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Isn't the point of a copilot that it can safely fly and land a plane unlike an autopilot.
by ginko 8y ago
Isn't the point of a copilot that it can safely fly and land a plane unlike an autopilot.
- duiker101 8y agoMaybe, but I think that's beside the point. The point is that it's about people's perception of what something should do from it's name. And 99% of the people will associate co-* with a help and auto-* with something that can do it on it's own.
- Someone1234 8y agoPlanes can land entirely on autopilot. Just requires the airport to have ILS, and a fairly modern autopilot.
- mnw21cam 8y agoYesbut. It also requires the meat-sack to be sitting in the cockpit telling the autopilot which heading/altitude/waypoint to head to next, listen to ATC instructions, input the correct ILS frequency into the system, etc. And that's when everything goes absolutely fine.
- Someone1234 8y agoPlanes can absolutely land themselves. The only point you're making is that an autopilot cannot entirely replace a pilot, but that was never in contention. The poster above claimed an autopilot cannot land, it can, and it does every single day. Additionally ILS frequency can be automatically set via electronic charts, particularly if the flight plan contains the destination runway (which isn't always possible).
- labcomputer 8y ago> Planes can absolutely land themselves. No. They can’t. Not unless you have a IIIc approach and autopilot. Those things are not common. If you don’t have both of those things, the pilot must, at minimum, fly the flare (for a IIIb approach, which are somewhat common at large airports). Even if you have a IIIc approach, the pilot still monitors systems, deploys high lift devices and landing gear, makes the go/no decision. There is no reasonable interpretation of “planes can absolutely land themselves” which is in any way true.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago> No. They can’t. Not unless you have a IIIc approach and autopilot. Those things are not common. So you're saying they can?
- Piskvorrr 8y agoWikipedia has an accurate summary: "[in all cases a CAT III autoland requires the] flight crew to monitor the system behavior very carefully and be ready to take control immediately." Oops.
- mazugrin 8y agoThe problem is that most people don't understand what the term "autopilot" refers to. In airplanes, autopilot can safely control the aircraft in a limited set of circumstances. It can't control the aircraft on the ground, nor can it control the aircraft during takeoff. And it can only land the aircraft on certain types of runways. Crucially, it requires human pilots to be monitoring the progress of the aircraft at all times because there are many situations that can arise while the system is engaged that require a corrective response. This seems to be no different from the Tesla system. Of course, due to the nature of driving on a crowded road versus being up in a relatively empty sky, there's a significant difference in the time available to apply these corrective responses.
- dingaling 8y agoAutopilots can in practice control ground manoeuvres, and take-off. That was demonstrated in the 1970s. There simply isn't the commercial impetus to push them to certification; it's cheaper for an airline to cancel a flight than to maintain such a technical capability, mainly due to paperwork.
- mikeash 8y agoSome can. Airplane autopilots are tremendously varied. Some are as simple as a gyroscope hooked up to the ailerons to keep the wings level. I’m always baffled as to why people think “autopilot” implies any sort of autonomy.
- ionised 8y agoProbably because that's what the name suggests.
- leetcrew 8y agoas a Greek and Latin student, there are quite a lot of English words that don't quite mean what I would expect. if it's really important that I understand how a word is normally used in English (eg, some critical safety context), I look it up.
- simion314 8y agothere are words and expressions well know from pop culture, like say time travel, do you need to look up some physics book to find the definition or find some experiments where they prove time travel is or not possible ?
- leetcrew 8y agoI don't usually make $40,000 decisions that depend on time travel.
- simion314 8y agoHow do you research it though? Do you read reviews, watch videos or you search online for the technical manuals with all the details before you buy ? The reviews and videos may not contain all the details you will get in the technical manual that you don't have before you get the car.
- labcomputer 8y agoHah, “just”. Very few airports have even one cat IIIc approach. Not all modern airliners have an autopilot capable of a IIIc approach (which requires triple redundancy, IIRC). And you accuse others of arguing in bad faith...
- hangonhn 8y agoSo rename it to "student pilot" and change "driver" to instructor? This is why I don't work in marketing...
- simion314 8y agoThis is about cars, in cars driving copilot means something different then airplanes.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- emn13 8y agoThe point is that a copilot is there to assist the primary pilot, not be that primary pilot all of the time - even if in emergencies a copilot can take over. Frankly - if you're asking for emergency "landings" I'd say modern driver assists are probably up to the task. Most have a pretty decent chance of bringing a vehicle to a safe stop. And if it's an emergency, and the primary driver cannot do so - then the currently still inevitable unreliability isn't much of an issue - it's still much, much better than nothing. Copilot isn't a bad name change. Not that they'll ever do it.