By 2030, commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotlessplanes.

Robert M. Gary wrote:
Certainly techonology isn't a barrier, a lot can be done in 25 years.
The real question is whether or not pax will pay to ride in such a
device. I suspect they would

-Robert

Hopefully, Airbus fixes their nose-gear issue by then. And 380's
maintain cabin pressu

"Joseph Mangan, 41, is a whistle-blower. As a result he and his family
find themselves in a foreign country with unfamiliar laws, fighting a
legal battle that has left them almost penniless.

A year ago, Mangan told European aviation authorities that he believed
there were problems with a computer chip on the Airbus A380, the
biggest and costliest commercial airliner ever built. The A380 is a
double-decked engineering marvel that will carry as many as 800
passengers - double the capacity of Boeing Co.'s 747. It is expected
to enter airline service next year.

Mangan alleges that flaws in a microprocessor could cause the valves
that maintain cabin pressure on the A380 to accidentally open during
flight, allowing air to leak out so rapidly that everyone aboard could
lose consciousness within seconds.
....
To discuss his case with The Times, Mangan took a five-hour train ride
to Munich, Germany, where the gag order doesn't apply. "I don't want to
destroy TTTech," he said. "But I still get nightmares of people dying.
I just can't let that happen."

To help pay living expenses and legal fees, Mangan sold his house in
Kansas. With only about $300 left in his bank account, Mangan missed a
Sept. 8 deadline to pay his $185,000 fine and faces up to a year in
jail. Next month he's likely to be called before a judge on his
criminal case.

The family expected to be evicted this month from their apartment, but
their church in Vienna took up a collection to pay their rent.

At the moment, Mangan is hiding out at a church member's home because
he fears he could be arrested at any time.
....The Mangans live day to day, not sure what will come next. If they
can't pay their rent, they hope to return to the U.S. to live with
Diana's parents in Ohio, although they have maxed out their credit card
and can't afford plane tickets.

Mangan is getting ready to file for personal bankruptcy.

TTTech has offered to drop its legal action against Mangan, court
records show, and pay him three months of severance, if he retracts his
statements. But Mangan has refused.

Mangan said he was looking for a new job. He has contacted dozens of
aerospace firms in the U.S. and Europe, but none have returned his
calls. "Nobody wants to touch me," he said."

If it ain't Boeing, I ain't Going...JG

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of.
It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of

A computer can do a great job, if the solution is properly developed.


The real question is whether pilots on average are able to come up with
inspired solutions to problems more often than they create problems with
perfectly good airplanes.

Another valid question is:

Would the effort required to develop hardware/software for pilotless
aircraft be more or less effective than the effort to develop
hardware/software
to help protect pilots from error?


You don't set out to build a pilotless aircraft immediately. That is why
Ford built a Model A before he learned how to build a Mustang Convertible.

Effective big systems evolve from effective small systems.

You keep adding automated decision support systems and automated control
systems, and automated planning systems, into the existing cockpit
environment.... and one day, you may wake up and realize: Hey, the pilot no
longer has anything to do.

*THEN* you build your pilotless aircraft.

Peter Duniho wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Looking at major air accidents in the US over the past 5 years I'd say
humans are doing awfully well.

I'm not talking about restricting one's view to "major air accidents". In
any case, if you have actual statistics to refute my intuition, I'm all
ears. Otherwise, your intuitive view is no more compelling than my own (no
less either, granted).

I assumed Part 121 and did mention that it would clearly be an
improvement for GA. But, let's look at just 121 for a minute:

Searching for domestic accidents since 1/1/2000, Part 121, with
fatalities, I find 14 NTSB records, 4 of which are from 9/11. The other
10:

6/05: Belt loader truck crash kills driver
10/04: 13 pax killed on a regional crash during approach in IMC.
Awaiting final report.
8/04: Convair 580 (freight) crash on approach kills 1 of 2 crew,
awaiting final report
9/03: Tug driver crashes into DC-9, is killed
1/03: US Air Beech 1900 crashes in Charlotte, 21 dead, maintenance
error
11/01: AA Airbus 300 crash due to rudder failure, pilot error (insert
alt. theory here)
8/01: Ramp agent walks into propeller, 1 dead
11/00: 1 FA killed when cabin door opened on ground before
depressurizing during evacuation, FA opened door and was blown out and
fell to the ground
2/00: Emery DC-8 lost with all crew (3) due to "A loss of pitch control
resulting from the disconnection of the right elevator control tab. The
disconnection was caused by the failure to properly secure and inspect
the attachment bolt"
1/00: Alaska Airlines MD-83 lost with all on board (88) after
stabilizer trim problem caused by improper maintenance

This leaves us with 6 actual aviation accidents, 3 of which are due to
mechanical/maintenance issues. 2 are awaiting the final report, but
pilot error looks like a safe bet. The AA crash is open-and-shut except
that I recall some debate that the pilot was in fact following the book
as written by AA. Still, I'll give that one to the computer.

What this analysis doesn't include is how many non-accidents we had due
to humans acting intelligently and non-computerish. Also, others might
protest that restricting this to US accidents in the past 5 years (an
unprecedentedly safe period) is cherry-picking my data. Fair 'nuff.
Still, it suggests that human flight crews properly trained can achieve
extremely high levels of safety.

[...]
Look at this for an idea of the state-of-the-art in robot cars. It's
pretty pathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_DARPA_Grand_Challenge

The DARPA event is a completely different scenario from a general
autopiloted transportation infrastructure. For you to use it as a
comparison is laughable. Instead, try the many successful demonstrations of
computer-driven cars on paved roadways with appropriate guidance technology.

I gave a link for my argument. Now you try.

At best the things you speak of are capable of handling traffic flow on
the Interstate, and could make a difference. Preventing rear-endings,
lane drift, asleep at the wheel would be good. Of course, we could get
most of this benefit a lot more cheaply if we assumed the human was
still in control. Radar could be used to warn of cars slowing ahead,
and a guidance stripe painted on the highway could be used to provide
directional "assistance" and to alarm for instance if you started to
drift off the centerline without using your turn signal. (Ha! What
chaos that would cause in Boston...) This is something we could roughly
do with today's technology and automobiles and would not cost a
gogoobillion dollars to rewire our highways.

Once you get off the highway, the problem becomes pretty gnarly what
with pedestrians, interchanges of every kind, etc. Don't forget
generational problems where you have autopilot and non-autopilot
vehicles. We're having a hard enough time switching to HDTV so don't
try to tell me this would be straightforward. Actually, aerial
navigation is a much simpler problem. In any case, this just
underscores my point that "assistance" systems are a far cheaper and
more effective path to enhanced safety.

-cwk.

wrote

I suspect that if you compute pay on a seat basis (i.e. $salary per
person carried) that you're already there.

Met and passed.
--
Jim in NC

"peter" wrote

Agreed. But the idea has been around for a long time without much
progress being made to implement it. I remember the GM pavilion at the
NY World's Fair in '64 where the diaramas showed the cities of the
future with computer-controlled cars all running smoothly along the
freeways.

Most all of the systems have required that the roads have some kind of
technology installed, and until it is figured out who pays for it, we will
keep waiting.
--
Jim in NC

"Peter Duniho"
Pilotless airliners likely will happen before cars, and I agree that "by
2030" is VERY optimistic. I don't know how old you were at the '64
World's Fair, but I fear you may not live long enough to see pilotless
cars OR airplanes, even if you live to 100 years.


Wonder which World's Fair showcased the first pilotless elevator?


Montblack :-)

Peter Duniho wrote:
"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:mle_e.11361$L15.4226@trndny01...
I agree that a computer can do a great job when everything goes more or
less according to plan, but what about when it doesn't?

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of. It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of

The real question is whether pilots on average are able to come up with
inspired solutions to problems more often than they create problems with
perfectly good airplanes.

I admit, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I suspect that
human error in the cockpit causes more accidents than human novelty recovers
from.

This is the same reason that autopilot cars are a good idea, no matter how
offensive they may seem to some people. Yes, there will be failures of the
equipment. But that will happen MUCH less often than the failures of the
humans, and will improve the reliability and efficiency of our
transportation infrastructure at the same time.

The trouble is that you never hear of the thousands of 'pilot skill'
saves a year.
And in an accident the first claim by the accident inspectors is that
it's 'pilot error' and, sadly, they can maintain that position in
spite of other factors.

"george" wrote in message
oups.com...
The trouble is that you never hear of the thousands of 'pilot skill'
saves a year.

You also never hear of the thousands of "pilot skill" failures that require
"pilot skill" saves, either. So what?

And in an accident the first claim by the accident inspectors is that
it's 'pilot error' and, sadly, they can maintain that position in
spite of other factors.

Yes, it IS unfortunate that so many accidents turn out to be attributable to
"pilot error", and that in spite of other factors, the inspectors CAN still
attribute the accidents to "pilot error". Seems to me you're just making
the point that more automation would be good.

Pete

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:01:31 -0700, Bob Fry
wrote:

Not my statement. See
http://www.longbets.org/4

What sayeth the group wisdom? I think eventually there will be
pilotless aircraft, the question is when.

Can't really say anything except it will give the airline pilots
something else to bitch about while they're home collecting their
checks!

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

And in an accident the first claim by the accident inspectors is that
it's 'pilot error' and, sadly, they can maintain that position in
spite of other factors.

Yes, it IS unfortunate that so many accidents turn out to be attributable to
"pilot error", and that in spite of other factors, the inspectors CAN still
attribute the accidents to "pilot error". Seems to me you're just making
the point that more automation would be good.

That is not at all what George said.

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule