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Should AF 447 prompt a massive rethink?
It seems clear from the AF 447 tragedy that the time has come for a complete rethink about the Black box CVR (Cockpit voice Recorder) and maybe even who is in charge in Modern RPT.
As the story goes a frog being a cold blooded animal can be slowly cooked alive if the temperature of the water in the pot he is swimming in is slowly raised whereas if he is dropped into hot water he will jump out.
It could be that modern aviation is like the frog in the pot with the temperature slowly rising. Something very dangerous might be happening but complacency and inertia are preventing action.
Could it be that the AF 447 episode adequately analyzed will help us recognize that we need to jump out of this pot before many more die?
Many lurking suspicions are surfacing leading to much comment but little clarity.
Pilots in general have a real fear of excessive automation and this is a common thread in the AF 447 inspired debate.
Some say the control laws or the computers interfered with the pilot doing his job.
It is indeed a total night mare to any pilot to imagine oneself in a dark cockpit surrounded by blank screens or error signals while flying thru a violent storm.
The highly redundant systems of the airbus are intended to protect the pilot aircraft and passengers from structural failure and based on the statistically correct premise that pilots screw up more often than machines a number of mechanisms prevent pilots having the sort of ultimate control over the control surfaces of an Airbus that they would have in a small GA machine with mechanical controls.
The Apollo Astronaughts insisted that they have some final say in the control of the space craft in the face of much opposition and it is widely claimed that on more than one occasion the astronauts save the space vehicle when the automation either could not or worse was going to do stuff that would imperil the mission.
It is always a big call to say that you have thought thru all the failure modes and anticipated them when you are computerizing a process.
This debate will and should be revisited in the coming months.
So too will the matter of whether or not we should have real time data streaming from aircraft to ground bases. In the light of AF 447 it seems there is no longer any doubt that it should be done at least for high capacity RPT. It is said this involves less data that a mobile phone conversation. Why is it not so now?
Well maybe because aviation is very conservative and maybe because of the fear of litigation. Will more die because of the demon of litigation? Hopefully not but like so.
Another thought, however, surfaces which will cause an even greater squeal from Aviators and that is that we need to consider even more active strategies.
The Soviet Buran Space Shuttle was automated and flown from the ground.
As I write this piece pilots in the seated in comfy chairs in the USA are flying drones round Afghanistan photographing and killing people.
Maybe we should be planning to have remote control available in high capacity RPT.
The pilots could go along for on-the-spot intervention but it would be nice to have the further option. Having pilots drop dead at the controls might also help this line of logic along.
Over to you.