I'd be more likely to trust him with the stick.

Post #117,333 by mmoffitt 9/10/03 10:17:37 AM Reply	I'd be more likely to trust him with the stick. The interfaces for the electronics in the A-320, although improved, are not exactly what you'd call "intuitive". For instance, you have to look closely at the little display panels to make sure you're in the right "entry mode". That's what happened to the Lufthansa flight, they entered the right number -3.3 for 3.3 degree glide, but had inadvertently pressed another key before hand that caused the computer to read the -3.3 as a descent rate of 3,300ft/min. They saw the trees fill the windscreen but because of computer control, they could not pull up - the computer overrode their control inputs. So yeah, I do trust them with the yoke more than I trust them at data entry. They are, after all, pilots, not data entry clerks. It makes more sense to me to trust the pilot at flying the airplane - something they all have thousands of hours doing, than it does the unseen s/w engineers, chip manufacturers, a & p's who work on them (one accident was narrowly avoided when a mechanic accidently crossed two pins from the captain's control yoke making the inputs reversed, they nearly crashed on take-off), etc. If I'm completely honest, the truth is that if you fly in a composite aircraft and you get into the kind of turbulence that might cause structural failure, you're pretty much hosed. Assuming everything is okay with the software, connections, etc., the computer won't allow you to overstress aircraft even in an emergency situation. That's actually good in the case of composites because, as the passengers and crew of American 587 know too well, composites don't bend, they break. But hey, composite aircraft are cheaper to fly and it's all about the money isn't it? I said before I was "scared". On further reflection, that's a little too strong. I'm uncomfortable with idea of flying in that aircraft because I do not like its design and I do not like the material that is used to construct it. It has nothing to do with its track history. I guess I'm blurring my decision making process as a pilot with that I should use as a passenger. I am, perhaps wrongly, disturbed by the fact that if I were PIC in this case, my Go/No-Go decision would be No-Go. It also didn't help me to see American Airline pilots on a Discovery special saying they won't fly Airbuses (we have some ATP's at our field who say the same thing). I've pretty much decided to tell my wife about my thoughts and let her judge whether we should say anything to the others. We will probably not change a thing, and with every bump during the flight I'll drive my fingers deep into the armrests. Again, thanks for the input. bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #117,352 by a6l6e6x 9/10/03 2:31:12 PM Reply	But, ignorance is bliss! No one is more interested in a safe flight then the pilot, no matter what the plane is (Atta and such excepted). And, perhaps with more hours on the Airbus, the pilots are less likely to err in interacting with the controls. Telling your wife will only worry her unnecessarily. Maybe after your return home. Alex "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." -- last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)
Post #117,353 by mmoffitt 9/10/03 2:50:09 PM Reply	That's probably the best advice yet. But I probably wouldn't get away with it. Today is our 20th wedding anniversary and she knows me better than anyone. If I feel even the slightest trepidation about this flight, I could be in even more trouble for not talking about it up front. bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #117,355 by Steve Lowe 9/10/03 2:52:51 PM Reply	Congratulations Today is our 20th wedding anniversary and she knows me better than anyone. No mean feat in this day and age. ----- Steve
Post #117,356 by mmoffitt 9/10/03 2:55:32 PM Reply	Thank you. She is a saint for putting up with me this long, but you already deduced that from my posts, didn't you? ;-) bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #117,357 by a6l6e6x 9/10/03 2:57:40 PM Reply	Congratulations to you and Robin on your 20th! My wife and I celebrated out 42nd last Friday. Alex "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." -- last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)
Post #117,359 by mmoffitt 9/10/03 3:00:56 PM Reply	Wow, not that is impressive! Congratulations! bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #117,386 by Ashton 9/10/03 6:40:08 PM Reply	FWIW, I agree with your rationale implicitly.. I feel the same way about "electronics", having spent a couple careers watching both their random failures and.. the subtle mind-farts of the only Too-human designers.. ('Doze Anyone?). A particle accelerator complex is about as 'complex' as it gets, and employs the best techno around - across every 'physics' aspect of material strength, temperature, moving large & small objects (magnets, say) rapidly via hydraulics: often within a vacuum too.. yada yada Now.. re This Case: throw in the 'composite' Red Herring, cost-goals for that Corner Office, golf + the usual dissembling in any large org [NASA Anyone?] and - what do you get? I'd adopt a similar analysis to yours, of WHY, and stick with it: I AM responsible for what I have actively experienced, thus believe I may call 'Know'. As are you. My Experience - makes my doubts now often.. instinctual - as well as intellectual. YMMV. The FACT that that Lufthansa PILOT *COULD NOT* via any means - override a BAD FUCKING DATA ENTRY - means that he is - a FUCKING ACCOUNTANT IN FACT. S/He is NOT any longer A PILOT of ANYTHING. <<< I would not {knowingly} move my sorry ass into 3-D space: on any HAL-9000 with-ALL-HAL's-WARTS such as, you are describing to be -- Now in full cost-effective ROI bean-counted PRODUCTION. {shudder} (I fly so rarely, I was unaware of this absurdity you describe) And I personally don't give a SHIT about the Econ Stat Numbers quoted a bit up the thread, nor have I personally.. that religious faith in the Std Deviation which rules the Econ minds of today's offices and PHBs. NOT when the OPERATING PARADIGM is demonstrably AS FUCKED AS THIS ONE. I grok the need not to overstress the pretty (read: (CHEAP) plastic-fantastic enclosure of the cargo-sheep); THAT indeed demands some feedback override of ORDINARY commands. Yet- Sometimes.. when you are about to die - You NEED to TRY anyway.. IF YOU CAN. BUT ... This entire LOCK-OUT of all human intelligence, has a word for its designers -- all inextricably-entwined with the spreadsheet, the velocity of money and the Armani suits {and the rise of workplace Dumbth}: hubris and ultimately -- mistrust of the human experience, discretion and intelligence of a highly skilled class of experts: pilots. This is about dumbing-down THAT which cannot BE DUMBED DOWN. Again. Precisely like: Windoze 'Security', a concept which Lives only via bafflegab and language murder, as all here seem to testify. (Hmm do You Guys actually 'Know' Anything, either?) Ergo - were it I? I'd Fight to Switch and, Tell Them Exactly Why (and tell them that. "I will also be mentioning the source of my concerns, from this day forward - to all who will listen": IF their reply is patronizing in the slightest). The switch should occur for Free too, IMadmittedly-BiasedOpinion ;-) Air Travel: now a Pepsi commodity, run by the same mindsets as brought us multi- [!] Billionaires (along with $6/hr) through the mere math manipulations, dissembling as create all the classes within 'classless-societies'. Passengers + Data-entry Clerk-Manager as, altogether statistically-expendable pork/sheep. (in next-Quarter-speak, of course) But then, what do I know Ashton PS - remember that tiny computer overload in July '69, when the moon landing was a few seconds from Abort? I forget the Alarm '4-digit number' now -- but THAT was a rilly Simple device, such that its' every possible state had been mapped and tested, prior. The Pilot Understood that, and even.. why he had overshot.. and acted From His Human Intelligence. QED
Post #117,387 by Ashton 9/10/03 6:56:46 PM Reply	Sentient LRPD sez____Due to a vast miscalculation, it was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. {or forest}
Post #117,392 by a6l6e6x 9/10/03 8:17:11 PM Reply	Nuclear power plant controls. Many, many moons ago, a friend had interviewed [link\|http://www.foxboro.com/\|Foxboro], which at the time did work on the controls for nuclear power plants. He was told that all controls knobs and switches could not and did not in fact do anything directly. The changed state of these controls was sensed and interpreted buy a computer program that would evaluate the appropriateness of the request and act on it if it was reasonable. For one thing, this prevents someone doing away with himself in a "blaze of glory". Alex "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." -- last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)
Post #117,405 by Ashton 9/10/03 10:37:32 PM Reply	Not too comparable, maybe Foxboro's seems an appropriate control method; there IS no "steering wheel" to keep you from hitting the ground. Unclear too, of there being no override? of significant matters as say - closed manual valves for the ECC? (Emgcy. Cooling System) and such. I'd very much doubt that there can be No Human Override, given the n! possibly bizarre er physical failures imaginable. Besides, for the US's determined non-standardization upon the actual design, construction of our many plants: so is each one a necessarily New Thing to derive safety factors about, etc. No savings of scale.. more chance for screwups. Anyway.. the reactor is a lot about physics, nothing about aerodynamics and with few random outside effects - a whole nother ball o wax, I think. like that poor Lufhansa Clerk-pilot watching his plane descend towards the containment dome? with the assurance of the True-Believing Dumb Machine: bizness' perfect replacement for the CIEIO. Ashton Informed Selective Luddite
Post #117,451 by drewk 9/11/03 8:42:56 AM Reply	Does your car have antil-lock brakes? If so, your foot on the brake pedal is only a suggestion of how hard to brake. If not, then are you sure you're one of the <1% of all drivers who can get better control than modern anti-lock? Really? Are you sure? Even on wet leaves that you didn't see around a curve? I don't usually pull the Luddite card, and this particular plane may be a little too early a generation for this to apply, but highly profiecient operators of anything have always balked when someone tried to automate control. There were people who didn't trust carburetors to mix fuel as well as they did by adjusting the petcock. When's the last time you adjusted your fuel/air mixture on the fly? I don't know enough about this particular plane to have an opinion, but there will someday be a plane that is a better "pilot" than most any human operator you're likely to find. And pilots will be the last ones to trust it. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #117,520 by Ashton 9/11/03 3:31:32 PM Reply	Re: Does your car have antil-lock brakes? Yes.. but - Actually, I pretty much agree with the theme of your post :-\ufffd The 'but' part: The ABS is a completely separate unit, with its own pump (!) and hydraulic accumulator and yes! All Those Transistors. It came on mine. Were I an anal Luddite, I could remove Fuse-30 and it would be completely out of the circuit. (I've also tested it, on a drizzly PM - you know.. often enough these suckers remain Unused for Years at a time, and - I wanted to make sure that a little of that [recently flushed - also worth doing at least every 2 years, on the whole hyd. system of any car or thing] fluid got flushed through all those orifices. Also - on irregularly-slippery stuff (as you describe) - only a fool would argue "I can do it Better" ;-) As to the airplane (or a reactor or a Battleship or a ___) I'll stick with a mantra ~ that a) NO MACHINE possesses the (at-best) capability of juggling so many variables to reach a fuzzy-decision.. as does a properly alert and trained homo-sap mind. B) HAL-9000 (the final release, not that alpha) is so far out of reach of our fledgling comprehension of [how dat mind Doo Dat !???] as to be simply laughable for the long foreseeable. Count widgets? perfect! Do triage about life/death? Bzzzzzzt So nope, I won't fly in one of those MBA [1]cost-experiments any time soon.. not out of abject {{fear}} for my miserable existence, but: disdain & disgust at the presumptuousness, engineering-HUBRIS! of irreversibly LOCKING OUT the greater source of intelligence aboard! You are truly Spam in a Can, one designed by Hormel + the wet-behind-ears MBAs whose Real Mission is: Pilot $Replacement$ (fly the planes from ground via satellite with lo-bid Accountant in a rattan cubicle in Bangalore, anyone ??) Call it a merely personal protest at the dumbed-down digital-think 'mind' inaction. We also serve who only stand and carp [1] - agree with mmoffitt re the PLASTIC too {don't need the shuttle to remind me that it BREAKS; it doesn't bend} I've seen pics of horribly bent DC-3 airframes long ago - flyin the Hump in Burma. They LANDED! BEND >>>> {greater greater-than} BREAK every single TIME. The Unmitigated stat-besotted Assholes... (designing out-of-range of the Danger, like any Chicken-Hawk would.)

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