4 ms·
It baffles me that they need five pilots to accomplish this.
by mromanuk 4y ago
It baffles me that they need five pilots to accomplish this.
- rbanffy 4y agoI imagine it's for an abundance of caution, as they are flying these planes way outside what their normal operations manual recommends. I assume a 320 NEO or a 737 MAX would slap the hand of the pilot if they attempted to go for a +50 degree climb and scream expletives in the voice alert system.
- 6stringmerc 4y agoOkay you just gave me a mental image of an Airbus autopilot system so angry at you it starts swearing in French. Totally agree with safety and ‘normal use case this is not’ situation.
- rbanffy 4y agoI thought about a cartoon robot articulated arm with a white glove trying to wrestle the control column from the pilot.
- a4isms 4y agoOr the autopilot computer ejects by itself with a small parachute. Very Looney Tunes!
- UI_at_80x24 4y agoDefaulting back to it's `native` language (of the programmers). That would be hilarious and should be on the next AirPlane spoof. Mel Brooks, where are you!
- a4isms 4y agoBombardiers will issue a stream of Québec sacres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity
- HPsquared 4y agoIt kind of does already: https://youtu.be/vmbzKsqKQoI#t=30s https://youtu.be/vmbzKsqKQoI#t=30s
- severine 4y ago"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
- Sohcahtoa82 4y agoWell...in MS Flight Simulator, I know the voice alerts will yell at you to warn you about terrain, of if your AoA is too great ("Sink rate!"). But they don't care about high climb angles until you eventually stall.
- nvusuvu 4y agoFTA "To fly a parabola takes 3 pilots working in concert. Two pilots sit in front of the control columns and a third sits in the center jump seat to manage the engines. When flying a parabola, one pilot is responsible for the pitch of the aircraft and the other for the roll. The pilot responsible for the roll of the aircraft actually has a modified control column in order to put as little pressure on the yoke as possible, allowing the pitch pilot to focus on the correct parabola timing." I think precise timing requires many pilots. Lots to keep track of in the name of science.
- bombcar 4y agoYeah doing a parabola is relatively easy. Doing a nearly perfect one to maximize weightlessness without overstressing something is harder, so having one pilot for each aspect makes sense. Another for radio and another for “general everything watching; the captain” makes sense.
- 6stringmerc 4y agoMy aviation family has a long history all the way back to training pilots for WWII (already highly experienced - too much so for combat) so my hunch is accuracy and redundancy. Under normal conditions, sure it’s a one time maneuver, within limits, etc. This is much more of a risk-laden undertaking with the repeated stress on the airframe, the human body, and so having individual attention on important individual tasks - with experience and brain computing speed machines still can’t match for a brilliant stick and yoke pilot in unexpected conditions - this is for safety. Also considering my background with French culture, I imagine the discussion went something like “we could do it with fewer personnel, but why? This works.”
- lm28469 4y agoYeah let's put Musk's autopilot in it and lose 20 people every few years when the plane get scared by the shadow of a cloud. That'll save money