4 ms·
Two reasons, legal and technical. 1. the legal responsibility lies with the pilot(s); therefore there always needs to be an option to override or even shut dow
by Piskvorrr 12y ago
Two reasons, legal and technical.
1. the legal responsibility lies with the pilot(s); therefore there always needs to be an option to override or even shut down the computer
which is partly caused by
2. computers and their programs are anything but perfect; computer-assisted issues are usually resolved by human input ("speed is 253...254...255...oh look we're actually moving backwards, now what?!" "now we fly manually, you dumb toaster, because we're obviously not in the situation you think we are.").
In other words, "take control completely away from people and give it to automatics" is a recipe for a far more frequent trouble than an unpredictable outlier event.
- mavhc 12y agoDamn those ancient 9 bit aeroplane computers
- Piskvorrr 12y agoLOL. But seriously, stuff like that already happened, multiple times. Most famously, http://www.dailytech.com/Lockheeds+F22+Raptor+Gets+Zapped+by+International+Date+Line/article6225.htm http://www.dailytech.com/Lockheeds+F22+Raptor+Gets+Zapped+by...
- icebraining 12y agoI think (2) is overrated. Software used in critical situations already detects faulty readings based on various models that simulate the range of plausible values. It's only a matter of time until they're vastly more accurate than humans - if they aren't already.
- Piskvorrr 12y agoOf course they are - in most situations, and this is one of the things that makes commercial aviation so safe. Except when something very unexpected happens (e.g. not all sensor malfunctions can be distinguished from a reading that's outside of the usual range, yet plausible); in such situations, automatics disengage and people need to step in. In other words, you can only get so many reliability nines and still be profitable for mass transport (as opposed to, for example, Space Shuttle).