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Langewiesche is a terrific writer, but it does seem like the overwhelming majority of people in the business consider his take on the 737MAX to be misguided. R

Langewiesche is a terrific writer, but it does seem like the overwhelming majority of people in the business consider his take on the 737MAX to be misguided. Reading his article, I got the impression that he has a certain idealised image of what a pilot should be like. One that I have also noticed quite a few people here on HN seem to be rather fond of. Namely: that being a pilot should not just be someone's job, but their calling. To use a weird phrase I once saw here, they are supposed to be "fixed-wing enthusiasts". There also seems to be a certain, somewhat outdated, concept of masculinity at play here. And, of course, combining these expectations with stereotypes of African and Asian companies (and people) initially led many to the conclusion that these pilots were either incompetent ("because of a lack of calories in early childhood" to quote one line of reasoning I saw (luckily not here)) or incapable of independent thinking. Never mind that at least one of the captains was trained in the US. These ideas couldn't be farther from how the system is actually evolving, and how it should be: Flying needs to be boring. If your pilot has a chance to become a hero, the system has already failed. The goal must be a system of technology, institutions, curricula, etc. that makes it perfectly safe to trust any decent high school student to become a competent(-enough) pilot. Candidates with a sense for adventure should be screened out, because flying an airliner is dreadfully boring, and a volatile personality will soon find a way to make it more exciting (drinking, usually). And planes should become more and more automated. Software and design errors tend to occur just once. Humans tend to make mistakes, even repeatedly, even with the best training. The 737MAX disaster is a terrible outlier that shouldn't obfuscate the fact that in the last 50 years or so, airline fatalities have dropped by an order of magnitude, even thought miles traveled have increased by a similar magnitude. Combining the two: air travel today is 50 to 100x safer than it was in the golden age of piloting so many seem to glorify.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
If flying becomes boring, it becomes a tedious job that requires a lot of mental fortitude to slog through. Boring jobs are dangerous, because human beings don’t do boring very well. And I think we’ve already reached that point in aviation, as much of the work has been offloaded to automated systems, making it easy for attention to doze elsewhere, and making transitions to where manual intervention is unexpectedly required even more difficult. It’s the same with self driving cars: the only safe options seem to be no automation and all automation since humans simply don’t do boring very well.
- darawk 7y ago
  This is a very strange perspective to me. Clearly making flying boring has tremendously reduced the number of incidents. Certainly it's true that making something boring will increase the incident rate...but what's overwhelmingly clear from the data is that the reduction in incidents from all that automation dwarfs that effect.
  - mpweiher 7y ago
    The problem is that both statements are true. Yes, we want flying to be as boring as possible, and yes making flying this boring has been the result of the amazing success of making flying safe. Yes, with flying so boring, when something exciting does happen it's in many senses more of a problem. This is a, maybe the fundamental dilemma in aviation safety today. Part of the solution is lots and lots of simulator training. Which of course is a problem when the manufacturer claims that there is no need for simulator training, because everything is exactly the same.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Boring for the passenger doesn’t mean boring for the pilot. A bus driver has to drive the bus, it’s routine yet never the same thing, their day goes by pretty fast. Compare to someone watching over an automated train...it’s just time they spend twiddling their thumbs, time crawls, they get really bored. Flying is becoming less like flying a bus and more like supervising an automated train, and that is what is dangerous. When something unusual happens, the pilots are surprised and unable to adjust quickly, because unusual isn’t usual. Of course, if unusual happens all the time, or is too out of the norm, you are pretty screwed, exciting is more dangerous than boring, but it doesn’t make boring less dangerous.
      - mantap 7y ago
        Pilots still have a lot to do, they must monitor the radios, the weather, fuel, etc. Since plenty of accidents have been caused by not paying attention to these things, I don't think you can say that having more time to do them is a bad thing. If there is a lack of manual flying ability it is entirely due to culture and not the aircraft. Pilots can and do turn off the autopilot if they want to practice, and most landings are done manually because it is softer.
briandear 7y ago
> Never mind that at least one of the captains was trained in the US. Point of fact, that captain did initial private pilot training in San Carlos in Cessnas — his airline training was at the airline. “US trained” in this context is similar to a doctor being “US trained” because he did an undergraduate degree in the US but his medical degree somewhere else.
plemer 7y ago
>If your pilot has a chance to become a hero, the system has already failed. Very well said.
- bwilli123 7y ago
  Isn’t that question also true for any large Corporation?
endymi0n 7y ago
Exactly this. The Langewiesche legacy goes back to his father Wolfgang Langewiesche, who is also a terrific writer, incidentally about probably still the best book about flying fixed wings, Stick and Rudder (1936). But flying has moved on a lot since then. Although I also appreciate "The story of Mel", computing has moved on so far from moving some bits and bytes on a drum memory, that I absolutely prefer someone writing readable code today to someone who produces unreadable, but performant code (spare a few niches of inner loop optimization). The same goes for flying back now and then. When there's not just "Stick and Rudder" in a modern airplane, but caring for massively diverse aspects such as ATC, passenger air quality, airspace control or fuel optimization, I don't need specialists. I need competent generalists. Of course it makes for a nice hero story if a pilot just makes it to the runway because they took an airliner into a forward slip like the Gimli Glider, but the point is that they absolutely should not have to. Humans are not meant for sensing to fly. The average VFR pilot loses not just orientation, but control over the airplane an average of around 178 seconds (!) after going into a cloud. We need less heroes and more engineers who can build reliable automated safety systems.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  (Explanation for anybody who isn't a pilot or up to their nose in this stuff:) VFR is Visual Flight Rules, meaning the pilot's training and the paperwork qualifying them to fly is only for when you can see where you're going. The other case is IFR Instrument Flight Rules, which means you need to learn to ignore your brain's guess as to where it is and how it's moving and trust the (redundant but not necessarily infallible) instruments to tell you what's happening. You still look outside the plane, because there might be something important to see (e.g. geese!) but you mostly are scanning your instruments, seeking confirmation that everything continues to be good, the instruments don't disagree with each other or with the pilot's understanding of what's supposed to be happening. VFR qualified pilots are not supposed to go near clouds at all. The exact distances vary depending on where the plane is exactly (low, slow flying planes get to be closer than higher, fast moving planes) but the general principle is that you need to stay so far from all clouds that you can easily see anything coming out of a cloud and avoid it entirely, since under VFR you are relying primarily on what you can see. Unfortunately they sometimes stray into clouds, and 178 seconds isn't very long. Obviously the people flying a Max will all be IFR qualified (the commercial pilot licensing doesn't have a VFR option) but the parent's point is true anyway - we are already training pilots not to try to fly by instinct because humans do not have appropriate instincts for flying, we are earthbound.
x220 7y ago
>There also seems to be a certain, somewhat outdated, concept of masculinity at play here. Jesus Christ. If "airplane mastery" is what we call outdated masculinity, I really worry for what else is left in store for our rotting culture. Is it outdated to expect competence? Sully demands competence from pilots and careful design from manufacturers. That should go without saying. >And, of course, combining these expectations with stereotypes of African and Asian companies (and people) These stereotypes were correct because of cultural norms. In certain cultures it's wrong to correct your superior, even if his mistake will crash your plane.
reacweb 7y ago
Flying is boring when everything works well. I remember a story from a friend, a pilot of an airline that was going to sell all its aircraft of a model. 6 month before the sell, the preventive maintenance was reduced to only the legal minimum. In each flight during this 6 month, my friend has encountered technical issues (sometimes as severe as a broken reactor). IMHO, the role of a pilot is to keep a cool head to analyze faults with sometimes slight symptoms and find the right answers occasionally in opposition to the manual. That's also why I want the pilot to be in the same aircraft as me (no remote piloting).
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
My takeaway from the letter is that pilots should be at the top of there game at all times, and one shouldn't be cheap when building an airplane. Blaming pilots for a shoddy aircraft is weak sauce, and Sulli wantd us to know that.
xNal 7y ago
This is completely wrong. If you watch air crash investigation, the majority of pilots who saved planes under extreme circumstances were fixed wing enthusiasts, often flew small planes or gliders for fun. Especially in situations like the MAX crashes you need a feeling for the aircraft. I'm astonished what this has to do with masculinity, which is of course not outdated (watch who women date ...).
mcguire 7y ago
"Namely: that being a pilot should not just be someone's job, but their calling. To use a weird phrase I once saw here, they are supposed to be "fixed-wing enthusiasts"." Rotary-wing enthusiasts are just crazy. Everybody knows that.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

If flying becomes boring, it becomes a tedious job that requires a lot of mental fortitude to slog through. Boring jobs are dangerous, because human beings don’t do boring very well. And I think we’ve already reached that point in aviation, as much of the work has been offloaded to automated systems, making it easy for attention to doze elsewhere, and making transitions to where manual intervention is unexpectedly required even more difficult. It’s the same with self driving cars: the only safe options seem to be no automation and all automation since humans simply don’t do boring very well.

darawk 7y ago
This is a very strange perspective to me. Clearly making flying boring has tremendously reduced the number of incidents. Certainly it's true that making something boring will increase the incident rate...but what's overwhelmingly clear from the data is that the reduction in incidents from all that automation dwarfs that effect.
- mpweiher 7y ago
  The problem is that both statements are true. Yes, we want flying to be as boring as possible, and yes making flying this boring has been the result of the amazing success of making flying safe. Yes, with flying so boring, when something exciting does happen it's in many senses more of a problem. This is a, maybe the fundamental dilemma in aviation safety today. Part of the solution is lots and lots of simulator training. Which of course is a problem when the manufacturer claims that there is no need for simulator training, because everything is exactly the same.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Boring for the passenger doesn’t mean boring for the pilot. A bus driver has to drive the bus, it’s routine yet never the same thing, their day goes by pretty fast. Compare to someone watching over an automated train...it’s just time they spend twiddling their thumbs, time crawls, they get really bored. Flying is becoming less like flying a bus and more like supervising an automated train, and that is what is dangerous. When something unusual happens, the pilots are surprised and unable to adjust quickly, because unusual isn’t usual. Of course, if unusual happens all the time, or is too out of the norm, you are pretty screwed, exciting is more dangerous than boring, but it doesn’t make boring less dangerous.
    - mantap 7y ago
      Pilots still have a lot to do, they must monitor the radios, the weather, fuel, etc. Since plenty of accidents have been caused by not paying attention to these things, I don't think you can say that having more time to do them is a bad thing. If there is a lack of manual flying ability it is entirely due to culture and not the aircraft. Pilots can and do turn off the autopilot if they want to practice, and most landings are done manually because it is softer.

briandear 7y ago

> Never mind that at least one of the captains was trained in the US. Point of fact, that captain did initial private pilot training in San Carlos in Cessnas — his airline training was at the airline. “US trained” in this context is similar to a doctor being “US trained” because he did an undergraduate degree in the US but his medical degree somewhere else.

plemer 7y ago

>If your pilot has a chance to become a hero, the system has already failed. Very well said.

bwilli123 7y ago
Isn’t that question also true for any large Corporation?

endymi0n 7y ago

Exactly this. The Langewiesche legacy goes back to his father Wolfgang Langewiesche, who is also a terrific writer, incidentally about probably still the best book about flying fixed wings, Stick and Rudder (1936). But flying has moved on a lot since then. Although I also appreciate "The story of Mel", computing has moved on so far from moving some bits and bytes on a drum memory, that I absolutely prefer someone writing readable code today to someone who produces unreadable, but performant code (spare a few niches of inner loop optimization). The same goes for flying back now and then. When there's not just "Stick and Rudder" in a modern airplane, but caring for massively diverse aspects such as ATC, passenger air quality, airspace control or fuel optimization, I don't need specialists. I need competent generalists. Of course it makes for a nice hero story if a pilot just makes it to the runway because they took an airliner into a forward slip like the Gimli Glider, but the point is that they absolutely should not have to. Humans are not meant for sensing to fly. The average VFR pilot loses not just orientation, but control over the airplane an average of around 178 seconds (!) after going into a cloud. We need less heroes and more engineers who can build reliable automated safety systems.

tialaramex 7y ago
(Explanation for anybody who isn't a pilot or up to their nose in this stuff:) VFR is Visual Flight Rules, meaning the pilot's training and the paperwork qualifying them to fly is only for when you can see where you're going. The other case is IFR Instrument Flight Rules, which means you need to learn to ignore your brain's guess as to where it is and how it's moving and trust the (redundant but not necessarily infallible) instruments to tell you what's happening. You still look outside the plane, because there might be something important to see (e.g. geese!) but you mostly are scanning your instruments, seeking confirmation that everything continues to be good, the instruments don't disagree with each other or with the pilot's understanding of what's supposed to be happening. VFR qualified pilots are not supposed to go near clouds at all. The exact distances vary depending on where the plane is exactly (low, slow flying planes get to be closer than higher, fast moving planes) but the general principle is that you need to stay so far from all clouds that you can easily see anything coming out of a cloud and avoid it entirely, since under VFR you are relying primarily on what you can see. Unfortunately they sometimes stray into clouds, and 178 seconds isn't very long. Obviously the people flying a Max will all be IFR qualified (the commercial pilot licensing doesn't have a VFR option) but the parent's point is true anyway - we are already training pilots not to try to fly by instinct because humans do not have appropriate instincts for flying, we are earthbound.

x220 7y ago

>There also seems to be a certain, somewhat outdated, concept of masculinity at play here. Jesus Christ. If "airplane mastery" is what we call outdated masculinity, I really worry for what else is left in store for our rotting culture. Is it outdated to expect competence? Sully demands competence from pilots and careful design from manufacturers. That should go without saying. >And, of course, combining these expectations with stereotypes of African and Asian companies (and people) These stereotypes were correct because of cultural norms. In certain cultures it's wrong to correct your superior, even if his mistake will crash your plane.

reacweb 7y ago

Flying is boring when everything works well. I remember a story from a friend, a pilot of an airline that was going to sell all its aircraft of a model. 6 month before the sell, the preventive maintenance was reduced to only the legal minimum. In each flight during this 6 month, my friend has encountered technical issues (sometimes as severe as a broken reactor). IMHO, the role of a pilot is to keep a cool head to analyze faults with sometimes slight symptoms and find the right answers occasionally in opposition to the manual. That's also why I want the pilot to be in the same aircraft as me (no remote piloting).

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

My takeaway from the letter is that pilots should be at the top of there game at all times, and one shouldn't be cheap when building an airplane. Blaming pilots for a shoddy aircraft is weak sauce, and Sulli wantd us to know that.

xNal 7y ago

This is completely wrong. If you watch air crash investigation, the majority of pilots who saved planes under extreme circumstances were fixed wing enthusiasts, often flew small planes or gliders for fun. Especially in situations like the MAX crashes you need a feeling for the aircraft. I'm astonished what this has to do with masculinity, which is of course not outdated (watch who women date ...).

mcguire 7y ago

"Namely: that being a pilot should not just be someone's job, but their calling. To use a weird phrase I once saw here, they are supposed to be "fixed-wing enthusiasts"." Rotary-wing enthusiasts are just crazy. Everybody knows that.