automation

Stunts?

By Dave English

Autopilot babies and paint-by-numbers piloting are not new ideas. Back in 1942 a Marine Corps Major wrote about it. People were calling anything past a gentle bank a stunt. We needed pilots to know the full envelope of flight then — and now. You can’t learn this type of flying out of textbooks … It seems rather silly to be explaining the term “airmanship.” But it has been necessary and is still necessary and will be necessary until people learn to speak of perfectly executed aerial maneuvers as “airmanship” instead of “stunts”. Major Al Williams, 29 April 1942.

Fully Automatic?

By Dave English

Guess what year this newspaper article was published: 1946? 1976? 1996? 2016? Answer: Rain, Fog, Snow! Future Airliner to Go Right Thru: Automatic Devices Will Handle It. Chicago Daily Tribune. 6 June 1946. Yep! 1946. And the next year Time magazine reported on a military aircraft flying from Newfoundland to England under the control of an autopilot programmed on punched cards: “The plane behaved as if an invisible crew were working her controls. … The commanding robot was a snarl of electronic equipment affectionately known as “the Brain.” Everything it did on the long flight was “preset” before the start. … Continue reading Fully Automatic?

Your ​​job is

By Dave English

“If you want to fly as [traditional pilots] say they do, then go fly gliders, become test pilots, for all I care go to the moon. But flying for the airlines is not supposed to be an adventure. From takeoff to landing, the autopilots handle the controls. This is routine. In a Boeing as much as an Airbus. And they make better work of it than any pilot can. You’re not supposed to be the blue-eyed hero here. Your job is to make decisions, to stay awake, and to know which buttons to push and when. Your job is to … Continue reading Your ​​job is

The problem with pilots

By Dave English

Finished reading an amazing book that was published last year— The Problem with Pilots: How Physicians, Engineers, and Airpower Enthusiasts Redefined Flight, by former USAF U2 instructor pilot and dean of their school of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Colonel Timothy P. Schultz, PhD. It covers the history of automation in aircraft, the replacement and extension of piloting skills into faster, higher, more precise aerial machines. It’s a must-read for people interested in aviation history, human factors engineering, or understanding the history of automated flying. Full of original research, fully referenced, deeply academic yet written in easy flowing English. And … Continue reading The problem with pilots

The capability of the human pilot

By Dave English

The North American X-15 was a hypersonic rocket-powered experimental aircraft flown by the USAF and NASA in the 1960’s. The X-15 holds the official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a manned aircraft, set in October 1967 when test pilot William J. Knight at 102,100 feet flew Mach 6.70. Clearly it was a hot rod rocket ride, and obviously important to the advancement of high speed and high altitude aeronautical engineering. But it was also important in understanding the role of the pilot in new highly dynamic systems, and what machine-human interfaces would be functional in those relms (see NASA history page). It’s a theme … Continue reading The capability of the human pilot