4 ms·

I'm surprised a computer assisted landing sequence can't _increase_ the rate of landed planes, though I assume doing so would require subordinating all the inbo

I'm surprised a computer assisted landing sequence can't _increase_ the rate of landed planes, though I assume doing so would require subordinating all the inbound aircraft to the local traffic control system.

Analemma_ 3y ago
The problem with having computer separation be less than pilot separation is, what happens if the computers fail and the pilots have to take over? Then they're suddenly in a situation where they're already below whatever the minimum safe pilot separation is, and now you've potentially turned a recoverable failure into an unrecoverable one. If the whole point of having pilots is to be backups for the computers, the computer situation has to have more margin than the equivalent pilot one, even if efficiency is being left on the table. (The only way around this is to not have pilots as backup, and turn the whole thing over to the computers, but we're not ready or willing to take that step yet)
- mjevans 3y ago
  'go around' but with different registered abort vectors / plans. Also if any unit within the stack falls out of automatic mode the entire chain gets cleared; if there's sufficient window for the pilots to declare emergency manual landing they can maintain the path as everything else aborts and the failed unit lands.
p_l 3y ago
Considering that only one runway (28R, IIRC) at SFO even winks in direction of supporting autoland, and there's no continental USA support for controller-pilot datalink (only used for oceanic flight), at least outside of test flights (correctme if I'm wrong, not an expert here). On top of that current CPDLC doesn't seem to be as well integrated to autopilot support other than pilots acking each command, and then I do not think Mode S is mandated (or exact enough) to provide good enough separation.

4 ms·

I'm surprised a computer assisted landing sequence can't _increase_ the rate of landed planes, though I assume doing so would require subordinating all the inbo

by mjevans 3y ago

Analemma_ 3y ago
The problem with having computer separation be less than pilot separation is, what happens if the computers fail and the pilots have to take over? Then they're suddenly in a situation where they're already below whatever the minimum safe pilot separation is, and now you've potentially turned a recoverable failure into an unrecoverable one. If the whole point of having pilots is to be backups for the computers, the computer situation has to have more margin than the equivalent pilot one, even if efficiency is being left on the table. (The only way around this is to not have pilots as backup, and turn the whole thing over to the computers, but we're not ready or willing to take that step yet)
- mjevans 3y ago
  'go around' but with different registered abort vectors / plans. Also if any unit within the stack falls out of automatic mode the entire chain gets cleared; if there's sufficient window for the pilots to declare emergency manual landing they can maintain the path as everything else aborts and the failed unit lands.
p_l 3y ago
Considering that only one runway (28R, IIRC) at SFO even winks in direction of supporting autoland, and there's no continental USA support for controller-pilot datalink (only used for oceanic flight), at least outside of test flights (correctme if I'm wrong, not an expert here). On top of that current CPDLC doesn't seem to be as well integrated to autopilot support other than pilots acking each command, and then I do not think Mode S is mandated (or exact enough) to provide good enough separation.