4 ms·

>> no one outside the airplane is going to bring the airplane safely to its next runway. That is the western pilot culture. Russian pilots have a different ap

>> no one outside the airplane is going to bring the airplane safely to its next runway. That is the western pilot culture. Russian pilots have a different approach. Rather than a lone pilot in control of "their" airplane, a Russian air force pilot is flying the people's airplane. In some situations nearly every action, every turn or switch, can be commanded by a ground controller. A western pilot will trust his over instruments over ground control. A Russian pilot will likely obey ground control over his own instruments. Neither culture is better or worse than the other, only different. Go back to the 1950s and 60s and military aircraft, even in the west, were literally controlled by ground control. Autopilots were cued by ground control computers, thereby freeing pilots to manage other systems such as early radars. An aircraft, particularly an interceptor like the FOXBAT, was seen less as an aircraft under control of a pilot than a missile platform, an airborne SAM site. Ground controllers could manage the radars and even fire missiles.

dotancohen 5y ago
Do you have any sources for that? It's fascinating, I've never heard that perspective before. But it does jibe will with the US vs Soviet space programs, in which the Astronaut Office (NASA) demanded that the pilot be able to actually pilot the craft in contrast to the Soviet spacecraft which were autonomous. Interestingly enough, just last week saw the first flight of a completely autonomous manned US spacecraft: The Inspiration-4 flight in a SpaceX Dragon. There was no professional astronaut pilot onboard, and the four tourist crewmembers had less than a year of training, I think closer to six months.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  Direct citations, not with me. But I know of at least one major crash caused by this difference in flying cultures. Two planes were on a collision course. The Russian plane listened to ATC, the western plane ignored ATC and instead listened to their collision avoidance instruments (TCAS). Both ended up taking the same avoidance action (as opposed to one going up and the other down) resulting in collision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision#TCAS_and_conflicting_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c... "The manual described TCAS as "a backup to the ATC system", which could be wrongly interpreted to mean that ATC instructions have higher priority.[5]: 80 [BFU 13] This ambiguity was replicated in the Tu-154 Flight Operations Manual, which contained contradictory sections. On the one hand, chapter 8.18.3.4 emphasised the role of ATC and describes TCAS as an "additional aid",[5]: 53 [BFU 14] while chapter 8.18.3.2 forbade manoeuvers contrary to TCAS.[5]: 103 The BFU recommended that this ambiguity should be resolved in favor of obeying TCAS advisories even when these were in conflict with ATC instructions."

dotancohen 5y ago

Do you have any sources for that? It's fascinating, I've never heard that perspective before. But it does jibe will with the US vs Soviet space programs, in which the Astronaut Office (NASA) demanded that the pilot be able to actually pilot the craft in contrast to the Soviet spacecraft which were autonomous. Interestingly enough, just last week saw the first flight of a completely autonomous manned US spacecraft: The Inspiration-4 flight in a SpaceX Dragon. There was no professional astronaut pilot onboard, and the four tourist crewmembers had less than a year of training, I think closer to six months.

sandworm101 5y ago
Direct citations, not with me. But I know of at least one major crash caused by this difference in flying cultures. Two planes were on a collision course. The Russian plane listened to ATC, the western plane ignored ATC and instead listened to their collision avoidance instruments (TCAS). Both ended up taking the same avoidance action (as opposed to one going up and the other down) resulting in collision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision#TCAS_and_conflicting_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c... "The manual described TCAS as "a backup to the ATC system", which could be wrongly interpreted to mean that ATC instructions have higher priority.[5]: 80 [BFU 13] This ambiguity was replicated in the Tu-154 Flight Operations Manual, which contained contradictory sections. On the one hand, chapter 8.18.3.4 emphasised the role of ATC and describes TCAS as an "additional aid",[5]: 53 [BFU 14] while chapter 8.18.3.2 forbade manoeuvers contrary to TCAS.[5]: 103 The BFU recommended that this ambiguity should be resolved in favor of obeying TCAS advisories even when these were in conflict with ATC instructions."