Who controls the plane is the pilot or autopilot. Airplane pilot VS autopilot

America

Airplanes are becoming smarter every day. If previously the autopilot was considered the height of perfection in aviation, in relatively calm weather conditions safely and reliably guided the aircraft from point A to point B, then modern liners can boast of systems that allow them to take off and land automatically. There is sometimes even an opinion among passengers that the profession of a pilot is not as difficult as it is shown, say, in the movies - you sit, drink coffee and press buttons. And if something happens, the automation will always come to the rescue and help even an ordinary passenger to land the plane. But is this really so?

Imagine. You are flying on vacation to sunny Cyprus or to a film festival in New York. On the screen of the multimedia system in the passenger's seat, a colorful map with the route and flight parameters is displayed in front of you. Height 11 thousand meters, speed 890 kilometers per hour. The engines whistle rhythmically, fluffy clouds float smoothly behind the porthole below, and bottomless blue and dazzling sun above. But then suddenly a pale stewardess runs into the cabin and loudly announces (although in reality this will never happen, because the instructions prohibit it) that all the pilots (yes, both at once!) have lost consciousness and are not coming back to consciousness.

Not a single pilot, like you, flying on vacation, is in the cabin. There is no one to fly or land the plane. And then you get up from your chair and, with the gait of a true brave man, walk to the door of the cockpit. We need to get inside somehow, but how? The door is armored and pilots control its opening. A flight attendant comes to the rescue: she dials a secret code on a small digital panel next to the door. But the door does not open because the electronic door lock provides a delay: the pilots must make sure through the camera that the flight attendant dialed the code alone, and not under the supervision of terrorists (in which case they block the lock until the end of the flight). After a delay, the door opens.

In front of you: wind windows with clouds and bottomless blue, many buttons, verniers, screens and screens, handles and handles, pilots' bodies and two steering wheels (if you are flying on a Boeing or Tupolev airliner, or two joysticks if you are on an Airbus or SSJ). Chances are, when you step into the cockpit, the plane will be flying under autopilot control (because the weather is clear and there is nothing in the way). It is best to take a seat on the left. It is the commander’s level, from there you have the most opportunities to control the aircraft. First of all, you need to find the radio switch on the helm or joystick (just do not press the red button, otherwise you will turn off the autopilot).

After the radio switch is found, put a headset on your head (headphones with a microphone), press the found switch and say “Mayday” loudly and clearly several times (this is a distress signal, the dispatcher will definitely respond to it). If the switch on the steering wheel or joystick cannot be found, then a walkie-talkie will definitely be found to the left of your seat. Feel free to pick it up, turn it on, tune it to 121.5 megahertz and shout “Mayday” into it. This frequency is listened to by rescue services, so you will soon be switched to the dispatcher or pilot on duty, who will explain what to do next.

In fact, in this entire process, the most important step is communication with the control tower. After the dispatcher responds to your call for help, he will ask for your flight number and tell you where to find this information (for example, on the control wheel these numbers are located on the “horn” on the left). And then the fun begins - under the guidance of the dispatcher and the pilot on duty, you will proceed directly to landing the aircraft. If you have previously “flyed” at home on a computer flight simulator, it will be easier for you, but this is still not a guarantee of a successful landing.

Depending on the type of aircraft, the actions that the attendant will prompt you to do will differ, but the general landing pattern is the same for all. To begin with, you will be asked to verify the normal operation of the autopilot and the correct flight parameters that it adheres to. At some distance from the airport, you will be asked to switch the autopilot to approach mode, and then they will prompt you with which handles you need to set the speed, altitude, and turn. At the same time, you will be asked to configure the aircraft’s automation to receive signals from the beacon of the instrumented landing system located at the airport. The plane will follow its signal when landing.

Then there will definitely come a time when the pilot on duty will ask you to lower the flaps (the handle on the center panel with the inscription FLAP and several divisions) and the landing gear (the large handle with arrows and the inscriptions UP and DOWN). After touching the landing strip, you will be ordered to turn on the engine reverse (the levers on the engine control handles between the seats) and use all the wing mechanization to help reduce speed. Finally, you will be asked to apply the brakes (usually located on top of the steering pedals under your feet). All. You sat down, the plane stopped. You can faint or heroically wipe the sweat from your forehead.

In fact, this has been described as an ideal landing. In it you are a very lucky person. After all, the weather is good, there is no wind, the plane is equipped with an automatic landing system, and an instrumental landing system is installed at the receiving airport (a beacon system that allows the plane to orient itself, find the landing strip and even align itself with its center). Depending on the accuracy category, the instrumental landing system allows the aircraft to land automatically from a height of 790 to 49 meters. But such systems are currently only equipped major airports, which means that at a regional port you will have to board manually.

The fact is that the on-board automatic landing system on an airplane without an instrumental landing system at the airport will not work; the plane simply “won’t see” where to land, and everything will end very sadly. And if you thought that landing in automatic mode meant pressing two buttons and waiting for the plane to do everything itself, then you were sorely mistaken. The machine has access only to the rudders, elevators and engines. You will still have to turn on flaps, spoilers, spoilers, deflectable toes, landing gear brakes and other mechanization.

If the arrival airport does not have an instrument landing system, or there is a strong crosswind, rain, or fog, then you will most likely have to land the plane completely manually. And here your chances of success are reduced by an order of magnitude. The pilot on duty, of course, will tell you until the last moment where and what needs to be pulled, which pedal to press and which numbers to dial, but this is unlikely to help. The fact is that pilots learn to fly an airplane in bad weather conditions long and hard. A person who is called “from the cold” has no chance.

And, yes, bad news. If you have never before been specifically interested in the design of the cockpit of the very plane you are flying on, then both automatic and manual landing will end for you the same way - a catastrophe in which everyone on board will die. Of course, there is always a small chance of survival, but it is insignificant. In automatic landing mode, you will at least have a few seconds to find the right handle or button, and the computer will protect you from serious mistakes. In manual landing mode, there is simply no time to look for the necessary buttons, and delay is death.

So, no matter what modern plane you fly on, you most likely will not be able to land it without at least minimal preparation. But the good news is that until they land (or crash), you actually won't even know that anything happened to the pilots at all. Flight attendants, most likely, simply won’t tell you this, because such information can cause panic on board, and this is a guaranteed death - it is impossible to control a panicked crowd. The flight attendants will try to take all actions for automatic or manual landing on their own until the end.

In 2009, a Boeing 737 passenger plane crashed near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Turkish Airlines. The disaster killed nine people and injured another 120. The plane was landing under the control of a professional pilot in automatic mode, and the cause of the disaster was incorrect data output from the radio altimeter. But don't panic: in the case where the plane is controlled by a pilot, the probability of a catastrophic landing in automatic mode is estimated at one in two billion.

And remember. There are always two pilots in the cockpit: the commander aircraft and co-pilot. In history passenger aviation There has not yet been a single case where both pilots failed at once. In November 2012, a Boeing 747 passenger airliner Lufthansa airlines committed forced landing at Dublin Airport (the plane was flying from New York to Frankfurt) after the captain of the aircraft suffered a severe migraine attack. The co-pilot was helped to land the plane by one of the passengers, who happened to have some experience in piloting turboprop aircraft.

Moreover, there have been only five or six cases in the history of aviation when a passenger or flight attendant was involved in flying an airplane as an assistant pilot. In all cases, the assistants had, albeit small, some experience in operating an aircraft.

But progress does not stand still. At the end of last year, the Federal Department civil aviation US new approach rules passenger aircraft equipped with blind landing systems. Such aircraft can now land at airports closed to other aircraft due to poor visibility. These systems include several heading sensors, including infrared cameras, and technical information exchange equipment. During landing approach, the system displays combined images from heading sensors and various instrumental data in real time on the screen in the cockpit.

The presence of “blind” and automatic landing systems on board the aircraft (the development of an automatic taxiing system around the airfield is also underway) will make flights truly safe in the next ten to twenty years. Taking into account the development of automatic systems and the shortage of pilots, NASA at the beginning of last year created the position of “super dispatcher” at airports, and reduced aircraft crews by half, that is, left one pilot in the cockpits. Agency experts believe that one pilot can fly the plane under normal conditions, especially since most of the flight takes place, as a rule, under the control of an autopilot.

The “super dispatcher” at the airport will become a virtual co-pilot. He will be located in a special control center and will escort several flights at once. If an emergency occurs or the captain of the aircraft is lost, he will take over control. Remote control of the aircraft and data exchange will be carried out via a broadband communication channel in real time. Interestingly, in response to NASA's proposal, some airlines decided to go even further and announced that planes could be left without pilots at all.

The fact is that the existing control and navigation systems of modern aircraft are already accurate enough to completely entrust the takeoff, flight and landing of aircraft to automation. For example, some aircraft are already equipped with RNP-1 specification navigation equipment. This means that in automatic mode, with a probability of 0.95, the airliner will deviate from the axis of the given route by no more than one nautical mile (1.852 kilometers) throughout the entire flight. Knowing about the high accuracy of navigation systems, the Israelis, for example, even have interception zones for air and missile defense systems close to the borders of air corridors.

Major manufacturers of aircraft avionics, including the French company Thales and the American Honeywell, are already developing truly automatic systems. Such systems will not depend on airport instrumentation systems and will be able to land aircraft on any suitable takeoff. landing strips. The equipment of these systems will independently recognize landing strips, assess environmental conditions and guide the aircraft. However, before integrating such systems into passenger liners still very, very far away. After all, they still need to be tested, checked for reliability, and duplicated. And this requires years of research.

navigationparameters.wordpress.com

Vasily Sychev

Quite often on aviation and non-aviation forums and websites the question is raised about how modern civil aircraft pilot required. Like, with the modern level of automation, what are they doing there if the autopilot does everything for them?

No conversation is complete without mentioning drones. aircraft(UAV), and as an apogee - the flight of Buran.

“You are tormented by this question, do you want to talk about it”?

Well, let's talk.

--==(o)==--

What is autopilot?

The best autopilot I have ever seen is shown in the American comedy Airplane.

However, in that film, he accidentally went out of order, and if not for the heroic loser, the happy ending would not have worked out. Although, there was also a flight attendant... Well, in any case, there was a person.

As a matter of fact, many pilots do not get into arguments with people who are far from aviation because they know how the most modern technology sometimes behaves. I won’t argue, I’ll just tell you, and then at least you’ll fight) Just kidding.

Our autopilots are a mixture of metal, plastic, glass, light bulbs, buttons, knobs and wires. And switches. Nothing human at all.

The pilot controls the autopilot (there is already a sacramental meaning hidden in this phrase) through remote controls. The photo below shows the simulator cabin of the B737CL, which is not the most modern aircraft, but in reality, in this regard, there are no global differences between it, created in the 80s of the last century, and the B787, which first took to the skies several years ago.

The main control panel for automation in general and the autopilot in particular (MSP) can be seen almost in the middle of the photo. Each button on it is responsible for turning on one of the autopilot modes, and the four buttons on the right (A/P ENGAGE A - B) are, in fact, responsible for turning on the autopilot. By the way, with the configuration of the autopilot controls that is recorded in the photo, the autopilot will not turn on. Let the experts answer why.

The numbers in the windows indicate the data that is necessary for one or another mode of operation of the autopilot. For example, in the ALTITUDE window you can see 3500 - this means that if after takeoff we turn on the autopilot and set some climb mode, the plane will take an altitude of 3500 feet and will fly stupidly at it until the pilot sets a new altitude value and... . will not enable any dialing mode again.

The autopilot itself will not change the altitude and will not go into climb.

Moreover. The pilot may choose an altitude of, say, 10,000 feet, but turn on the wrong autopilot mode, and the plane will obediently fly down until it hits the ground.

Similarly, if there is a mountain ahead along the course set by the pilot in the HEADING window, then the plane will fly up the mountain and will definitely crash into it if the pilot does not take any action.

Yes, it is also worth noting that the autopilot of a modern aircraft works in tandem with an autothrottle - this is another set of pieces of hardware and wires that are responsible for automatically changing the engine mode, that is, thrust. In the photo above on the MSR on the left you can see a small switch labeled A/T ARM/OFF; it is responsible for turning on the automatic traction control in ready-to-use mode. However, sometimes they have to work Not paired (for example, if the autothrottle is faulty), which imposes significant restrictions on the autopilot, because Many autopilot modes require a change in thrust. For example, the autopilot needs to descend, but the thrust set to takeoff mode simply won’t allow this to happen.

In the photo below you can see the control panel of the FMS - flight management system. Through this panel you can enter some useful data, with the help of which the automation will know what route the plane is flying today, what thrust and speed values will be optimal today.

After takeoff, the pilot can turn on (or it turns on automatically) the autopilot mode, in which the plane will fly according to commands received from this system. However, as I said above, if it hits the altitude of 3500, set in the MSR window, then it will not fly higher until the pilot changes this value.

--==(o)==--

The most important limitation of modern software systems (and the autopilot is nothing more than a piece of hardware full of algorithms) is the inability to make non-standard decisions that depend on the specific situation.

The airplane control algorithms themselves are not at all complicated, which is why autopilots on airplanes began to appear back in 1912, and in the 30s they began to become widespread.

I am more than sure that even then conversations began that the profession of “pilot” would soon become obsolete, just like the profession of “coachman”. Many years later, Anatoly Markusha, in one of his books, recounted a conversation he overheard of a girl who expressed complaints to her boyfriend that he needed to look for another profession, saying that pilots would soon no longer be needed.

Another 40 years have passed since then, and this topic is decision-making in non-standard situations by the creators the latest aircraft never defeated.

Yes, many aviation professions have sunk into oblivion - the flight engineer who was in charge of the “housekeeping”, the navigator who provided navigation, the radio operator who conducted communications... They were replaced by smart systems, this is indisputable. True, at the same time, the training requirements for this have increased... and in some situations, the load on the two (!) pilots remaining in the cockpit has increased. Now they not only have to cope with a bunch of systems (including the most automated ones), but also have a lot of knowledge in their heads, which they usually did not use in flight before (and faded away over time), because in the cockpit sat narrow specialists in these areas.

Yes, some UAVs fly autonomously (and some are controlled by operators from the ground), and Buran successfully made one (!) flight in automatic mode without a pilot on board. But these are precisely the algorithms whose programming has been possible for a very, very long time.

Any interested programmer, for fun, can come up with an add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator and land your Burans even in Zavyalovka, and then go to the aviation forum and mock the profession of “airplane driver”.

But I, the “airplane driver,” having an understanding of the situations that arise in the sky, which require constant decision-making, will not dare to board an airplane whose brain is not a person, but the Autopilot v.10.01 program, in which programming errors are corrected identified in the previous ten disasters.

Mikhail Gromov also said "The takeoff is dangerous, the flight is beautiful, the landing is difficult". True. Takeoff is easier than landing, however, if something happens during takeoff, sometimes fractions of seconds count. During this time, the pilot needs to make a decision - to stop taking off or continue. Moreover, depending on factors, for the same reason, on one day it is better to stop taking off, and on another day it is better to continue. While the pilot is thinking, the heavy aircraft, which has a huge supply of fuel, is rapidly accelerating, and the runway is rapidly decreasing. Failures can be very diverse (alas, equipment still fails) and the failure does not always come down to a banal engine malfunction. And engine failures can also be different.

That is, a programmer who wants to remove a person from the aircraft control loop and the decision-making loop will need to write a bunch of algorithms for actions of various kinds emergency situations. And after each unaccounted for case, release a new firmware version.

Currently, “unaccounted for cases” are resolved by having a person in the cockpit who will swear (or remain silent, depending on the endurance), but cope with the situation and return the plane to the ground.

And in most cases, idle ordinary people simply do not know about such cases, because not everything is reported in the press.

Not a single instruction provides for such an oversight - leaving a piece of the emergency escape cable overboard the aircraft. What would Autopilot v.10.01 do in this case, how would it know that its window was about to break? No way. He would have continued to climb 11 km in altitude, and when the window broke there, according to the laid down program he would have undertaken an emergency descent with throwing away the masks... but they would not have been of much help to the passengers.

What did the pilots do? Firstly, we received information about what was happening quite early. Secondly, despite the unknown nature of the phenomenon, we understood how this unusual situation could end and made the only right decision - to descend and return to the departure airfield.

And this is just ONE of the situations that happened in the careers of only TWO pilots (me and the co-pilot). There are thousands of pilots, and hundreds of thousands of situations.

Some “householders” argue with numbers, saying that humans are the weak link; according to statistics, 80% of all disasters occurred due to the human factor.

That's right. The technology has become so reliable that in most cases it is a person who fails. However, I will remind you once again that idle “householders” simply do not think about the fact that many flights in which equipment failed ended successfully only because there was a human factor in the cockpit.

I assure you that if you remove the pilots from the cockpit, the share of the human factor will increase EVEN more, but only in this case will the human factor be understood as a programming error.

Further, on the plane everything may work very well the entire flight, however... it may not work very well on the ground. In order for the plane to fly to the airfield and land there, a whole bunch of other systems have been created that, what?... That's right, sometimes they fail. And in this case, the pilot “wakes up” and does his job.

Trivial decision making when avoiding thunderstorms. For example, my flight to Genoa, I called it “the tinsmith’s flight” http://denokan.livejournal.com/66370.html

Or flight to Sochi: http://denokan.livejournal.com/67901.html

And these are only three flights. And there are hundreds of times more of them just for one individual pilot.

Thunderstorms look different on radar, and one avoidance solution will not always be as good for another. And when this thunderstorm is in the area of the airfield... What if this airfield is mountainous? We have to think and make decisions...

If a plane is struck by lightning, or it is caught in a static discharge, people will not die from this hit, but the systems may unpredictably fail. And there were cases that ended well only because the pilots were sitting in the cockpit.

It is worth adding to all of the above that not all airports today can perform an automatic landing. It requires rather warm conditions compared to those in which a pilot can land. Of course, this is a matter of programming the algorithms, but the task is challenging enough to ensure equal reliability.

Of course, if you skimp on reliability, then it will have long been possible to put planes on the line without pilot operators.

The main reason why planes without pilots have not yet entered civilian service is this very RELIABILITY. For military or shipping needs, reliability may not be as high as for transporting people by air.

Of course, the degree of automation will increase. This also determines the reliability of the crew-aircraft system. Of course, the search for better solutions will continue to ensure that aircraft reliably flew without human intervention. True, it will be possible to completely eliminate human participation from flight only when artificial intelligence is invented that is not inferior to the intelligence of a trained person. The problem of making decisions in non-standard situations will not go away. An airplane is not a car, so in an unusual situation you can just stupidly stop on the side of the road.

One option is for an operator to control the aircraft from the ground. That is, an operator on the ground controls the flight of one or more aircraft, making decisions in non-standard situations. If something happens that he is not able to solve from the ground, he remains alive... And the passengers die. Then the next version of the software appears.

So let’s direct our efforts not to discussing the pilot profession (every such discussion sooner or later turns into the topic “what do pilots get SO much money for?”), but let’s concentrate our efforts on creation in our direct specialty.

Fly Safely!

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It’s easier to believe in magic than to understand how a person manages to lift a multi-ton weight into the sky. iron bird. Ignorance breeds fear of the unknown. That's why many pilots and other airline workers are happy to tell you what you really should be afraid of and why airplanes are wonderful!

website chose 16 clear answers to the most exciting and complex questions that interest everyone who has seen an airplane at least once in their life.

16. How to get to the pilots if their door is locked from the inside?

A beard, a bushy mustache, piercings and any other jewelry or “growths” on the face prevent the pilot from using an oxygen mask, which must fit tightly to the face. Therefore, the pilot’s face is always clean, sometimes slightly unshaven is allowed. Otherwise, a situation is created that endangers the lives of passengers.

14. What happens if all the engines fail?

During each flight, the aircraft switches to a mode in which. If in a car with manual transmission gears, move the lever to neutral, going down the hill, it will be the same. Complete engine failure is extremely rare, and in this case there are special instructions for restarting them.

But also without engines, the plane can land on a gliding descent. The most famous incident occurred with a Boeing 747 over Java in 1982, when the plane was caught in a cloud of dust from an erupting volcano and all 4 engines failed. The crew managed to land the plane at the nearest airport, and none of the 263 people were injured.

13. How long are oxygen masks designed to last?

The oxygen level and pressure inside the aircraft are maintained artificially. If the cabin becomes depressurized at high altitude, a person develops hypoxia: he loses consciousness and without an oxygen mask can die.

7. How do pilots eat during a flight?

Sometimes, as part of their job, pilots fly passengers from one airport to another. If they are on board in uniform, then they can sleep, eat, or watch movies with headphones in front of passengers. The sight of a pilot in uniform during such activities can be misleading and lead to panic among passengers. But more often, uniformed pilots fly in spare seats on the flight deck or in first class.

5. What's worse - crashing into a bird, getting hit by hail, or being struck by lightning?

Lightning often strikes an airplane, but passengers don't even notice it. In extremely rare cases, this can lead to a blackout of the aircraft. In this case, pilots have several instructions that literally reboot the electronics on board, and the flight continues as usual.

Birds pose a great danger than it seems. If it gets into a fan or turbine, destruction, failure and even fire of the engine are possible. Not every windshield will survive a bird strike. That's why airports use noise generators, falcons and even helicopters to scare away birds.

Hail is no less dangerous, but aggressive weather conditions are easier for an aircraft to detect and fly around.

4. Why are there spirals on turbines?

When entering a plane, any passenger will look not only to the right, but also to the left. Sometimes the door to the pilot's cabin is open and we see how complicated everything is arranged inside. We'll explain what the main levers, toggle switches and panels mean.

1. Attitude of the aircraft

The screen displays pitch - the movement of the aircraft in the longitudinal channel. Simply put, pitch is the rise of the nose or tail of an airplane. Also here you can see the roll of the aircraft in the transverse channel, that is, the rise of the right or left wing

2.Navigation display

Reminiscent of a traditional car navigator. Just like in a car, it displays information about your destination, your current location, how far the plane has already flown and how far you have to go.

3. Duplicate aircraft attitude and navigation device

4. Clock

5. On-board computer

Before a flight, pilots manually enter data into it: where we are flying from and where, weight, balance, take-off speeds, wind along the route. The computer calculates the fuel we need for the flight, the remaining fuel, the flight time...

6. Handle for releasing and retracting the landing gear

7. Sidestick

Aircraft control stick, replaces the steering wheel

8. Autopilot off button

9. Brake pedals

An airplane uses two pedals to brake. They work separately. The intensity of braking depends on the force of pressing the pedal: the harder we press, the faster it brakes

10. Fire protection system

In the event of a fire, the indicators light up. We see in which part of the ship the fire is located and turn on the automated fire extinguishing mode. Manual fire extinguishers are located in the cockpit and in the cabin

11. Fuel pump activation buttons

12. Window opening handle

13. Autopilot

The autopilot requires data that we entered into the on-board computer. We turn on the autopilot after takeoff, when the plane has reached the required altitude. Autopilot landing is used in special cases, such as in fog

14. Engine control lever

This is the same as the gas pedal in a car. With its help we control engine thrust

15. Spoiler control switch

Spoilers are folding flaps on the upper plane of the wing. They are an air brake. It is often necessary to reduce speed in the air, especially when landing. In this case, we release spoilers. They create additional drag and the plane's speed drops.

16. Flap control knob

Flaps are deflectable surfaces located on the trailing edge of the wing. We release them during takeoff to increase the wing area and, accordingly, the lift of the aircraft. Having reached the required height, we retract the flaps

17. Battery switch buttons

18. Buttons for controlling air temperature in the cabin and cabin of the aircraft

19. Tablet computer

It contains collections of airport diagrams and maps different countries. You can also display images from video cameras installed in the aircraft cabin.

20. Aircraft control panel

Here are the buttons for turning on the autothrottle, switches for selecting navigation aids, knobs for the course and speed selector. Acting on them, we give commands to the autopilot to control the aircraft

Photo: Maxim Avdeev, Vasily Kuznetsov

Denokan (instructor pilot of one largest airline in Russia): Quite often, on aviation and non-aviation forums and websites, the question is raised about how much a modern civil aircraft needs a pilot. Like, with the modern level of automation, what are they doing there if the autopilot does everything for them?

Not a single conversation is complete without mentioning unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and the apogee is the flight of Buran.

“You are tormented by this question, do you want to talk about it”?

Well, let's talk.

What is autopilot?

The best autopilot I have ever seen is shown in the American comedy Airplane.

As a matter of fact, many pilots do not get into arguments with people who are far from aviation because they know how the most modern technology sometimes behaves. I won't argue, I'll just tell you, and then at least you’ll fight there) Joke.

Our autopilots are a mixture of metal, plastic, glass, light bulbs, buttons, knobs and wires. And switches. Nothing human at all.

The main control panel for automation in general and the autopilot in particular (MSP) can be seen almost in the middle of the photo. Each button on it is responsible for turning on one of the autopilot modes, and the four buttons on the right (A/P ENGAGE A – B) are, in fact, responsible for turning on the autopilot. By the way, with the configuration of the autopilot controls that is recorded in the photo, the autopilot will not turn on. Let the experts answer why.

The autopilot itself will not change the altitude and will not go into climb.

Moreover. The pilot may choose an altitude of, say, 10,000 feet, but turn on the wrong autopilot mode, and the plane will obediently fly down until it hits the ground.

Yes, it is also worth noting that the autopilot of a modern aircraft works in tandem with an autothrottle - this is another set of pieces of hardware and wires that is responsible for automatically changing the engine mode, that is, thrust. In the photo above on the MSR on the left you can see a small switch labeled A/T ARM/OFF; it is responsible for turning on the automatic traction control in ready-to-use mode. However, sometimes they have to work Not paired (for example, if the autothrottle is faulty), which imposes significant restrictions on the autopilot, because Many autopilot modes require a change in thrust. For example, the autopilot needs to descend, but the thrust set to takeoff mode simply won’t allow this to happen.

In the photo below you can see the FMS control panel - flight management system. Through this panel you can enter some useful data, with the help of which the automation will know what route the plane is flying today, what thrust and speed values will be optimal today.

The airplane control algorithms themselves are not at all complicated, which is why autopilots on airplanes began to appear back in 1912, and in the 30s they began to become widespread.

Another 40 years have passed since then, and this topic - decision-making in non-standard situations by the creators of the latest aircraft - has not been defeated.

Any interested programmer, for the sake of sport, can come up with an addition to Microsoft Flight Simulator and land his Burans even in Zavyalovka, and then go to the aviation forum and mock the profession of “airplane driver”.

But here I am, an “airplane driver”, having an understanding of the situations that arise in the sky, which require constant decision-making, I will not dare to board an airplane whose brain is not a person, but the Autopilot v.10.01 program, in which programming errors are corrected identified in the previous ten disasters.

For example, today, despite the practical possibility of creating such a regime, planes do not take off automatically. And this despite the fact that automatic landing and automatic run after it have been mastered for a very long time. Why?
Mikhail Gromov also said “Takeoff is dangerous, flight is beautiful, landing is difficult”. True. Takeoff is easier than landing, however, if something happens during takeoff, sometimes fractions of seconds count. During this time, the pilot needs to make a decision - to stop taking off or continue. Moreover, depending on factors, for the same reason, on one day it is better to stop taking off, and on another day it is better to continue. While the pilot is thinking, the heavy aircraft, which has a huge supply of fuel, is rapidly accelerating, and the runway is rapidly decreasing. Failures can be very diverse (alas, equipment still fails) and the failure does not always come down to a banal engine malfunction. And engine failures can also be different.

That is, a programmer who wants to remove a person from the aircraft control loop and the decision-making loop will need to write a bunch of algorithms for actions in various types of emergency situations. And after each unaccounted for case, release a new firmware version.

And in most cases, idle ordinary people simply do not know about such cases, because not everything is reported in the press.

And this is just ONE of the situations that happened in the careers of only TWO pilots (me and the co-pilot). There are thousands of pilots, and hundreds of thousands of situations.

Some “householders” oppose with numbers, saying that people are the weak link; according to statistics, 80% of all disasters occurred due to the human factor.

I assure you that if you remove the pilots from the cockpit, the share of the human factor will increase EVEN more, but only in this case will the human factor be understood as a programming error.

Further, everything may work very well on the plane for the entire flight, however... it may not work very well on the ground. In order for the plane to fly to the airfield and land there, a whole bunch of other systems have been created that what?... That's right, sometimes they fail. And in this case, the pilot “wakes up” and does his job.

Trivial decision making when avoiding thunderstorms. For example, my flight to Genoa, I called it “the tinsmith’s flight” http://denokan.livejournal.com/66370.htm l

And these are only three flights. And there are hundreds of times more of them just for one individual pilot.

Of course, if you skimp on reliability, then it will have long been possible to put planes on the line without pilot operators.

Of course, the degree of automation will increase. This also determines the reliability of the “crew-aircraft” system. Of course, the search for better solutions will continue to ensure that aircraft reliably flew without human intervention. True, it will be possible to completely eliminate human participation from flight only when artificial intelligence is invented that is not inferior to the intelligence of a trained person. The problem of making decisions in non-standard situations will not go away. An airplane is not a car, so in an unusual situation you can just stupidly stop on the side of the road.

Well, literally a couple “ happy rescues” of the plane and the people in it.

A short text from Wikipedia:

The OO-DLL plane flew out of International airport"Baghdad" at 18:30 UTC and headed for Bahrain. After takeoff, the plane climbed to an altitude of 8,000 feet (2,450 meters) when suddenly there was an explosion of a rocket fired from a Strela-3 MANPADS. The explosion damaged the left wing, fuel began to leak from the left wing tanks, and the mechanization was also damaged, which contributed to an increase in drag and a decrease in lift. The pressure in all three hydraulic systems also began to rapidly drop, and soon a complete failure occurred.

As on United Airlines Flight 232, which also lost hydraulics, the crew of OO-DLL could only control the aircraft using engine power. The flight engineer manually released the landing gear.

After 10 minutes of experiments on the damaged aircraft, the crew requested an emergency emergency landing at Baghdad airport and began to descend, making a smooth right turn.

Since fuel began to leak from the damaged wing, it was necessary to control the fuel level in the tank, the flight engineer began pumping fuel from the right to the left wing tank, to prevent failure of the left engine, which would inevitably lead to disaster.

The PIC and co-pilot decided to land runway No. 33R.

At an altitude of 400 feet (120 meters), turbulence intensified and rocked the damaged Airbus A300. The plane touched down on the runway with an offset from the center line, the pilots instantly activated the thrust reversers, but the plane left the runway and rushed along the ground, leaving behind a trail of sand and dust. The plane finally stopped after about 1000 meters, and no one was injured.

I read in another source that the adventures did not end there; the plane stopped on a minefield. But everyone survived, and that’s the main thing. After a couple of weeks, the pilots were flying again, and the flight engineer decided that this flight was a good climax to his career and switched to ground work to DHL.

When teaching CRM, this flight is seen as a shining example of remarkable cooperation among the crew, who wisely managed to manage small resources and managed to return the aircraft to the ground.

The next example is even more illustrative.

The famous “landing on the Hudson”

Flight AWE1549 departed New York at 15:24 EST (20:24 UTC). 90 seconds after takeoff, the voice recorder recorded the crew commander's remark regarding bird strikes. After another second, the sounds of impacts and the rapid fading of the sound of both engines were recorded.

The plane managed to gain an altitude of 3,200 feet (975 meters). The PIC issued a distress signal and informed the dispatcher that the aircraft had collided with a flock of birds, as a result of which both engines were disabled. The loss of thrust of both engines was confirmed by a preliminary analysis of the flight recorder records.

The pilots managed to turn the plane, which was taking off north, to the south, glide over the Hudson without hitting the George Washington Bridge, and splash down the plane opposite 48th Street in Manhattan without destroying the heavy, fueled plane. He finally stopped in front of 42nd Street. In total, the plane stayed in the air for about three minutes.

After splashdown, the plane remained on the surface of the water, and passengers through both emergency exits reached the plane of the wings. All passengers on board were rescued by ferries and boats, which arrived a few minutes later at the emergency aircraft(near the splashdown site there is one of the ferry crossings between Manhattan and New Jersey).

78 people received medical treatment for minor injuries and hypothermia (the water temperature was quite low; various media reported figures ranging from “near zero” to sometimes negative water temperatures).

These guys generally worked as if every day they did nothing but land a plane full of fuel and passengers, without engines, on the waters of the Hudson. Landing on water itself is very difficult, especially on a river with bridges and heavy traffic.

The interaction between the crew and the dispatcher in this situation is a clear example of how to work in a seemingly 100% hopeless situation. That's actually all I wanted to say...

If we list all the cases of “happy rescues”, less loud ones, it will take a lot of time.