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Most crashes happen due to pilot error, especially connected to the instruments. Something as simple as a bad from the six-pack of a small plane could be bad n

by bdg 14y ago

Most crashes happen due to pilot error, especially connected to the instruments. Something as simple as a bad from the six-pack of a small plane could be bad news (note: these are usually 100% mechanical systems). As a pilot of small aircraft, goofing up my instruments might help me tie the world record for "lowest flight ever". Something as simple as coordinating my turns with a bad indicator might make me go into a spin (I'm fairly inexperienced). I can only imagine what would happen to a big jet.

ajross 14y ago
There's a logical fallacy in there. Having access to the mechanism that causes "most accidents" only allows you to cause accidents with a frequency of the order with which those system failures cause accidents already. "Instrument-related pilot error" may (citation needed) cause "most accidents". There are still vanishingly few instrument-related pilot error accidents. (And in any case, ACARS isn't really an instrument, it's a datalink standard for communication with the outside world -- instruments internal to the aircraft don't use it.)
repiret 14y ago
You need your instructor to start covering up some instruments when you're flying. A typical single engine aircraft is pretty easy to fly without any instruments at all. That said, bad instrumentation can certainly take down a plane; Air France 447 was a combination of iced up pitot tubes (no air speed indicator) and bad piloting (incompetent stall recovery). HOWEVER, as a few other people have pointed out, this guy is only interfering with ADS-B and ACARS. Both of those are situational awareness tools, not flight instruments. I am aware of no commercial flight that has gone down due to a failure of situational awareness instruments. Taking out ADS-B and ACARS is no worse than taking out ground-based radar and VHF radios. People have known how to mess with radar and radios since their inception, but that hasn't posed a security risk for aviation. I expect ADS_B, ACARS and GPS vulnerabilities to be the same.
mikeash 14y ago
> Something as simple as coordinating my turns with a bad indicator might make me go into a spin (I'm fairly inexperienced). Please don't take any (more?) solo flights until you've remedied this. It should be possible for a pilot to safely fly a small aircraft with no instruments whatsoever in VMC. Instruments do fail, and you must be ready. If you'll spin just because your turn coordinator is wonky, you're not safe. I've lost airspeed, altitude, and turn coordination. (Not at the same time.) The airspeed one got very interesting due to several confounding factors all hitting at once, and the other two were non-events. I would not sit in a cockpit without an instructor if I wasn't confident that I could safely return to the ground even if the entire instrument panel went away. Large aircraft are different, but please, get better training on no-instrument flying in your small craft.

by bdg 14y ago

ajross 14y ago

There's a logical fallacy in there. Having access to the mechanism that causes "most accidents" only allows you to cause accidents with a frequency of the order with which those system failures cause accidents already. "Instrument-related pilot error" may (citation needed) cause "most accidents". There are still vanishingly few instrument-related pilot error accidents. (And in any case, ACARS isn't really an instrument, it's a datalink standard for communication with the outside world -- instruments internal to the aircraft don't use it.)

repiret 14y ago

You need your instructor to start covering up some instruments when you're flying. A typical single engine aircraft is pretty easy to fly without any instruments at all. That said, bad instrumentation can certainly take down a plane; Air France 447 was a combination of iced up pitot tubes (no air speed indicator) and bad piloting (incompetent stall recovery). HOWEVER, as a few other people have pointed out, this guy is only interfering with ADS-B and ACARS. Both of those are situational awareness tools, not flight instruments. I am aware of no commercial flight that has gone down due to a failure of situational awareness instruments. Taking out ADS-B and ACARS is no worse than taking out ground-based radar and VHF radios. People have known how to mess with radar and radios since their inception, but that hasn't posed a security risk for aviation. I expect ADS_B, ACARS and GPS vulnerabilities to be the same.

mikeash 14y ago

> Something as simple as coordinating my turns with a bad indicator might make me go into a spin (I'm fairly inexperienced). Please don't take any (more?) solo flights until you've remedied this. It should be possible for a pilot to safely fly a small aircraft with no instruments whatsoever in VMC. Instruments do fail, and you must be ready. If you'll spin just because your turn coordinator is wonky, you're not safe. I've lost airspeed, altitude, and turn coordination. (Not at the same time.) The airspeed one got very interesting due to several confounding factors all hitting at once, and the other two were non-events. I would not sit in a cockpit without an instructor if I wasn't confident that I could safely return to the ground even if the entire instrument panel went away. Large aircraft are different, but please, get better training on no-instrument flying in your small craft.