Turkish Aircrash

[frankv74]

This just goes to show use all that computer are no always correct and are not always the answer to make things safe.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR6YPFIeemE

[HOLMES]

Oh MY ...that was terrifying just watching the simulated crash....

[yardbird78]

That is a perfect example of why I don't trust automatic landing systems on airplanes. There needs to be a human in control at that critical phase of operations.

Darwin

[11bee]

That is a perfect example of why I don't trust automatic landing systems on airplanes. There needs to be a human in control at that critical phase of operations.

Darwin

I guarantee that there has been an order of magnitude more crashes caused by human error than caused by computer error. If I had to choose only one method of flight, I'd stick with the machine every time.

The best method is to have a competent human closely monitoring the automation. In this case, the entire system broke down.

Did you not hear that old joke about the flight crew of the next generation airliner consisting of a pilot and a dog. The pilots' job was to monitor the autopilot, the dogs' job was to bite the pilot if he tried touch anything :D

Regards,

John

[ventura_kelley]

I guarantee that there has been an order of magnitude more crashes caused by human error than caused by computer error. If I had to choose only one method of flight, I'd stick with the machine every time.

Order of magnitude? Is that because machines are better or because humans have been in control for hundreds of years and the machines only a few?

And here's the other thing...Humans make the machines.

When people are flying jets, one human error in a cockpit might crash a jet or two.

When machines are flying the jets, one human error on a drawing board, an assembly line, or in writing the program running the computer puts a whole fleet of aircraft in jeopardy. The 737 rudder reversal/hardover issue for example.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/737/

And the company that made the part has a HUGE financial incentive not only not to fix it, but to wait until it's killed several hundred people before even admitting there might be a problem that needs to be "studied".

Putting machines in control doesn't eliminate the chance for error; it shifts the cause from the cockpit to a drafting table, manufacturing facility, and boardroom; it usually makes the error less recoverable and more fatal because the system is designed under the mistaken belief that the people in the cockpit are more fallible than the system they're supposed to control; and it magnifies the devastation the error causes.

For example:

Machines should only be a supplement to, not a replacement of, human beings.

[LanceB]

This just goes to show use all that computer are no always correct and are not always the answer to make things safe.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR6YPFIeemE

There is that, but the message I got was "people weren't doing their jobs". RadAlt is showing MINUS 8 feet in altitude, in other words, the plane is subterranean, the crew had alarms go off FIVE times even before we get to the landing part, and they STILL didn't fix things. Nose pitches up - and the crew "doesn't notice". You have a copilot at the controls, an instructor pilot watching him, a safety pilot seated right behind both of them - six eyeballs, three brains, four hands and four feet to work the controls, and they still got it wrong.

But hey, "It's the machine's fault", right?

Edited May 18, 2010 by LanceB

[11bee]

Order of magnitude? Is that because machines are better or because humans have been in control for hundreds of years and the machines only a few?

And here's the other thing...Humans make the machines.

When people are flying jets, one human error in a cockpit might crash a jet or two.

I respectfully disagree. You provided a valid example of a crash that was due to mechanical error. As a counterpoint, I'll provide the Colgan Air / Buffalo crash. 100% crew error. I can match any mechanical failure with multiple crashes due to human error.

It is pretty rare that a plane falls out of the sky because something broke (especially nowadays). It is much more common for a plane to fly into a mountain in the dark (American Airlines - Columbia) or hit the ground while trying to land during a severe thunderstorm (Delta Airlines - Dallas, TX) or run out of fuel due to crew negligence / communication issues (Avianca - NY). The list goes on and on.

Regards,

John

[Pete "Pig" Fleischmann]

That is a perfect example of why I don't trust automatic landing systems on airplanes. There needs to be a human in control at that critical phase of operations.

Darwin

This is based on what? my 10000 hours of heavy jet airline experience reinforces the fact that the safest way to land a jet CAT II and CAT IIIA/B is to let the jet do it and have the pilots monitor. Treat the autopilots like an inexperienced copilot-trust but verify always. I can't land the jet zero/zero, but the autopilot can.

There is that, but the message I got was "people weren't doing their jobs". RadAlt is showing MINUS 8 feet in altitude, in other words, the plane is subterranean, the crew had alarms go off FIVE times even before we get to the landing part, and they STILL didn't fix things. Nose pitches up - and the crew "doesn't notice". You have a copilot at the controls, an instructor pilot watching him, a safety pilot seated right behind both of them - six eyeballs, three brains, four hands and four feet to work the controls, and they still got it wrong.

But hey, "It's the machine's fault", right?

You get it-I agree. The crew is still required to maintain aircraft control-even when all the automation is on. They are pilots, right? If the automation is screwing them up, turn it off and fly the jet! If they had simply turned the autopilot and autothrottles off and executed a proper recovery procedure, we wouldn't be having this discussion-

Pig

[ALF18]

This is based on what? my 10000 hours of heavy jet airline experience reinforces the fact that the safest way to land a jet CAT II and CAT IIIA/B is to let the jet do it and have the pilots monitor. Treat the autopilots like an inexperienced copilot-trust but verify always. I can't land the jet zero/zero, but the autopilot can.

You get it-I agree. The crew is still required to maintain aircraft control-even when all the automation is on. They are pilots, right? If the automation is screwing them up, turn it off and fly the jet! If they had simply turned the autopilot and autothrottles off and executed a proper recovery procedure, we wouldn't be having this discussion-

Pig

Pig

Totally agree with your responses. The number of times that a programming glitch in an autopilot or FMS has caused problems is very small. Given the extensive testing that happens during certification of avionics packages, the chances of something major existing undetected are nearly zero. To me, two types of problems can exist during the use of automated systems:

1. Pilot error in inputs or control of automation. During the early years of Airbus introduction into Air Canada, some of my buddies learning on the 320 told me stories about experienced crews asking "what's it doing now?" This was always attributed to an entry error into the FMS or selection of the wrong mode by the pilots, which surprised them.

2. A bona-fide error in the programming that has been exposed in a condition that was not properly tested during certification. This is very rare, and usually not severe, and if alert pilots are monitoring the systems, can be corrected quickly with a manual override.

I've instructed on non-automated and automated jets in the military, and on business jets with extensive automation in the civilian world. I can tell you many horror stories about human error in manual flying. I can also tell stories about pilots unfamiliar with a new type making errors programming the automation or selecting the wrong mode. I can definitely say, though, that automated systems operated by a vigilant and competent pilot are by far the safest means to operate any aircraft.

Two-pilot aircraft operators usually have procedural means of ensuring correct data entry. When I taught on the Challenger 604, the pilot not flying (PNF) would modify the FMS, but before pushing the execute button the Pilot Flying (PF) would have to review the inputs and agree to execute them. This ensured an input error would be highly unlikely. The PF and PNF would clearly communicate mode changes (such as transition between heading select and lateral navigation where the autopilot would follow a path rather than a fixed heading), and both pilots were responsible to monitor the modes to make sure the right ones were active.

On the CF-18 Hornet, on a dark and dirty night, the safest approach available was a coupled (autopilot on) ILS approach with autothrottles active until decision height. If ever presented with an emergency situation where I had no fuel to go anywhere else, and NORAD had sent me airborne in below-minimums weather for operational reasons, I planned to allow the automation to fly the aircraft almost to ground impact. Not legal, but when your options include that or eject, I was personally comfortable with that option. During good weather, I sometimes tried this while being ready to take over manually with visual references, and the automation flew the Hornet very nicely to a perfect touchdown position on the runway.

I've also taught very low visibility approaches in the business jets; these are by far safer when flown automated.

The vast majority of crashes that do not involve catastrophic mechanical failures have crew error as major contributors. Using automation is the best way to ensure the aircraft is flown accurately.

I'm not comfortable with the concept of a pilotless cockpit (a la robot taxi driver in a Schwarzenegger movie, or Blaine the Monorail from the Steven King Dark Tower series); I do think that we may get one day to a single pilot monitoring all the automation; for now two competent pilots monitoring automated systems is the safest way to go.

ALF

[ventura_kelley]

I'm not comfortable with the concept of a pilotless cockpit (a la robot taxi driver in a Schwarzenegger movie, or Blaine the Monorail from the Steven King Dark Tower series); I do think that we may get one day to a single pilot monitoring all the automation; for now two competent pilots monitoring automated systems is the safest way to go.

ALF

Here's the primary problem.

They let kids use calculators in school now. They didn't when I was in school.

I'm tutoring a 7th grader in math. TRY GETTING ONE OF THESE KIDS TO DO THEIR MATH WITHOUT THEIR MACHINES. It's dang near impossible. Like pulling teeth. And they trust the answers it gives them even when the answers don't make sense. 14/7=45911? Really? "Well, that's what it says!"

Cooking is another example. Before the microwave, you were more likely than not to meet people who knew how to cook, at least well enough to survive. Today? This is the first girlfriend I've had since the 90's (20 freaking years) who has any idea how to operate a stove.

Computers are another example. How many times does Windows have to crash the planet before people wake the hell up and realize that the systems they're trusting for everything are garbage? Yet more cities, more government, more business computers than ever are using Windows. And the spyware, malware, botware, adware, and virusware keeps increasing at exponential rates. AND ALMOST NONE OF THE PEOPLE HAVE ANY IDEA HOW TO FIX IT BECAUSE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THE FREAKING THING WORKS.

And that's what I see happening in this Turkish Air Crash. Almost total faith in a system that wasn't working correctly. Even when the system tried to warn them it wasn't functioning correctly, they STILL trusted it.

The more reliant pilots get on their technology, the more we're going to see that.

Here pretty soon, almost all of their training will be how to operate their computers, instead of how to fly their freaking jets. Unless of course someone is about to pass a law that drastically increases training requirements for airline pilots (and the associated costs), so that they're spending as much time learning to fly as they were in the past, PLUS the time they need to learn how to operate the computers, PLUS the time they need to learn how to fix the computers so they know how they fail and what to do about it...Yea right.

Oh wait. Fly by wire. The computer fails and you can't fly the freaking jets anymore. Like that F-16 that had the midair at Pope AFB with the C-130. Destroy the flight control computer and all you can do is bail out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Ramp_disaster

But the C-130 (built back in 1968) landed safely.

Except airliners don't have ejection seats.

We had two pilots come back in manual reversion (flying the A-10 Warthog using only their trim tabs to move the control surfaces). The seat-of-the-pants low-tech old timer landed safely. The young high-tech-hot-shot cartwheeled and a buddy of mine found his head still in his helmet 500 feet from the crash during a FOD walk for body parts afterward.

The guy that landed that 767 dead-stick was a glider pilot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

Sullenberger, who landed that Airbus in the Hudson, also a glider pilot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesley_Sullenberger

The pilots that survive aren't dependent on their technology. It's a tool they use to augment (not replace) inherent abilities.

People do stupid things. Always have. Add technology to the mix and it always gets worse. For whatever multiplication of abilities the technology offers, the multiplication of errors is equally as large.

Going from a hammer and nail to a nail gun is a huge improvement in capability. However, whatever you could screw up with a hammer and a nail, the nail gun increases that ability to screw up as much as it improves your ability to do the job right.

[ventura_kelley]

I respectfully disagree. You provided a valid example of a crash that was due to mechanical error. As a counterpoint, I'll provide the Colgan Air / Buffalo crash. 100% crew error. I can match any mechanical failure with multiple crashes due to human error.

It is pretty rare that a plane falls out of the sky because something broke (especially nowadays). It is much more common for a plane to fly into a mountain in the dark (American Airlines - Columbia) or hit the ground while trying to land during a severe thunderstorm (Delta Airlines - Dallas, TX) or run out of fuel due to crew negligence / communication issues (Avianca - NY). The list goes on and on.

Regards,

John

We used to have a saying on the flightline that sort of backed up your belief in the maintenance record of aircraft. "Takes a college education to break 'em and a high school degree to put them back together".

But that's a double edged sword. Sure the tech has gotten better. Especially materials tech. Engines used to last 500 hours before overhaul and now they last thousands of hours. Range wasn't just limited in the "good old days" by fuel consumption, it was also limited by engine life.

The problem with the improvement is two-fold.

First off, there's an ever increasing demand that it also becomes cheaper to increase profitability, often at the cost of catastrophic reliability, coupled with a corporate fiscal incentive to avoid liability for any failures of the tech or to implement solutions for those failures AND an environment where regulation is being weakened or decreased to near ineffectiveness (737 rudders for example).

Second, the people that designed, operate, and worse, regulate, the technology have total faith in it's infallibility (737 and Toyota).

From the flight line, my experience has been that pilots trust their airplanes. Their mechanics don't.

[TaiidanTomcat]

And whats with this dang internet? Back in my day we had carrier pigeons and I didn't hear anyone complaining!

Now to take the airplane to the library to look up your corn growin chart, it cost a nickle. But we didn't call them nickles, we called them "bees". "gimme five bees for a quarter" you'd say. Anyway I tied an onion to my belt which was the style at the time...

The demand to make things cheaper, better, faster is not exactly new Kelley. Aviation has traditionally been massively expensive while at the same time consisting of parts "built by the lowest bidder"

Everyday thousands of aircraft that use fly by wire take off and land safely. Its kind of a miracle really, something science can't explain.

Kelley are you actually saying that had the F-16 not had Fly-by-wire the whole incident would have never happened? Its a mid air. Fly by wire isn't even mentioned in the wikipedia article you sited. from the article:

"As the aircraft began to disintegrate, however, showering the runway and a road which ran around the runway with debris, both F-16 crew members ejected"

how does fly by wire have anything to do with that?

Again from the wiki article you posted:

"A subsequent U.S. Air Force investigation placed most of the blame for the accident on the military and civilian air traffic controllers working Pope air traffic that day. A later investigation, however, stated that pilot error by the F-16 pilots also contributed to the mishap."

Read Kelley.

Edited May 18, 2010 by TaiidanTomcat

[ventura_kelley]

And whats with this dang internet? Back in my day we had carrier pigeons and I didn't hear anyone complaining!

Billy Crystal had a hilarious stand up routine about his grandfather saying stuff like that.

[Winnie]

There is that, but the message I got was "people weren't doing their jobs". RadAlt is showing MINUS 8 feet in altitude, in other words, the plane is subterranean, the crew had alarms go off FIVE times even before we get to the landing part, and they STILL didn't fix things. Nose pitches up - and the crew "doesn't notice". You have a copilot at the controls, an instructor pilot watching him, a safety pilot seated right behind both of them - six eyeballs, three brains, four hands and four feet to work the controls, and they still got it wrong.

But hey, "It's the machine's fault", right?

AS they say: BS in, BS out!

The crew did not operate the equipment properly, the computer was doing what it was told, simple as that.

That the crew was incompetent (or acting incompetently) has nothing to do with the "computers" taking over, or doing something wrong. I might not be a 737 pilot, but I am still a commercial pilot, and know when I program my equipment eroneously, it will not take me where I want to go...

Cheers

H.

[TaiidanTomcat]

We had two pilots come back in manual reversion (flying the A-10 Warthog using only their trim tabs to move the control surfaces). The seat-of-the-pants low-tech old timer landed safely. The young high-tech-hot-shot cartwheeled and a buddy of mine found his head still in his helmet 500 feet from the crash during a FOD walk for body parts afterward.

What made him a "high tech hot shot"? They were flying the same aircraft type, how was he relying on technology? did he get a text message or something?

Couldn't it simply be inexperience?

Couldnt a young pilot with glider experience do what Captain Sully did just as well?

[ventura_kelley]

And whats with this dang internet? Back in my day we had carrier pigeons and I didn't hear anyone complaining!

Now to take the airplane to the library to look up your corn growin chart, it cost a nickle. But we didn't call them nickles, we called them "bees". "gimme five bees for a quarter" you'd say. Anyway I tied an onion to my belt which was the style at the time...

The demand to make things cheaper, better, faster is not exactly new Kelley. Aviation has traditionally been massively expensive while at the same time consisting of parts "built by the lowest bidder"

Everyday thousands of aircraft that use fly by wire take off and land safely. Its kind of a miracle really, something science can't explain.

Kelley are you actually saying that had the F-16 not had Fly-by-wire the whole incident would have never happened? Its a mid air. Fly by wire isn't even mentioned in the wikipedia article you sited. from the article:

"As the aircraft began to disintegrate, however, showering the runway and a road which ran around the runway with debris, both F-16 crew members ejected"

how does fly by wire have anything to do with that?

Again from the wiki article you posted:

"A subsequent U.S. Air Force investigation placed most of the blame for the accident on the military and civilian air traffic controllers working Pope air traffic that day. A later investigation, however, stated that pilot error by the F-16 pilots also contributed to the mishap."

Read Kelley.

I did. I was there when it happened and helped clean up afterward.

The F-16 rear ended the 130 knocking most of the horizontal stab off the 130 and damaging the nose of the F-16, which is where the Flight control computer of the 16 is. So after impact, the only control they had left was the throttle. They firewalled the throttle to try to keep the jet from impacting the flightline/hangers and punched out, landing near the ops building IIRC. The nose of the 16 was out by the fence. The "debris" the 16 shedded on that road by the flightline was the canopy. Almost everything else was 130 tail debris.

Ever see that picture of the RF-101A/C's that collided over Vietnam? Page 46 of Modern Military Aircraft, Voodoo, By Lou Drendel and Paul Stevens. Good luck trying to recover a 16 like that.

My exact words were:

"Fly by wire. The computer fails and you can't fly the freaking jets anymore."

So, what I'm obviously saying is that you don't fly a fly by wire jet when the computer that controls the jet is destroyed.

Read Tallidan.

[ventura_kelley]

Wait a minute.

HTH did you read this:

Oh wait. Fly by wire. The computer fails and you can't fly the freaking jets anymore. Like that F-16 that had the midair at Pope AFB with the C-130. Destroy the flight control computer and all you can do is bail out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Ramp_disaster

And get this:

Kelley are you actually saying that had the F-16 not had Fly-by-wire the whole incident would have never happened? Its a mid air. Fly by wire isn't even mentioned in the wikipedia article you sited. from the article:

Either you're the one having trouble reading or you're trying to set up a straw man fallacy, which is a dishonest rhetorical strategy where you lie about what I said and then argue against your own lie.

[Pete "Pig" Fleischmann]

The F-16 Flight Control Computer System is 4 way redundant. Due to the negative static stability of the design, you can't fly the Viper without the FLCS. Period.

GLOC and CFIT have killed way more viper drivers than a 4-way failure of the FLCS.

These FBW designs are incredibly safe and reliable. I have thousands of hours in the F-16, A320, and 777..all FBW jets. I understand the system and their unique characteristics and limitations.

The argument of FBW vs. traditional control is uninformed and pointless. I can give you just as harrowing examples of how conventional flight control jets bought the farm due to a flight control failure..the best example is United 232; the DC-10 that crashed in Sioux City Iowa. Just like the miracle on the Hudson, flying skill made the difference. The superior airmanship demonstrated by Captain Al Haynes reduced the loss of life that day in Iowa.

And that's what it comes down to: Someone must always fly the jet.

Pig

Edited May 18, 2010 by Pete "Pig" Fleischmann

[ventura_kelley]

What made him a "high tech hot shot"? They were flying the same aircraft type, how was he relying on technology? did he get a text message or something?

Couldn't it simply be inexperience?

Couldnt a young pilot with glider experience do what Captain Sully did just as well?

Speaking entirely in generalizations, the young guys coming out of training all trusted the tech to fly. The old guys who started low tech (T-28's, T-33's, F-4's) all trusted their skill instead and used the tech as a tool. There's a big difference.

The young glider pilot would still have to be someone who gives up the technology of the motors. Even though glider aerodynamics and airframes are high tech, that's a low tech approach to flying. You have to understand the physics of it and rapidly adapt to changing situations based on that.

How many modern airline pilots believe that the chances that they'll ever be without at least one motor are too small for them to need to know how to fly a glider?

Try finding a Boeing 377 pilot that believes the same thing with the same conviction. I was at a museum a few months ago talking to a flight engineer from a 377, and from listening to him talk, he always flew with the belief that the technology would absolutely fail, and would absolutely fail catastrophically. He didn't just believe that engines (plural) would quit during a flight, he flew every single flight believing that it was more likely than not that they would fail right when you needed them most.

People like that don't give a fly by wire automatic landing system the kind of trust that the Turkish aircrew did.

The new guys have an attitude based on a misplaced trust in technology.

Instruments can flip you upside down and fly you into a hill. Just like those on the F-16 did before they took measures to deal with the worst of the wire chafing problems.

I have faith in one thing, and it's not technology.

[ventura_kelley]

The argument of FBW vs. traditional control is uninformed and pointless. I can give you just as harrowing examples of how conventional flight control jets bought the farm due to a flight control failure..the best example is United 232; the DC-10 that crashed in Sioux City Iowa. Just like the miracle on the Hudson, flying skill made the difference. The superior airmanship demonstrated by Captain Al Haynes reduced the loss of life that day in Iowa.

And that's what it comes down to: Someone must always fly the jet.

Pig

Exactly my point.

[Pete "Pig" Fleischmann]

Speaking entirely in generalizations, the young guys coming out of training all trusted the tech to fly. The old guys who started low tech (T-28's, T-33's, F-4's) all trusted their skill instead and used the tech as a tool. There's a big difference.

Kelley

Are you a professional pilot? Seriously. Not to be rude or condescending-but this is too big a generalization to be taken seriously... I think anyone who has been through military pilot training (even lately) would whole-heartedly disagree with you here.

A ride along during a typical six hour sim session at my airlines' training center would also illustrate how wrong this statement is.

Blind faith in technology did not bring Turkish Air down. Ignorance of the technology (see also lack of systems knowledge) and lack of airmanship did.

Regards,

Pig

Edited May 18, 2010 by Pete "Pig" Fleischmann

[ventura_kelley]

Kelley

Are you a professional pilot? Seriously. Not to be rude or condescending-but this is too big a generalization to be taken seriously... I think anyone who has been through military pilot training (even lately) would whole-heartedly disagree with you here.

A ride along during a typical six hour sim session at my airlines' training center would also illustrate how wrong this statement is.

Blind faith in technology did not bring Turkish Air down. Ignorance of the technology (see also lack of systems knowledge) and lack of airmanship did.

Regards,

Pig

Nope. Just work closely with professional pilots for 22 years.

Give you an example...

Early 90's, we had IR Mavericks, EO Mavs (cameras), and a fog problem.

The high-tech-hot-dogs all demanded at least one IR Mav on their jets at all times. When the Mav system didn't work, a lot of them would wind up lost and would land at God knows where. We were sending people TDY all the time to collect lost jets from all over the countryside.

The low-tech old guys all landed back at base unless visibility was below certain bare minimums for landing.

I asked a Colonel why once and he said that the high-tech hot dogs were using their IR mavs to try to see landmarks through the fog because the INS (inertial nav system) wasn't worth a toss. He and a few of the other old-timers, however, were proficient at plotting a course on a map using their compass, speed, and a clock.

Turn off the GPS and how many of today's fliers can competently do what the B-17 navigators did? GPS is much better, but how many people are proficient enough to operate aircraft using only the tech available in the 1930's? Lindberg flew the mail in an open cockpit, through snow storms at night, using 4 or 5 dial instruments, and still managed to find his way.

Technology makes a lot of people complacent and dependent and when it fails, they're up the creek.

I'm still dealing with old timers (vets and guys at the museum mostly) and new pilots, and there is definitely a trend to trust tech now that the old guys don't have.

Old guys talk about runaway props and engines falling off. New guys talk about quadruple redundancy and safety backups.

[KursadA]

Speaking entirely in generalizations, the young guys coming out of training all trusted the tech to fly. The old guys who started low tech (T-28's, T-33's, F-4's) all trusted their skill instead and used the tech as a tool. There's a big difference.

Interestingly the captain of the Turkish Airlines flight was a very experienced former Turkish Air Force flight instructor with more than 1000 hours on the T-33, and about 4000 hours on the F-4E Phantom; two of the three types you mentioned in your post. The other pilot was a 29-year old who probably would never have been given the chance to fly for a national carrier in the US.

Edited May 18, 2010 by KursadA

[Pete "Pig" Fleischmann]

Nope. Just work closely with professional pilots for 22 years.

Give you an example...

Early 90's, we had IR Mavericks, EO Mavs (cameras), and a fog problem.

The high-tech-hot-dogs all demanded at least one IR Mav on their jets at all times. When the Mav system didn't work, a lot of them would wind up lost and would land at God knows where. We were sending people TDY all the time to collect lost jets from all over the countryside.

The low-tech old guys all landed back at base unless visibility was below certain bare minimums for landing.

I asked a Colonel why once and he said that the high-tech hot dogs were using their IR mavs to try to see landmarks through the fog because the INS (inertial nav system) wasn't worth a toss. He and a few of the other old-timers, however, were proficient at plotting a course on a map using their compass, speed, and a clock.

Turn off the GPS and how many of today's fliers can competently do what the B-17 navigators did? GPS is much better, but how many people are proficient enough to operate aircraft using only the tech available in the 1930's? Lindberg flew the mail in an open cockpit, through snow storms at night, using 4 or 5 dial instruments, and still managed to find his way.

Technology makes a lot of people complacent and dependent and when it fails, they're up the creek.

I'm still dealing with old timers (vets and guys at the museum mostly) and new pilots, and there is definitely a trend to trust tech now that the old guys don't have.

Old guys talk about runaway props and engines falling off. New guys talk about quadruple redundancy and safety backups.

Not a pilot. Got it. Thank you. That's what I thought.

Pig

[ventura_kelley]

Not a pilot. Got it. Thank you. That's what I thought.

Pig

How does that matter?

I tell you about a trend that I'm noticing through a long term exposure to pilots related to their mistaken belief in the infallibility of their equipment and over reliance on that belief, which is a change in attitude that I've seen, and that's somehow invalid because I don't carry a card?

Isn't that a little closed minded?

If anybody is the most qualified to comment on the fallibility of the tech and mistaken beliefs about that, why wouldn't it would be the people that fixed it more so than the people that use it.

Commercial pilots crack open their black boxes to fix defects? Chase down chafed wires much? Stuff like that?

Just seems a little arrogant.