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If a pilot ejects, what is the autopilot programmed to do?
- Shivetya 8y agoIt likely isn't active because any event which causes loss of control of the aircraft will exceed the autopilots limits. As for crashed military, state side decades ago I did a shoulder to extended arm walk in the wood. Overseas a sister squadron deployed some guys to recover what they could and destroy the rest; that was in a "not so hostile" country.
- Someone1234 8y agoThe autopilots flight envelope limits are somewhat artificial though. If you wanted to, you could design it to try and take over no-matter-what in the event of an ejection. The biggest question I'd have is: What would you even want the auto-pilot to try and do after an ejection? Assuming it somehow gained full flight control, then what?
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoYou might eject when in control of the vehicle if it couldn't land, or there was an engine fire say. You probably want the vehicle to ditch where it will do least harm.
- ceejayoz 8y ago> You probably want the vehicle to ditch where it will do least harm. Not if it's a military aircraft with classified equipment over enemy territory.
- Crespyl 8y agoIn that case, "least harm" might mean "find the least accessible location and crash in whatever manner does the most damage to sensitive components", assuming "go to nearest allied country and crash-land" isn't an option.
- solarkraft 8y agoHow would one do this? I assume none of this is actually implemented?
- dotancohen 8y agoThis is actually implemented in UAVs. If they are out of contact or detect interference for X time, they are programmed to fly to friendly territory. There was a case of Iran interfering with and American UAV and then spoofing GPS to get it to land in Iranian territory.
- rtkwe 8y agoThis falls along the same lines to me as the "autonomous car morale quandary" questions that were really popular for a while. Both assume the situation is bad enough that the pilot has ejected/car can't avoid the accident but the airplane/car has the control authority left to actually make the choice.
- Crespyl 8y agoRight, as the commenters in SO point out, any situation that's bad enough for the human pilot to eject is also almost certainly bad enough that the autopilot won't be able to do much.
- imglorp 8y agoSolved problem long ago. One would think pulling the ejection handle would also wipe anything sensitive in the cockpit. Programmed autopilot steer towards water should be okay after that. https://aeroantique.com/products/bc-706a-detonator-impact-switch-for-radio-sets-scr-595-and-abk-iff-system https://aeroantique.com/products/bc-706a-detonator-impact-sw...
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoYou've answered a different question. They didn't ask would it be likely in an ejection event, they asked what the programming parameters were. AFAICT it's "continue as before", which is useful to guide the aircraft away to avoid excessive harm to people/property.
- drivingmenuts 8y agoFavorite answer: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/52931 https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/52931 Clippy's flying the plane, folks.
- yardie 8y agoConsidering that a rocket was just lit in an enclosed area, how much of the autopilot is left to be functional anyway?
- ceejayoz 8y agoI suspect it's fine. Two-seater planes fire the seats in sequence - if it's not frying the other passenger, it's highly unlikely to be melting the instruments. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Ejection_seat_test_at_China_Lake_with_F-4B_cockpit_1967.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Ejection...
- rconti 8y agoTL;DR: "It's not"
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoWhich isn't an answer to the question. "The autopilot doesn't change its operational parameters to account for ejection." would be an answer, meaning it takes no account of it and continues as before. Saying "it's programmed to do nothing" is very different: meaning it would stop, meaning it would be taking notice of the ejection.
- rtkwe 8y agoThe real answer is more along the lines of 'if the pilot has ejected there's some serious issue with the plane and the autopilot has been disengaged in attempts to rectify the problem, either automatically in the case of a stall or spin or by the pilot giving inputs which would disengage the autopilot.' There's no instructions after that because the plane is assumed lost once the pilot ejects.
- jstimpfle 8y agoI prefer TL;DRs that give at least _some_ insight. In this case, the answer is short enough to not need a TL;DR.
- Ylodi 8y agoAfter The Pilot Ejected, This F-106A Flew for Miles Before Landing Gently in a Field! https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot-ejected-f-106a-flew-miles-landing-gently-field.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot-ej...
- JshWright 8y agoThat wasn't the autopilot though, that was just aerodynamics.
- mabbo 8y agoI'm annoyed that the top answer is basically saying "well that wouldn't happen". So what? The question wasn't about how likely a thing is, it's what happens should it occur. It would be like if someone asked "what would happen if a C program tried to access uninitiated memory?" And the answer was "Good programmers would never do that".
- sorahn 8y agoThis is why my favorite coffee table book is the “XKCD What If”. He only spends a few seconds on “why it probably wouldn’t happen”, then fully digs into what would happen if it did.
- everdev 8y agoI think I have this book, it is wonderful. It talks about the nuclear explosion that would result of you tried to hiy a baseball traveling at the speed of light.
- dotancohen 8y agoYes, that's the first What-If in the book. If I remember correctly, the nuclear explosion is from the fusion of the atoms in the air molecules building up in front of baseball, before it even gets to the bat!
- buzer 8y agohttps://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ > Everything within roughly a mile of the park is leveled, and a firestorm engulfs the surrounding city. The baseball diamond is now a sizable crater, centered a few hundred feet behind the former location of the backstop. > A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base.
- jsight 8y agoBut isn't the answer kind of the same? Undefined behavior will result.
- BuildTheRobots 8y agoI thought with military craft, as soon as the ejector handle is pulled the onboard computers are wiped/destroyed before the seat even exits the aircraft.
- derefr 8y agoEven moreso, I would expect that with most experimental or non-commodity military craft in actual combat situations (i.e. the kinds you really don't want the enemy analyzing or using against you), the plane would just explode as soon as you're a safe distance away. Like scuttling a ship, but smaller.
- bytematic 8y agoFor enemy recovery reasons?
- samlittlewood 8y agoSomtimes, you don't even need an autopilot: http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk/ejection_from_a_harrier.htm http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk/ejection_from_a_harrier.htm
- knodi123 8y agofantastic, i love anecdotes like these.
- rurban 8y agoI can answer a similar question in Formula 1 engine testing failure. It might be similar to the plane problem. There are basically two options: Hard shutdown (power off, full brakes) vs Soft shutdown (power off, doing nothing). Both have it's merits and usecase, and are selected by the SW automatically. HS could save lives but could be very expensive, as the engine could be broken by the strong forces. SS could last a few minutes and destroy the engine also. In the plane cases you don't have that many options there, though usually with 4 more degrees of freedom yodur options on a plane are much higher. I don't think that there are programmed sequences, but with military applications I would be not surprised to see both options implemented. Escape as far as possible vs hard vertical acceleration for maximal destruction.
- mongol 8y agoI think it is programmed to control the plane. Not to autoland it, but to keep it flying. When JAS Gripen crashed in Stockholm after instability, the pilot ejected and the plane managed to improve its stability somewhat before crashing.
- cbr 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Belgian_MiG-23_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Belgian_MiG-23_crash
- huhtenberg 8y agoRe: Mig-23 incident - at the time of the incident it was a popular theory that this was Soviet's answer to Mathias Rust landing his Cessna on Red Square two years prior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust
- zimbatm 8y agoOnce the pilot is ejected, the autopilot doesn't need to concern himself with human G limitations. That could be useful for drastic recovery maneuvers.
- kart23 8y agoYou just assumed an autopilots gender.
- gnode 8y agoI would object to the premise of the question: > I would want to build in a way for the plane to try and save itself if possible In a combat situation, I would imagine you'd want to destroy the aircraft if you lost control of it, to prevent the enemy recovering: the working aircraft itself, the technology it contains, or any sensitive reconnaissance recorded on it.
- kejaed 8y agoAs someone who has worked on the F/A-18 (actually CF-18) mission computer software, when the pilot ejects the mission computers start to erase the sensitive information that they contain.
- adrianmonk 8y agoI think that's a very valid objection. However, you could ask a similar question with a modified premise: you'd want to build in a way to have control over the fate of the airplane. Depending on the situation, the right thing might be to safely land it (if in friendly territory), destroy it as thoroughly as possible (if in hostile territory), or protect lives on the ground (if you don't think you can land it). But whatever the goal may be, maybe the autopilot could do better than leaving it to chance. EDIT: I forgot about a fourth possibility. If in hostile territory, maybe use the autopilot to turn the plane into a weapon. You're leaking fuel so fast there's no way you'll make it back to base, but maybe you still have enough fuel to pick up a lot of speed before slamming into a nearby enemy asset.
- sandworm101 8y agoTake this from someone in an actual air force: (On lunch break atm by I am wearing a flight suit.) (1) The chance that the 'autopilot' will even be on in an ejection scenario is very low. If something does go wrong, pilots will take control first, eject second. Disconnecting the autopilot will happen either deliberately or automatically as the pilot moves the stick. (2) Aircraft with ejection seats are not Cessnas. The "autopilot" might not be on, but the fly by wire control system is never really off. That system will remain active and could potentially "fly" the plane some distance. Think of it like a car sliding on ice. The cruise control might be off, but the stability assist system isn't. The driver can jump out and the car still recover itself. (3) The engine(s) will keep going. Ejection does not turn off anything. It's not like falling off a jetski where a kill switch is pulled. The throttle will be wherever the pilot left it. There have been a handful of incidents where a pilot has ejected and the aircraft continued on without him/her. I've read about this with test pilots in spins. The aircraft is spinning and unrecoverable, so the pilot ejects. The aircraft then self-recovers through a combination of inherent aerodynamic changes (falling into thicker air) and/or efforts by the fly by wire system to maintain the commanded heading/pitch from a now-unmanned stick. There is an adage amongst fighter pilots that they shall not punch out until they know where their aircraft will land. Hanging in a parachute as your aircraft recovers and continues strait into a school. If over land/people they will stay with it until VERY close to the ground.
- chaitanya 8y agoThis reminded me of a tragic incident from my hometown a few years back (though I don’t think autopilot was involved): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Jalandhar_MiG-21_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Jalandhar_MiG-21_crash
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tabtab 8y agoPer military planes, I suspect they select the preferred behavior ahead of time based on the mission and estimated flight path. In some cases self-destruct may be the better option, in others, a controlled landing is better. You probably don't want to self-destruct over your own cities and thus build in logic to find a rural landing spot if it's a local or training mission.
- artur_roszczyk 8y agohttps://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot-ejected-f-106a-flew-miles-landing-gently-field.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot-ej...