) on Airbus vs. Boeing.
I absolutely do not argue with the latter about the ergonomics of the cockpit and controls at Airbus - he is a pilot, he knows better.
But, as both authors noted, companies have different philosophies, so let's see which one is more in line with the spirit of the times.
I myself am not a pilot, but a fan of aviation :) As for work, I often have to do analytical research and turn to statistics.
Here, dear, we will turn to her. Namely, to the causes of plane crashes from the 50s to the 2000s (http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm):
As you can see from this table, the most common cause is pilot error. Accidents caused by pilots occur more than 2 times more often than due to equipment failure... So, if those who like to "fly in their arms" were given more often these hands, the number of plane crashes would be reduced by at least two times (it is clear that provided that all aircraft are modern)
That is why the policy of Airbus to reduce the functions of the pilot to "operator" functions and allow him to interfere in the control of the aircraft as little as possible is more than reasonable. For the computer never makes mistakes, does not fall asleep during long night flights and does not let its children into the cockpit, so that they have a little fun there (who knows what I mean, it will understand).
So, for example, TCAS is NEVER wrong. This fact is reflected, in particular, in the "Flight Operations Manual of the TU-154M aircraft" in the following sentence: "TCAS commands are more important than ATC commands". And it was this phrase that the commander of the TU over Bodensee forgot "a little bit", then he sent his co-pilot to his mother, who, uncertainly, but TWO times drew his attention to WHAT TCAS was saying, and he sent himself, his crew, to the forefathers, and for the company, more than 100 children in the passenger compartment.
I really hope that TCAS in the future itself will direct the plane up or down, preventing the pilot from ditching all her efforts to save the car.
Now - to the main argument of those who like to "fly in their arms". The "bats" assert: "Everything is fine as long as the computer is working normally, but if a failure occurs, what will all these" operators "do without the experience of" real "piloting? Only we can save you, dear passengers! ":)
Let's turn again to the statistics, this time on the safety of airlines (http://www.jacdec.de/jacdec_safety_ranking_2012.htm), these are those that have been flying for 30 years or more - only 60 of the largest airlines.
Here is the Finnair company - 1st place in the world ranking in the safety index (for 30 years) and the first in the absolute number of years without serious accidents and deaths of passengers (48 years). Fleet - 40 Airbus and 4 (four) Boeing.
But Lufthansa - 11th place, a fleet of 223 Airbus and 67 Boeing. [By the way: Lufhansa ranked 11th only because 18 years ago there was a flight accident in which 2 (two) people died.]
How so high places? After all, their fleet consists mainly of Airbuses, at the controls of which "operators" sit, who only know how to press the buttons, in the opinion of the aforementioned pilots? Or Airbuses fly only the pilots of the "old school", who were still throwing Junkers at the peak? :) But no, on the contrary, there are a lot of young people.
It is clear that the main reason is the highest level of ground handling, strict performance of all checks, quality of repairs, etc. But don't they get rejections at all? Of course there are. The little box opens simply: these companies REGULARLY "drive" their pilots to all kinds of failures on simulators, as Pilot Lech describes this process when receiving a certificate.
Moreover, in the last post, Pilot Lech himself confirmed that Boeing adopted the Airbus philosophy in the new aircraft, which, in general, could not be otherwise. Just before that, he, like the Arab Pilot, flew Boeing machines of the previous generation. And after sitting at the 777 simulator, he writes:
"From the very first lessons, it became clear that many of our skills would have to be put aside" in a distant box. "
And so:
“Surprisingly, an airplane knows things that don't seem to come to mind right away. For example, what to do if a collision with a bird occurs. much more! "
So my friends, Airbus is a trendsetter, well, Boeing is slowly pulling up, which pleases.
P.S. By the way, about the pilots who flew on Boeing and moved to the side-stick "A-shek": be sure to watch the episode from "Pilot Eye" - Lufthansa's flight from Frankfurt to Seattle. There, just such a pilot says that he likes Airbus much more. He speaks mainly about "big" cars. The pilot praises the superb aerodynamics of the Airbuses at low speeds during the approach. Compares them with sails, when setting the thrust to "idle": "the plane, like a glider, continues to move smoothly without losing altitude." And Boeing, in the same conditions, compares with an iron :); try, he says, to put "idle", he immediately "bites" his nose. In general, an educational film.
P.S.2. It is noteworthy that
Quite often, on aviation and not very much forums and sites, the question is raised about how much a modern civilian 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, as the 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've ever seen is featured in the American comedy Airplane.
However, in that film, he accidentally went out of order, and if it were not for the heroic loser, the happy ending would not have happened. Although, there was also a stewardess ... Well, in any case, there was a man.
As a matter of fact, many pilots therefore do not enter into an argument with people far from aviation, because they know how the most modern technology sometimes behaves. I won't argue, I'll just tell you, and then you will at least fight there) It's a joke.
Our autopilots are a mixture of metal, plastic, glass, light bulbs, buttons, twists and wires. And switches. Nothing human at all.
The pilot controls the autopilot (the sacramental meaning is already hidden in this phrase) through the consoles. The photo below shows the simulator cabin of not the most modern B737CL 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 flew into the sky several years ago.
The main control panel for automation in general and the autopilot in particular (MCP) 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 responsible, in fact, for turning on the autopilot. By the way, with the configuration of the autopilot controls, which is fixed in the photo, the autopilot will not turn on. Let the connoisseurs answer why.
The numbers in the windows indicate the data that is necessary for a particular mode of autopilot operation. 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 occupy an altitude of 3500 feet and will fly stupidly on it until the pilot sets a new altitude value and .. . will not activate any dialing mode again.
The autopilot itself will not change the altitude and will not go into the set.
Moreover. The pilot can choose an altitude, for example, 10,000 feet, however, turn on the wrong autopilot mode, and the plane will obediently fly down until it hits the ground.
Similarly, if there is a mountain in front of the heading set by the pilot in the HEADING window, the plane will fly up the mountain and will certainly crash into it if the pilot does not take any action.
Yes, it is also worth noting that the autopilot of a modern aircraft is paired with an autothrottle - this is another set of pieces of iron and wires that are responsible for automatically changing the engine mode, that is, thrust. In the photo above, on the MCP on the left, you can see a small switch labeled A / T ARM / OFF, it is responsible for turning the autothrottle into the ready-to-use mode. However, sometimes they have to work not in pairs (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 go down, but the thrust set for the takeoff mode will not stupidly do this.
In the photo below you can see the control panel of the FMS - flight management system. Through this panel, you can fill in some useful data, with the help of which the automation will know about which route the plane is flying today, about what values of thrust and speed 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 the commands received from this system. However, as I said above, if it rests against the altitude 3500, set in the MCP 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 packed with algorithms) is the inability to make non-standard decisions that depend on a specific situation.
By themselves, aircraft control algorithms are not at all complicated, so autopilots began to appear on airplanes as early as 1912, and in the 30s they began to become widespread.
I am more than sure that even then there was talk that the "pilot" profession would soon become obsolete, like the "coachman" profession. Many years later, Anatoly Markusha, in one of his books, recounted the conversation he had overheard of one girl, who complained to her young man that he needed to look for another profession, saying that pilots would soon become unnecessary.
Since then, another 40 years have passed, and this topic - decision-making in non-standard situations by the creators of the latest aircraft has not been defeated.
Yes, many aviation professions have sunk into oblivion - the flight engineer who was in charge of the "household", the navigator who provided navigation, the radio operator who communicated ... They were replaced by smart systems, this is indisputable. True, at the same time, the requirements for training increased ... and in some situations, the load on the two (!) Pilots remaining in the cockpit. Now they have to not only cope with a bunch of systems (the way and the most automated), but also have a lot of knowledge in their heads, which were not usually used by them in flight (and eventually weathered), because narrow specialists in these areas sat in the cockpit.
Yes, some UAVs fly autonomously (and some are controlled by operators from the ground), and Buran has successfully completed one (!) Flight in automatic mode without a pilot on board. But these are exactly the algorithms, the programming of which has been possible for a very, very long time.
Any interested programmer, for the sake of sports interest, can come up with an add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator and plant 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 situations that arise in the sky, for which constant decision-making is required, I will not dare to board an airplane, the brain of which is not a person, but the Autopilot v.10.01 program, in which programming errors are fixed identified in the previous ten disasters.
For example, today, despite the practical possibility of creating such a regime, aircraft 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 on takeoff, sometimes it goes by a split second. During this time, the pilot needs to make a decision - to stop takeoff or continue. Moreover, depending on factors, for the same reason, it is better to stop the takeoff on one day, and it is better to continue on the other. While the pilot is thinking, a heavy aircraft with a huge supply of fuel is rapidly accelerating, and the runway is rapidly decreasing. Failures can be very diverse (alas, technology 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 kinds of emergency situations. And after each unrecorded case, release a new version of the firmware.
Currently, "unreported cases" are resolved by the fact that there is a person in the cockpit who will swear (or keep silent, depending on the endurance), but will 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.
None of the instructions provide for such an oversight - to leave a piece of the emergency escape cable outside the plane. What would Autopilot v.10.01 do in this case, how would he know that he will soon break a window? No way. He would have continued to climb 11 km in altitude, and when a window would have broken there, according to the established program, he would have undertaken an emergency descent with the ejection of masks ... but only they would not have helped the passengers very much.
What did the pilots do? First, we received information about the outgoing transmission early enough. Secondly, despite the undetected nature of the phenomenon, we understood how this non-standard situation could end and made the only correct decision - to descend and return to the departure aerodrome.
And this is just ONE of the situations that happened in the careers of only TWO pilots (me and the co-pilot). And there are thousands of pilots, and hundreds of thousands of situations.
Some "householders" oppose with numbers, they say, a person is the weak link, according to statistics, 80% of all catastrophes occurred due to the fault of the human factor.
Everything is correct. The technique has become so reliable that in most cases a person refuses. However, I will remind you once again that the idle "householders" simply do not think that many flights, in which the equipment failed, ended well only because the human factor was in the cockpit.
I assure you that if you remove the pilots from the cockpit, then the share of the human factor will increase even more, but only in this case the human factor will be understood as a programming error.
Further, in an airplane the whole flight may work very well, however ... it may not work very well on the ground. For the plane to fly to the airfield and land there, a whole bunch of systems have been created, which what? ... That's right, sometimes they fail. And in this case, the pilot "wakes up" and does his job.
Banal decision making when avoiding thunderstorms. For example, my flight to Genoa, I called it "tinsmith's flight"
Or a flight to Sochi:
And that's just three flights. And only one individual pilot has hundreds of times more of them.
Thunderstorms look different on radar, and not always one bypass solution will be as good for another. And when this thunderstorm is in the area of the airfield ... And if this airfield is mountainous? You have to think and make decisions ...
If lightning strikes the plane, or it grabs a static discharge, then people will not die from this hit, but the systems can fail unpredictably. And there were cases that ended well just because the pilots were in the cockpit.
It is worth adding to all of the above that not all airports today can make an aircraft automatically land. It needs pretty greenhouse conditions compared to those in which a pilot can land. Of course, this is a matter of programming algorithms, but the task is difficult enough to ensure equal reliability.
Of course, if you skimp on reliability, then it has long been possible on the line to release aircraft without pilot-operators.
The main reason why planes without pilots have not yet entered civilian lines is this very RELIABILITY. For the needs of the military or for shippers, the reliability may not be as high as for transporting people by air.
Of course, the degree of automation will continue to grow. This also determines the reliability of the "Crew-aircraft" system. Of course, the search for the best solutions to ensure that the aircraft reliably flew without human intervention. True, it will be possible to completely exclude human participation from flight only when artificial intelligence is invented, which is not inferior to the intellect of a trained person. The problem of making decisions in non-standard situations is not going anywhere. The plane is not a car, so that in a non-standard situation it is simply stupid to stop on the side of the road.
One option is to control the aircraft by the operator from the ground. That is, the 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 are killed. Then the next version of the software appears.
So let's focus our efforts not on discussing the profession of a pilot (each such discussion sooner or later turns into the topic "Why do pilots get TAAAK money?"
Fly Safely!
Together with the pilots of S7 Airlines, I arrived at Domodedovo airport, passed a medical examination, a pre-flight briefing, met the flight attendants, received permission to take off, took a ride in a minibus to the plane, examined it, started the engines and ... did not fly away. However, I photographed the entire process of preparation for the flight ...
The pilots enter the service building through a separate entrance at the terminal. Just like everyone else, they go through a full search:
The airport is divided into 2 zones: clean and dirty. A clean area is an area within an airport that can only be accessed through security checks. The rest of the terminal building is called the dirty area:
2. 
Immediately after the examination, the entire crew undergoes a medical examination:
3. 
Here the pilots receive a flight task, where all other flight marks will be entered. The medical examination can be done no earlier than 2 hours before departure and no later than an hour. The doctor measures blood pressure and pulse. He looks at the pilot and assesses his condition. If suspicions arise, additional tests may be performed:
4. 
In the next room, senior flight attendants receive first aid kits. After the flight, they return them. The contents of the first-aid kits are constantly updated, and a special doctor makes sure that all medicines are with an unexpired expiration date:
5. 
After the medical examination, the pilots go down one floor and enter the briefing room:
6. 
At the end of the hall, in the window, the co-pilot receives the aircraft documentation in an impressive suitcase. It is always worn by the assistant commander. A kind of hazing:
7. 
In the middle of the room there is a large table, at which the pilots are preparing for the flight. They study route documents, schemes for entering the airport of destination, check the weather report on the route, choose the optimal route, determine the amount of fuel needed, choose an alternate airfield, etc .:
8. 
9. 
10. 
It also receives data on the weather in all flight phases, wind speed and direction at altitudes, and possible turbulence. The entire route is divided into sections, and the pilots know in advance the expected turbulence force on each of them:
11. 
S7 Airlines has a separate table with computers in the briefing room, where the Aircraft Commander (PIC) can view additional information about the flight:
12. 
If the commander has doubts about the weather conditions, then he can consult with the duty meteorologist:
13. 
At the center of the dispatcher, the assistant commander fills out and submits a sheet with information about the flight. Information such as flight number, direction, tail number, weight of equipped aircraft (AC), total refueling, taxi fuel, takeoff fuel, flight fuel, flight time and number of seats are entered here. Based on this information, it is determined where the aircraft will have its center of mass:
14. 
15. 
After completing the training, the PIC calls the senior flight attendant and instructs him:
16. 
The philosophy of the AIRBUS company is that the crew should not be departed. Therefore, each time the PIC and the co-pilot are different. Same with the flight attendants. An explanation of this philosophy is in either the first page with comments to it). They get to know each other already in the lounge before the flight:
17. 
Here the senior flight attendant gives instructions to the crew:
18. 
After completing the training, the pilot approaches the controller and informs him that he has made a decision to perform the flight:
19. 
The pilots go to the plane in a special minibus. By the way, for the airline, each such trip costs 1000 rubles:
20. 
On the territory of the apron, all people must wear green vests. Pilots are no exception:
21. 
The aircraft does not have an ignition key, and it is turned on with a button. An initial check of the system is carried out:
22. 
The co-pilot conducts an external inspection of the aircraft. Checks the absence of the "Remove Before Flight" check on the front landing gear, "because if it is present, the landing gear will not be removed:
23. 
Visually inspects the nose of the aircraft for damage:
24. 
Checks the status of the sensors. In no case should they be iced up:
25. 
The technical door must be tightly closed:
26. 
Visually inspects the engine blades:
27. 
If they are frozen over, a technician is called in and warms them up:
28. 
29. 
The filling hatch (black hole in the middle of the wing) must be tightly closed:
30. 
Examines wing mechanics and static electricity dischargers (sticks sticking out of the wing):
31. 
Denis is an instructor pilot for one of the largest airlines in Russia. Which one, it's easy to understand after reading his blog. And if up to this point you could be tormented by typical questions from the category "How do planes take off?", "How do planes land?", "How do you control an airplane in manual mode?"
Yuri Yashin
Without a doubt, Yuri is the most smiling of all public pilots. Now he works for S7 Airlines as a co-pilot of the Airbus A-320. Thanks to Yuri's passion for photography, we have the opportunity to see picturesque pictures from the cockpit on the blog, as well as photos of aircraft at destination airports. And thanks to his talent as a storyteller, we regularly learn about everyday life in flight.
Marina Lystseva
Marina says: "You don't have to work for an airline to be as close to the planes as possible." The fact is that Marina is an aviation photographer, whose telephoto lenses will reach everywhere. Her passion for aviation began 15 years ago when she worked as the editor-in-chief of the journal Aviation and Cosmonautics Bulletin. And it still continues, now to the delight of blog readers. And yes, a little remark: in the interpretation of the author, the nickname is correctly read "photographerYorsha";)
Andrey Ivanov
Andrey admits that as a child, like all children, he dreamed of becoming a pilot or astronaut. His eyesight did not allow him to learn to be a civil aviation pilot, but did not deprive him of his dream of flying. Today Andrey combines several hypostases associated with the sky. He is an aviation engineer, private pilot, project manager for the Il-14 restoration and director of AOPA-Russia.
