6 ms·

not sure it's legit for airbus to be declaring a win for their automation. sounds like the copilot dogpaddled back to the cockpit through freefall and batted at

not sure it's legit for airbus to be declaring a win for their automation. sounds like the copilot dogpaddled back to the cockpit through freefall and batted at his controls from the ceiling until the computer got confused and resumed level flight. If any safety technology deserves credit here it's seatbelts. From the sound of it, nobody who was belted in was injured.

jsmthrowaway 10y ago
The computer worked to prevent the aircraft from entering an overspeed condition by pitching up and attempting to recover from the dive even before that dual stick input was an issue. It was intervening 13 seconds into the incident, as the aircraft threatened to exceed safety tolerances. The dual stick input created another issue after that intervention began. The automation very possibly saved lives here. The overspeed protection is good because had that not happened, there's a real possibility that significant sections of the airplane would have sheared off, or the airplane could have rapidly drifted further out of control as it accelerated quickly through 365 knots indicated. Big, heavy, thrusting things gain airspeed rapidly when you pitch them down 18 degrees at cruise power, and the margin of recoverability is very minimal. There are arguments that humans are unable to prevent some scenarios in that situation because by the time higher-order thinking on decisions has happened, it's too late. See, for example, the surprisingly lengthy duration of time between the incident and setting for idle, which probably should have been among the first things done in response. Brains are slow when things happen fast, and a symphony of alarms and whoops (undoubtedly in progress) does not help. A Boeing would not have intervened in the situation at all and would have allowed the aircraft to go overspeed, risking serious airframe damage. If you crash dive an airliner at cruising speed, very, very bad things happen. At cruising altitude safety envelopes are very small. The paragraph talking about direct law is, roughly speaking, what would have happened had this been a Boeing aircraft. (This isn't bad, it's just different philosophies of pilot responsibility. I'm not partisan on the difference like some pilots and am willing to acknowledge the benefits of both approaches; this one is an Airbus advantage.)
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  A Boeing would not have intervened in the situation at all OTOH it's probably a lot harder to "jam" a camera into the center stick of a Boeing than it is into the side-stick of a Bus.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    I could also imagine that a Boeing pilot generally has more respect of the machine (s)he's operating because of the direct control. The overall deadly accident rate in Boeing vs. Airbus, plotted over time, would be interesting.
    - nether 10y ago
      Both aircraft are so incredibly safe with vanishingly low accident rates, that it'd be nearly impossible to suss out accidents due to the respective designs versus pilot error, weather, carrier procedures etc.
    - WWLink 10y ago
      The silly thing is they could combine the fly-by-wire system with the boeing-style control system if they wanted to. There's no reason why not, other than the space in the cockpit I suppose. It's basically just a much bigger joystick, no?
  - JshWright 10y ago
    The biggest advantage of the Boeing approach is that the controls are linked; if one moves, so does the other. Mismatched inputs are impossible. I truly don't understand the Airbus approach... There is no method of resolving conflicts between the sticks that make sense... Sum them? Average them? Take the last seen input? Prefer the left side always?
    - mikekchar 10y ago
jessriedel 10y ago
Aren't the injuries trivial compared to the large risk of death? If seat belts are to be praised, it would be because they helped the pilot regain control, not for preventing some passenger bruising.

jsmthrowaway 10y ago

The computer worked to prevent the aircraft from entering an overspeed condition by pitching up and attempting to recover from the dive even before that dual stick input was an issue. It was intervening 13 seconds into the incident, as the aircraft threatened to exceed safety tolerances. The dual stick input created another issue after that intervention began. The automation very possibly saved lives here. The overspeed protection is good because had that not happened, there's a real possibility that significant sections of the airplane would have sheared off, or the airplane could have rapidly drifted further out of control as it accelerated quickly through 365 knots indicated. Big, heavy, thrusting things gain airspeed rapidly when you pitch them down 18 degrees at cruise power, and the margin of recoverability is very minimal. There are arguments that humans are unable to prevent some scenarios in that situation because by the time higher-order thinking on decisions has happened, it's too late. See, for example, the surprisingly lengthy duration of time between the incident and setting for idle, which probably should have been among the first things done in response. Brains are slow when things happen fast, and a symphony of alarms and whoops (undoubtedly in progress) does not help. A Boeing would not have intervened in the situation at all and would have allowed the aircraft to go overspeed, risking serious airframe damage. If you crash dive an airliner at cruising speed, very, very bad things happen. At cruising altitude safety envelopes are very small. The paragraph talking about direct law is, roughly speaking, what would have happened had this been a Boeing aircraft. (This isn't bad, it's just different philosophies of pilot responsibility. I'm not partisan on the difference like some pilots and am willing to acknowledge the benefits of both approaches; this one is an Airbus advantage.)

PhantomGremlin 10y ago
A Boeing would not have intervened in the situation at all OTOH it's probably a lot harder to "jam" a camera into the center stick of a Boeing than it is into the side-stick of a Bus.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- m_mueller 10y ago
  I could also imagine that a Boeing pilot generally has more respect of the machine (s)he's operating because of the direct control. The overall deadly accident rate in Boeing vs. Airbus, plotted over time, would be interesting.
  - nether 10y ago
    Both aircraft are so incredibly safe with vanishingly low accident rates, that it'd be nearly impossible to suss out accidents due to the respective designs versus pilot error, weather, carrier procedures etc.
  - WWLink 10y ago
    The silly thing is they could combine the fly-by-wire system with the boeing-style control system if they wanted to. There's no reason why not, other than the space in the cockpit I suppose. It's basically just a much bigger joystick, no?
- JshWright 10y ago
  The biggest advantage of the Boeing approach is that the controls are linked; if one moves, so does the other. Mismatched inputs are impossible. I truly don't understand the Airbus approach... There is no method of resolving conflicts between the sticks that make sense... Sum them? Average them? Take the last seen input? Prefer the left side always?
  - mikekchar 10y ago

jessriedel 10y ago

Aren't the injuries trivial compared to the large risk of death? If seat belts are to be praised, it would be because they helped the pilot regain control, not for preventing some passenger bruising.