been daydreaming about automatic cars since the 1930's,
which is an extremely simple subset of the automatic airplane problem.

Automatic cars don't exist and there is little likelyhood the will
exist anytime in the near future.

You are a comic book reading babbler with no connection to the real
world.

So basically you are saying that the FAA, NASA, EAA, AOPA, and Boeing,
are wasting their money sponsoring PAV?

Unless you have a computer that is the equivelant of Mr. Data from
Star Trek, there will never be an automatic airplane for every Joe
Sixpack.

Is that clear enough for you?

As to whether or not PAV is a waste of time, basic research generally
eventually results in something usefull, though not necessarily
resulting in the stated object of the original research.

And anyway, automatic airplanes already exist, they just don't carry
people.

Have you ever heard of a Preditor?


--
Jim Pennino

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