Why Integrate the Autopilot ?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Shoalcove

The report you provided also mentions flying through a thunder cell, icing, deficient pitot tube design, a junior pilot that just woke up, a disengaged autopilot, a unusual twin yoke design, and incorrect manual inputs to reverse a stall as contributing factors.
With all due respect, did you read them?

There no particular that the thunder cell caused any sugnificsnt problem, G readings show a "normal " turbulence.

The pilot tube ice up was the cause of it, but this had happened before and was handled by that crew. ( another airbus)

In this case the aircraft avionics dropped into what airbus calls " alternative law" flight control , where the vast majority of flight protection was not available. By design both the autopilot and auto thrust disengaged.

However what you had were two relatively inexperienced pilots, one a relief pilot and the other the co-pilot. The PF being the relief pilot, the vastly more experienced captain was sleeping

As to the unusual twin yoke, I presume you mean side sticks, a design that airbus pilots are completely familiar with.

The report is clear, the two pilots (PF and also the PNF) failed to appreciate the high altitude stall, and actually failed to use what information they did have. ( gps speed and altitude ) they remained confused right till the last minute. A factor was the curious airbus stall warning logic which stopped when the Aoa became invalid ( such as at high values) and reappeared when the AoA was within range, so every time the PF brought the nose down and the AoA when inside its allowed values the warning came back on. this caused confusion.

( the junior pilot was never asleep. )

Dave

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by sidmon

Oh...might add that stalls and stall recoveries are some of the first maneuvers learned in pre solo training.

Its as basic as tacking and gybing....

The report mentions that pilots did not habitually get "high altitude " stall training , where the flight envelope is very tight . this is very different to low altitude stuff. The captain had simulator time for this, the two other pilots did not. ( I believe this has now changed ) couple this with the curious stall warning logic ( which is primarily based on AoA and that indicator is not displayed to pilots)

Add to this that they flew the aircraft even higher and faster and experienced buffet and exceeded the max flight level as calculated by the FMS. suggests that the pilots were not in any way experienced in the problem.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by sidmon

Not sure what equipment you fly but the FMC databases now contain a comprehensive terrain database...that is a direct result of Cali.

Hope -you- dont take this wrong but the links I put up on p 19 are from peer reviwed cognitive engineering work. They are the ones making the aero and nautical connections.

As for the Concordia, you're right. All is speculation, but my bet still stands that his defense will hinge on the failure of all that expensive equipment on his bridge didn't warn him that he was standing into danger.

Lastly on the GPWS it was Cali and a couple of other CFIT accidents that raised the limitations of radar based Gpws. Hence the investment in the database.

Just exactly what" expensive equipment " do you believe would be his defence, most yachts have as good a system as the bridge of the Concordia. All he would have had was a depth sounder

I think you seriously overestimate the level of technology on he bridge of a ship. It's a long way from star trek.

Dave

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Yes all the reports including the third one. It notices the relief pilot and the copilot had not got high altitude stall training. Also the airbus stall warming logic is confusing a fact that airbus was told about as for experience, well the cockpit voice recorder confirms the captain asking the reliefs pilot if he had a commercial pilots license!! And the training records are detailed in the report, what's your point

+1. I am starting to disconnect from the point Sidmon is trying to make. If sidmon wants to talk about the cruise ship he should go to that thread. If he wants to talk aviation he should go to an aviation forum. If he wants to blame concordia, af or cali on automation he hasnt convinced me.

Each one appears to be greatly an issue of human factors.

This thread is about integrating gps and wind data into an autopilot on a small boat and for op in case I havent made my recommendation clear, I say go for it. It wont make you a crappier sailor and there are advantages.

[goboatingnow]

What's is obvious, it that any technology which makes your task easier CAN lead to complacency. No one disputes that. However many accidents are cascade events, often where humans ignore computerised warnings and blinding continue a tons that lead to grave errors.

With very sophisticated systems, the issue isn't complacency, it's understanding the complex computerised systems, their error messages and trying to deduce what the logic is doing or what's happening to the control system. This is a different problem ( which is why design engineers say the system would be great if you could remove the user!). In complex full freedom control systems, the problem is handling errors from faulty systems and returning control to the humans.

Designers are working not to just fix the logic but also to remove the human. Primarily because ( just as someone mentioned with tacking angles) humans can't assimilate the barrage of information that can arise.

Returning this to sailing, we are a long long way from such systems and ultimately well probably never reach them as sailing is inherently a manual occupation. I do not believe that the current state of the art navigation systems available to leisure sailors represent some " threat" to safety, far from it it contributes to safety. The accident statistics bear this out, yet the sport/hobby has hugely grown in the last 20 years.

The cry in this thread over integrated systems is misplaced.

Dave

[Mr B]

I crossed an ocean with just the Autopilot,

Everything was integrated, some of it didnt work, Sometimes the GPS would have a hissy fit and drop out,

This was caused by going too slow and sideways, The GPS couldnt cope with two directions at once.

I just slapped it into reverse and backed off, When rocks became evident,

The Concordia cant do that, 80,000 tons takes a few miles to stop before you can put it into reverse,

It takes a long time just to change direction,

You cant compare a big ship to a very manouverable sailing Yacht,

And sailing by eye is good, But if your eye is on a girly and not the ship, things can go wrong, Hahahahahahaha

[sidmon]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

However what you had were two relatively inexperienced pilots, one a relief pilot and the other the co-pilot. The PF being the relief pilot, the vastly more experienced captain was sleeping

As to the unusual twin yoke, I presume you mean side sticks, a design that airbus pilots are completely familiar with.

The report is clear, the two pilots (PF and also the PNF) failed to appreciate the high altitude stall, and actually failed to use what information they did have. ( gps speed and altitude ) they remained confused right till the last minute.

Dave

As is the practice on long haul flights, there are 3 pilots with each taking turns resting during cruise. "Inexperience" is a relative term in that world, you don't get there until you are already a seasoned. pilot.

58-year-old flight captain Marc Dubois had joined Air France in 1988 and had approximately 11,000 flight hours, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus A330; the two first officers, 37-year-old David Robert and 32-year-old Pierre-Cedric Bonin, had over 9,000 flight hours between them.

By contrast, military pilots don't reach the totals the two FOs had through an entire career.

As for stalls. Aerodynamic stalls no matter the altitude share one trait: Push the nose down to recover. Its the basic flying skill of recognizing and recovering that was dangerously atrophied in this case.

Why? A culture of dependence on the automation. (I won't go into the differing design philosophies of Boeing and Airbus...my airline operates both BTW) at Air France at the expense of connecting all that automation back to basic airmanship.

How does that relate to the nautical side of things? The cruise ship industry has long fostered a similar culture, but has not really recognized the problem as a "global trend":

DIRECTIONS FORWARD WITH AUTOMATION. If the Royal Majesty shows one thing about automation, it is this: Increasing automation to reduce the influence of human weaknesses does not work. Automation creates new human weaknesses, and it amplifies
existing ones. Human error does not vanish; automation changes its nature. And the more autonomous the machine, the more the consequences of error get displaced into the future, further compromising opportunities to recover. The question for successful automation is not “who has control” (and then giving automation more and more control as technological capability grows or economic imperative dictates). The question is “how do we get along
together”. Indeed, what designers really need guidance on today is how to support the coordination between people and automation. In complex, dynamic, non-deterministic worlds, people will continue to be involved in the operation of highly automated systems. The key to
a successful future of these systems lies in how they support co-operation with their human operators—not only in foreseeable standard situations, but also during novel, unexpected circumstances. The question is how to turn automated systems into effective team players.

Now before the dynamic duo of Colon claim yet again that that I am advocating for a call to return to 17th century nav standards (hey they were high tech then with quadrants and chronometers!) let me again say that is not the case. The advanced automation systems in ships (and aircraft) HAVE contributed greatly to safety... And I am a full advocate of using the best and latest equipment to its fullest capabilities.

But as the bold red observes above, that doesn't come with zero risk.

When I posit that Schettino fell victim to "Automation Addiction" its because the systems in place through his entire career have rendered cruise ship operations nearly accident free. Cruise ship voyages are now highly programmed -and automated- evolutions. And that's the norm this guy has known throughout his career in the cruise ship business.

Now, given his age, its most likely that he learned his seafaring long before the GPS era, and once knew all the "Old School" tricks of the trade. But as with the flying pilots in AF447 such skills can atrophy if not used.

But, as anyone who has observed Carnival's operating practices ( a friend calls them the cruise line for the trailer park set), you would know that they are ONLY concerned about the bottom line and efficiencies to make that happen.

I could equate such to a similar operating culture endemic in the airlines until Value Jet...But I won't

So, given that culture of nearly always ensured safety, he became complacent:

Behaviour drifts towards danger. If the efficiencies that we use to meet our schedules and targets do not result in an accident over a long time, the organisation may drift – often unnoticed – towards and across safety limits. This is sometimes referred to as complacency. However, labelling it as such and issuing warnings about it is highly unlikely to challenge those of us who, as far as we are concerned, are operating within acceptable levels of risk...

So, while the electronics ARE NOT TO BLAME (sorry but need to cap it to keep certain ones from saying I say otherwise), the culture on that bridge engendered by the efficiencies of routinely relying solely on them for routine operations, allowed a captain to not only underestimate the risks of maneuvering a ship as big as an aircraft carrier near shoal water at night, but also to grossly overestimate his own eroded skills (as the AF pilots did not recognize theirs-hence the captains snark about the commercial license) as well.

lastly, found this interesting tidbit from Nigel1 over in the cruise ship thread #277
( and who does advocate integrating the autopilot in this thread...AS DO I -sorry again)

Just be aware of the subtle human factors risks as you do though. Those who think they are immune are the most likely to fall for the "Call of the Sirens."

Originally Posted by nigel1

Like David said, a lot of our small boats have a similar system.
At work, I actively discourage the use of integrated electronic chart/steering. I have noticed a tendency for ships to "follow the red line " at all costs. At least if the auto pilot is used as a standalone, the OOW actively has to monitor the route, and is maybe not so concerned as to keeping within inches of the plotted track.

[downunder]

I am afraid I lost my understanding of the privious post for the shouting.

[sidmon]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Returning this to sailing, we are a long long way from such systems and ultimately well probably never reach them as sailing is inherently a manual occupation. I do not believe that the current state of the art navigation systems available to leisure sailors represent some " threat" to safety, far from it it contributes to safety. The accident statistics bear this out, yet the sport/hobby has hugely grown in the last 20 years.

Dave

For those who blow by this link in the previous comment....

Shockwave’s shocking end was not the result of a failure of technology. The science is sound—it’s human nature that isn’t. It wasn’t that her sailors were not well prepared. They were an extremely experienced group, with thousands of miles of hard sailing in stormy latitudes to their credit. Of course, they knew how to navigate without GPS. But they succumbed to the siren’s call of technology that infects us with hubris and invites us to sail at the edge of disaster.

(From one whose views have been ridiculed hard for a week)

Seems your premise has some holes in it there Dave.

[downunder]

had to cover my ears that time

not sure Dave heard you.

[sailorboy1]

can not believe the effort being put forth by some to "win" the "discussion"

[sidmon]

Originally Posted by downunder

had to cover my ears that time

not sure Dave heard you.

Hows about fussing at the folks who have spent the last week deliberately mischaracterizing what I have to say.

Sure is funny that the editor of Sailing magazine has a similar take as mine.

And, oh BTW, before anyone intmates that I stole the Siren meme from him, check out the comments in the 2007 thread about the Burke grounding...

We apparently came up with it independently years apart.

Must be something to it.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by sidmon

As is the practice on long haul flights, there are 3 pilots with each taking turns resting during cruise. "Inexperience" is a relative term in that world, you don't get there until you are already a seasoned. pilot.

58-year-old flight captain Marc Dubois had joined Air France in 1988 and had approximately 11,000 flight hours, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus A330; the two first officers, 37-year-old David Robert and 32-year-old Pierre-Cedric Bonin, had over 9,000 flight hours between them.

Never claimed they weren't qualified. The report mentions they had no simulator high altitude stall experience. The report noted however that they never attempted the unreliable airspeed checklist nor disabled the FD as the check list recommends ( it also carries warnings about unreliable stall warnings)

As for stalls. Aerodynamic stalls no matter the altitude share one trait: Push the nose down to recover. Its the basic flying skill of recognizing and recovering that was dangerously atrophied in this case.

The real issue was the inability of the PF to interpret the alarm cascade and realise that they were in a stall, from the reports it's easy to see they simply didn't realise they had stalled the aircraft. In the AF case the issue is in effect the human machine interface, rather then anything else. Commerial Aircraft avionics has suffered from a conflict between retaining traditional flight control and display systems and full freedom control systems where the human plays the part of a button pusher. Is difficult to get it right , I know I was involved in some designs.

Why? A culture of dependence on the automation. (I won't go into the differing design philosophies of Boeing and Airbus...my airline operates both BTW) at Air France at the expense of connecting all that automation back to basic airmanship.

It's incorrect to say a culture of dependence on the automation, the fact is many modern physical systems now cannot be manually controlled , there is no "manual " system, this is nearly the case with modern airliners and especially so with Airbus. ( the quip being you fly a boeing , you manage an airbus) It is definitely the case with military jets.

We have in effect passed the point of return. We are introducing more and more technology into heretofore manual operations. So what we must focus on is the critical HMI concepts to endure that humans can intervene when necessary ( and assimilate the complex interaction cascade) and also to ensure that human pseudo manual intervention cannot override system protection without the user explicitly acknowledging it. Where such manual control is not possible or error prone ( either through skill atrophy or complexity) the control system shouldn't allow manual control.

How does that relate to the nautical side of things? The cruise ship industry has long fostered a similar culture, but has not really recognized the problem as a "global trend":

DIRECTIONS FORWARD WITH AUTOMATION. If the Royal Majesty shows one thing about automation, it is this: Increasing automation to reduce the influence of human weaknesses does not work. Automation creates new human weaknesses, and it amplifies
existing ones. Human error does not vanish; automation changes its nature. And the more autonomous the machine, the more the consequences of error get displaced into the future, further compromising opportunities to recover. The question for successful automation is not “who has control” (and then giving automation more and more control as technological capability grows or economic imperative dictates). The question is “how do we get along
together”. Indeed, what designers really need guidance on today is how to support the coordination between people and automation. In complex, dynamic, non-deterministic worlds, people will continue to be involved in the operation of highly automated systems. The key to
a successful future of these systems lies in how they support co-operation with their human operators—not only in foreseeable standard situations, but also during novel, unexpected circumstances. The question is how to turn automated systems into effective team players.

You are in my view incorrectly summarising the royal majesty accident. This was a fairly simple fault, what it showed up was that the bridge officers weren't doing their job. In particular no loran cross checking , as required, was being done. This is not skills atrophy, but a dereliction of ones job. ( and he was disciplined for it)

What was missing from such a bridge ( and in contrast to avionics) was a proper integrated error messaging and alerting system , ie more automation would have detect the gps error , made a decision and alerted the crew. This stems from the patchy integrated bridge typical of modern bridges and very unlike avionics. Interesting such an error would be very not easily occur in today's top of the range integrated leisure systems, which tend to use the the mfd to provide a central alerting system. ( such as loss of gps fix). As I said before you'd be surprised how non-integrated modern ships bridges are.

I'm afraid I don't agree with you , as a practicing automation engineer , the goal both by the customer and the design engineer is to remove the human. Machine decision autonomy is the goal. The challenge is how to reinvolve the human when a failure occurs that the automation logic cannot handle. ( and sometimes reinvolve him fast)

As we develop our dependence on technology, there is no way to ensure that all manual skills get maintained , if an automated system is extremely reliable we do not in reality attempt to force people to practice skills they almost never will use. Do we teach kids log tables in case they can't find a calculator , no. Do we teach kids typewriter skills in case the computer fails , no. ( do we teach sextants navigation to gps users, no) Increasing we will not teach pilots to fly nor captains to " sail" no more then one day we won't teach people how to " drive" cars. What's happens therefore if there is a Major failure ( a) we build better safety and rescue systems and (b) society accepts a level of fatalities in return for the convenience. The car being a classic example.

When I posit that Schettino fell victim to "Automation Addiction" its because the systems in place through his entire career have rendered cruise ship operations nearly accident free. Cruise ship voyages are now highly programmed -and automated- evolutions. And that's the norm this guy has known throughout his career in the cruise ship business.

Now, given his age, its most likely that he learned his seafaring long before the GPS era, and once knew all the "Old School" tricks of the trade. But as with the flying pilots in AF447 such skills can atrophy if not used.

Big ships paradoxically do not have anything like the integration you imagine, especially as regards integrated systems monitoring and alarming. They are a hodge lodge of systems not necessarily tied together ( there's no overall computer control, like there is in avionics). Equally captains and bridge officers are well skilled at manually driving such ships as they must do most docking and slow speed control completely manually. NO, had the costa Concordia been driven by an electronics system similar or better then avionics systems ( certainly implementable with today's tech) shed never go anywhere near such an obstacle.

In fact the modern leisure yacht with a top of the line system has a far better more integrated and robust system then most ships

The fact is such an accident was purely human error, not complacency brought about by electronics or skills atrophy. The man made a conscious decision to close a coast , ordered a turn too late and imperilled his ship, furthermore compounding it by making a mess of the beaching and rescue.

It's the same thing humans have being doing for centuries, making a balls up. Such events have occurred long before electrons and will still be occurring as long as we let people take decisions. It's who we are. This fact seems to difficult to accept by industry professionals, who constantly search for mitigating circumstances ( t he electronics can really defend itself ). Pilots, marine professionals all seek to blame the technology, when all that really happened is somebody goofed and this time he didn't get away with it.

Dave

.

[sidmon]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

It's the same thing humans have being doing for centuries, making a balls up.
Dave

.

Hence the Sirens meme..

As for the rest of the snipped quote, I believe that as an "automation engineer" you are too locked down in the minutiae of the problem, and it would benefit you greatly to back out and look at the more holistic aspects.

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Where such manual control is not possible or error prone ( either through skill atrophy or complexity) the control system shouldn't allow manual control.

Have you read The Right Stuff?

If not, you really should, as you need to see how this said same sentiment played out a half century ago...


(now this kind of dialogue is worthwhile)

[colemj]

Originally Posted by sidmon

So, while the electronics ARE NOT TO BLAME (sorry but need to cap it to keep certain ones from saying I say otherwise),
...
( and who does advocate integrating the autopilot in this thread...AS DO I -sorry again)

Just be aware of the subtle human factors risks as you do though. Those who think they are immune ... are the most likely to fall for the "Call of the Sirens."[/B][/URL]

Your shorter (and quieter) posts have more meaning and impact. I boiled this one down for you:

"Be careful or you will put an eye out"

Thank you

Mark