3 ms·
Auto Pilot is not a "Push a button and it goes from Airport A to Airport B". It only helps in a few cases.
by Moter8 9y ago
Auto Pilot is not a "Push a button and it goes from Airport A to Airport B". It only helps in a few cases.
- amdavidson 9y agoIt wasn't but it increasingly is getting to that point. You take off (with fly by wire adjustments from the computer) from Airport A and tell it to fly to Airport B and it can even automatically land there. Some airlines do not allow pilots to manually fly above 3k feet, nor allow first mates to land manually[0]. 0: https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-autonomous-plane-autopilot/ https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-autonomous-plane-autopilo...
- Piskvorrr 9y agoWhich then gets you pilots frobbing the autoland selector, not getting the mode right - and now what, if you have zero practice, having scripted yourself out of it? Now you fly the plane into the runway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 There is a (prevalent) happy path where autopilot and autoland can get you the whole illusion "but the plane flies itself" - but the whole system is built around humans catching and handling all and any exceptions.
- masklinn 9y ago> Auto Pilot is not a "Push a button and it goes from Airport A to Airport B". It only helps in a few cases. A USAF C-54 made a complete transatlantic flight (takeoff and landing included) on autopilot back in 1947: https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1947/1947%20-%201745.html https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1947/1947%20-%2... Modern Cat IIIc (zero-zero) autopilots handle everything except taxiing and takeoff. And I think the takeoff thing is more political than technical.