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Flight447Re:Irresponsible headline, summary (Score:5, Informative) There IS a manual override. The crew can force a reversion to direct law. This has never been done because it's never been necessary. You and the press do not understand how the Airbus works. There are multiple levels of fail-over down to full manual reversion available, and the system degrades automatically. You don't have to turn around and FORCE the computer to direct law because when the shit hits the fan the computer figures it out faster than the pixels change on the displays and degrades out for you. But hey, I only have experience with the aircraft and lots of documentation - Don't let the facts contradict someone's political agenda! Airbus autoflight is not the demon that Boeing and the press would like you to believe. They keep rehashing old shit like the Habsheim Chainsaw and reiterating the same tired talking points without considering that the software is vastly superior now than it was in 1988. In any event, THE SYSTEM WILL NOT FIGHT THE PILOTS. Let me restate that again, just in case you missed it - THE SYSTEM WILL NOT FIGHT THE PILOTS. The system just gives me the best the airplane can do at the moment without me having to stop and consider my conditions. If I as the pilot deflect the stick left, if the autopilot is engaged, it will be disengaged for me. The load factor is considered and the airplane will begin a maximum-rate roll in the direction I deflected the stick. I keep holding the stick and the airplane will keep rolling up to the limiter. That's when Normal Law is active. If we're in Alternate or Direct law, there is no roll limit and I can roll the airplane onto its back and crash it if I desire. The same thing applies to hauling the stick back. If I haul the stick back, I get maximum-rate climb, and if I forget to push the throttles the computer will do that for me too when I hit alpha floor. That means instead of trying to fly the airplane and avoid the other airplane or granite cloud or whatever it was outside that I am trying to not hit, I can just concentrate on avoiding the whatever and the airplane will manage everything else. I never have to "disengage the computer" to get the airplane to do something. I just move the controls and the airplane follows. If I recenter my controls the airplane will DO WHATEVER *I* ORDERED LAST. It -WILL NOT- go back to whatever it was doing before until I tell it that it can do that. Let's say I get a TCAS. The offending traffic is dead ahead and I can't see him. All I do is haul the stick back (or shove it forward depending on the TCAS instructions) and then INSTEAD OF LOOKING INSIDE THE AIRPLANE AT MY SPEED/THRUST SETTING/ETC, I can direct my attention OUTSIDE OF THE AIRCRAFT TO SEARCH FOR THE CONFLICTING TRAFFIC. This will give me a far better chance to determine whether or not the other guy is doing what TCAS told HIM to do and avoid him if necessary than if I have to divide my attention between the airplane and outside. The airplane will kill the thrust or whatever it needs to do to avoid overspeed. The other pilot can be looking outside as well, so we have two sets of eyes looking for (and ideally seeing) the other airplane and working to avoid him. Now, when shit hits the fan and things break - Airbus has MULTIPLE REDUNDANT SYSTEMS that continually cross-check each other as the flight goes on. If there is a discrepancy in data, the affected system IS DISABLED. The airplane will NEVER follow erroneous sensor data unless it sees the SAME ERRONEOUS DATA on BOTH SIDES SIMULTANEOUSLY, *AND* THAT ERRONEOUS DATA MATCHES HEURISTICS. When certain important systems fail the computer WILL NOT simply use the other computer since it now has no means to cross-check it. What I get instead is a CONTROL LAW REVERSION. That is, the airplane takes the protection logic OUT OF THE LOOP ENTIRELY, since it can't provide protection with faulty data. There are three layers of reversion until you get to DIRECT LAW, which is "737 Mode". The system reverts automatically in response to the data it sees. As stated above, if the system somehow doesn't detect that the sensors are lying to it, I can disable parts of it by either pushing override switches on the overhead (but not everything has an override switch) or if I want to get really certain that something is out of the loop I CAN ALWAYS PULL THE CIRCUIT BREAKERS. In short, THE PRESS DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. Think about what these people say about space flight or new tech items. They never get that right either! What makes you think the press knows more about how to design an airplane than an actual design firm? If Airbus autoflight was that wrong, BOEING WOULDN'T BE COPYING IT FOR THE 787! ^_^ In any event, the equipment upon which you as a passenger will be flying is clearly printed on your ticket. You can always CANCEL YOUR FLIGHT if you don't like the equipment upon which you'll be flying, but THAT WOULD BE SILLY. It's like saying that ALL GE LOCOMOTIVES ARE DEATHTRAPS and you refuse to board one and ONLY RIDE EMD. And here's another RANDOMLY CAPITALIZED SET OF WORDS just for the hell of it. Are we having FUN YET? There is a lot of Airbus documentation including technical and training manuals out on the internet if you care to go looking for it. Start reading about how Airbus works and MAYBE YOU'LL LEARN SOMETHING. AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE! (Come to think of it, did they ever say what the other half was?) |