How an airplane flies: autopilot vs live pilot. Who controls your aircraft - the pilot or the autopilot? How long do oxygen masks last?
Autopilots relax civil aviation pilots, they complain to the relevant US federal agency. Isn't it time to abandon the thoughtless reliance on an iron friend?
The first experiments of flight and landing "under the hood" were carried out in the 1930s. Since then, autopilots have advanced extremely far, and often, if weather conditions allow, the flight can be completely shifted to their shoulders. Where, in fact, is the technology of autonomous UAVs, which has blossomed wildly in recent decades.
However, there is a problem: the planes are controlled not only by computers, but also by pilots. Why is this happening? Air is not earth: if cars move mainly along roads equipped with signs and other traffic rules, then flights of even the most ordinary civil aviation sometimes resemble off-road driving, simultaneously through mud and snow. Only impassable mud, snow (thunderstorm front and other weather miracles) and other "lack of roads" can occur at any time and on any part of the route. Airports make a separate line in this moan.
To interact with such complex and unpredictable factors as thunderstorms, air traffic controllers, and so on, no one knows how to make computers yet, which makes it necessary to always keep a person on board a passenger airliner.
At the same time, in most simple conditions, the autopilot easily replaces it, which ... makes a person relax. The US Federal Aviation Administration recently released a report, part of which was leaked to the press.
And from it it follows that, according to the results of 9 thousand recent flights, for which there was detailed information about what was happening in the cockpits, many of them "intervene with great reluctance" in the operation of automated aircraft control systems. They are even more reserved about turning off autopilots and switching to manual control in dangerous situations.
In addition to the lack of their own experience in manual control, the report notes, poor training of the flight crew is to blame: when training them, it is precisely these components of the program that often receive insufficient attention. The consequences of the seemingly positive fact that automated flight control systems are developing rapidly are no better: pilots' knowledge about them is not replenished so quickly, which can lead to an incomplete understanding by a person of all the capabilities and features of the system that he controls.
Particularly disturbing is the fact that often, not having time to transfer control of the aircraft to manual mode, the pilots allow the loss of speed below the stall threshold, that is, in fact, they allow their ships to fly too slowly. The results are obvious: such planes are falling. To the ground.
Systems responsible for automatically maintaining the optimal angle at which the wing meets the oncoming air flow sometimes create conditions where an unskilled pilot simply cannot adequately maintain this angle if the device fails for some reason.
Many provisions of the report can hardly be called new. For example, the Aircraft Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) was blamed for the crash over Lake Constance. Then it turned out that in reality the dispatcher was mistaken, and the pilots obeyed him, and not TCAS, but whoever was to blame for the disasters - automation or the inability to work with it - measures to improve the interaction of pilots with constantly changing automated control systems are vital.
The "I thought it worked" error deserves special mention. This July, the pilots of an Asiana Airlines flight flying over San Francisco, USA, thought the autothrottle was programmed to maintain a speed of 254 km / h, while they simply forgot to turn it on. As a result, no one followed the gas, and the speed dropped to the point where the plane flew into the ground.
Is there a way out of all these "forgot to turn on", "didn't respond to TCAS prompts", "didn't follow the thrust / altitude / speed"? Going back to manual control is stupid.
"Advanced automation has made flying much safer, so we don't have to throw the baby out with the water," says Mary Cummings, a former US Navy pilot and now just a designer of flight automation systems.
Anyone who remembers the frequency of accidents in aviation half a century ago will agree that it has become incomparably more difficult to die on a flight after the mass introduction of autopilots (namely, they control the aircraft 95% of the time) than on the ground. Suffice it to say that the current death toll for this reason is at the level of the 1940s, when there were orders of magnitude fewer people flying.
In many respects, the impression of a certain special accident rate of air transport is a consequence of the "Hindenburg effect": in fact, the survival rate of airship passengers in the 30s was higher than that of heavier-than-air aircraft passengers.
However, the large size of the airships led to the fact that even one accident made an exceptional impression on the public (newspapers, "shock, video"), eventually creating an opinion about airships as a dangerous transport. Today, planes have reached the capacity of the airships of the past, which is why the public is again nervous. And, of course, the intensity of passenger air transportation is growing, which automatically increases the likelihood of death in the air.
It is completely useless to blame people for being afraid of planes, "from which" on average less than 1,200 people die a year, while voluntarily trusting their lives to personal cars that kill 1.2 million people in the same period. Public opinion, in principle, does not lend itself to rational arguments, so that in the air it can die even a thousand, even a million times less than on the roads - and this still will not convince anyone.
But what to do with the transportation itself, what should be the main direction of efforts to improve its safety? The same Cummings is categorical: only work on automation and pilots can improve the situation.
"Pilot training programs can be improved. But perhaps the biggest practical step will be to improve the reliability of the automatic systems themselves," she elaborates.
Judging by the dynamics of their development over the past half century, this is probably the best thing we can do for flight safety.
Adapted from NewScientist.
Quite often, on aviation and not so forums and websites, the question of how much a modern civil aircraft needs a pilot is raised. Like, with the current 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 a climax, the flight of Buran.
"You are tormented by this question, you want to talk about it"?
Well, let's talk.
--==(o)==--
What is an autopilot?
The best autopilot I have ever seen is featured in the American comedy Airplane.
However, in that film, he accidentally failed, and if not for the heroic loser, the happy ending would not have happened. Although, there was also a flight attendant... Well, in any case, there was a person.
In fact, many pilots do not enter into an argument 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 fight there) It’s a joke.
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 (the sacramental meaning is already hidden in this phrase) through the consoles. The photo below shows the cockpit of a not very 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 took to the skies a few 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 responsible, in fact, for turning on the autopilot. By the way, with the configuration of the autopilot controls that is fixed in the photo, the autopilot will not turn on. Let the experts answer why.
The numbers in the boxes indicate the data that is necessary for a particular mode of operation of the autopilot. For example, in the ALTITUDE box, 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 fly stupidly at it until the pilot sets a new altitude value and .. . will not turn on any dialing mode again.
By itself, the autopilot will not change the altitude and will not go into a set.
Furthermore. The pilot can 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 on the course set by the pilot in the HEADING box, 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 is paired with an autothrottle - this is another set of pieces of iron and wires that is 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 on the autothrottle in 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, since many autopilot modes require changes in thrust. For example, the autopilot needs to descend, but the thrust set to the takeoff mode will not stupidly do this.
In the photo below you can see the control panel FMS - flight management system (flight management system). Through this panel, you can enter some useful data, with the help of which the automation will know which route the plane is flying today, which values of thrust and speed will be optimal today.
After takeoff, the pilot can turn on (or turn on automatically) the autopilot mode, in which the aircraft will fly on commands received from this system. However, as I said above, if it hits a height of 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 autopilot is nothing more than a piece of iron stuffed with algorithms) is the inability to make non-standard decisions that depend on the specific situation.
The aircraft control algorithms themselves are not at all complicated, so autopilots on aircraft began to appear as early as 1912, and in the 1930s they began to become widespread.
I am more than sure that already then there were talks that the profession "pilot" would soon become obsolete, as well as the profession "coachman". Many years later, Anatoly Markusha, in one of his books, recounted a conversation he overheard of a girl who expressed claims to her young man that he needed to look for another profession, they say, pilots would soon be no longer needed.
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 "economy", the navigator who provided navigation, the radio operator - who was in communication ... They were replaced by smart systems, that's 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 as automated as possible), but also have a lot of knowledge in their heads, which they usually didn’t use in flight before (and faded over time), because. narrow specialists in these areas were sitting in the cockpit.
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 those algorithms, the programming of which has been possible for a very, very long time.
Any interested programmer for the sake of sporting interest can come up with an add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator and land their Snowstorms even in Zavyalovka, and then go to the aviation forum and mock the profession of "aircraft driver".
But here I am, an "airplane driver", having an understanding of situations that arise in the sky, which require constant decision-making, 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 have been 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 "Taking off is dangerous, flying is beautiful, landing is difficult". True. Taking off is easier than landing, however, if something happens on takeoff, sometimes it counts for a fraction of a second. During this time, the pilot needs to make a decision - to stop the takeoff or continue. Moreover, depending on the factors, for the same reason, one day it is better to stop the take-off, and the next it is better to continue. While the pilot is thinking, a heavy aircraft with a huge fuel supply is rapidly accelerating, and the runway is rapidly decreasing. Failures can be very diverse (alas, but the equipment still fails) and not always the failure comes 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 firmware version.
Currently, "unrecorded cases" are solved by having a person in the cockpit who will swear (or remain silent, depending on the shutter speed), but will cope with the situation and return the aircraft to the ground.
And in most cases, idle inhabitants simply do not know about such cases, because not everything is reported in the press.
Not a single instruction provides for such an oversight - to leave a piece of the emergency escape cable overboard. What would Autopilot v.10.01 do in this case, how would he know that his window will soon be broken? No way. He would continue to climb 11 km in height, and when a window would break there, according to the program laid down, he would undertake an emergency descent with the throwing out of masks ... but they would not help the passengers much.
What did the pilots do? Firstly, we received information about the passing event quite early. Secondly, despite the unrevealed nature of the phenomenon, they understood how this non-standard 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 career of only TWO pilots (me and the co-pilot). And there are thousands of pilots, and hundreds of thousands of situations.
Some "householders" oppose figures, they say, a person is a weak link, according to statistics, 80% of all disasters occurred due to the human factor.
All right. The technology has become so reliable that in most cases a person fails. However, I will remind you once again that idle "householders" simply do not think that many flights in which the equipment failed ended safely only because the human factor was in the cockpit.
I assure you, if you remove the pilots from the cockpit, then the proportion 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, everything may work very well for the whole 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 systems have been created, which are what? ... That's right, sometimes they fail. And in this case, the pilot "wakes up" and does his job.
Banal decision-making when bypassing thunderstorms. Here, for example, my flight to Genoa, I called it "the tinker's flight" http://denokan.livejournal.com/66370.html
Or a flight to Sochi: http://denokan.livejournal.com/67901.html
And that's just three flights. And only one individual pilot has hundreds of times more of them.
Thunderstorms look different on the radar, and one bypass solution will not always be as good for another case. And when this thunderstorm is located in the area of the airfield ... And if this airfield is mountainous? You have to think and make decisions...
If a plane is hit by lightning, or it seizes a discharge of static, then people will not die from this hit, but systems can fail unpredictably. 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 far from all airports today the plane can perform an automatic landing. It requires rather greenhouse conditions compared to those in which a pilot can land. Of course, this is a matter of programming algorithms, but the task is not easy enough to ensure equal reliability.
Of course, if you skimp on reliability, then it has long been possible to produce aircraft on the line without pilot-operators.
The main reason why aircraft without pilots have not yet entered civilian lines is this very RELIABILITY. For the needs of the military or shippers, the 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 exclude human participation from the 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 anywhere. An airplane is not a car, so that in an unusual situation it’s just stupid to stop on the side of the road.
One option is for the operator to control the aircraft 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 die. Then the next version of the software appears.
So let's direct our efforts not to discussing the profession of a pilot (each such discussion sooner or later turns into the topic "what do pilots get sooo much money for?"), but let's concentrate our efforts on creating in our direct specialty.
Fly safe!
Planes are getting smarter every day. If earlier the autopilot was considered the height of perfection in aviation, in relatively calm weather conditions, safely and reliably escorting the plane from point A to point B, then modern liners can boast of systems that allow them to take off and land automatically. Among passengers, sometimes there is even an opinion that the profession of a pilot is not as difficult as it is shown, say, in the movies - you sit, drink coffee and press the buttons. And if suddenly something happens, then automation will always help out and help even an ordinary passenger to land the plane. But is it 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 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. Engines whistle measuredly, fluffy clouds float smoothly behind the porthole below, and from above - bottomless blue and dazzling sun. But then suddenly a pale stewardess runs into the cabin and loudly announces (although in fact this will never happen, because the instruction forbids) that all the pilots (yes, both at once!) Have lost consciousness and do not come into it.
Not a single pilot, like you, flying on vacation, is in the cabin. There is no one to fly and land the plane. And then you get up from your chair and with the gait of a true brave man go to the door of the cockpit. You have to get in somehow, but how? The door is armored, pilots control its opening. A flight attendant comes to the rescue: on a small digital panel next to the door, she dials a secret code. But the door does not open, because the electronic door lock provides for a delay: pilots must make sure through the camera that the flight attendant dialed the code alone, and not under the supervision of terrorists (in this 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, a lot of buttons, verniers, screens and screens, handles and handles, pilots' bodies and two steering wheels (if you are flying on a Boeing or Tupolev liner, or two joysticks if you are on an Airbus or SSJ). Most likely, when you enter the cockpit, the plane will fly under the control of the autopilot (because the weather is clear and nothing interferes). It is best to take a seat on the left. It is commanding, from there there are more than any opportunities to control the aircraft. First of all, on the steering wheel or joystick, you need to find the radio switch (just do not press the red button, otherwise you will turn off the autopilot).
After the radio switch is found, put on a headset (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 be found to the left of your chair. Feel free to take it, turn it on, tune it to a frequency of 121.5 megahertz and shout "Mayday" into it. Rescue services listen to this frequency, so soon you will be switched to the dispatcher or the pilot on duty, and he will already explain what to do next.
In fact, in this whole process, the most important step is the communication with the control tower. After the dispatcher answers your call for help, he will ask you for your flight number and tell you where you can find this information (for example, on the steering wheel, these numbers are on the "horn" on the left). And then the most interesting will begin - under the guidance of the dispatcher and the pilot on duty, you will proceed directly to the landing of 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 duty officer will prompt you will differ, but the general landing pattern is the same for everyone. To begin with, you will be asked to make sure that the autopilot is working properly and that the flight parameters that it adheres to are correct. At some distance from the airport, you will be prompted to switch the autopilot to landing 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 offered to set up the aircraft's automation to receive signals from the beacon of the instrumental landing system located at the airport. The plane will go to his signal when landing.
Then the moment will surely come when the pilot on duty will ask you to release the flaps (the handle on the center panel with the inscription FLAP and several divisions) and the landing gear (the large knob with arrows and the inscriptions UP and DOWN). After touching the runway, you will be ordered to turn on the engine reverse (levers on the engine control handles between the seats) and use all the wing mechanization to help slow down. Finally, you will be asked to apply the brakes (usually located on top of the steering pedals under your feet). Everything. You landed, the plane stopped. You can faint or heroically wipe the sweat from your forehead.
In fact, this was described as the ideal landing. In it you are a very lucky person. After all, the weather is good, there is no wind, the aircraft is equipped with an automatic landing system, and an instrumental landing system (a system of beacons that allows the aircraft to navigate, find the runway and even align in its center) is installed at the receiving airport. Depending on the accuracy category, the instrumental landing system allows you to land the aircraft in automatic mode from a height of 790 to 49 meters. But so far only large airports are equipped with such systems, which means that in a regional port you will have to land in manual mode.
The fact is that the on-board automatic landing system on an aircraft without an instrumental landing system at the airport will not work; the plane simply “does not see” where to land, and everything will end very sadly. And if you thought that landing in automatic mode is like pressing two buttons and waiting for the plane to do everything by itself, then you were sorely mistaken. The machine has access only to the rudders, elevators and engines. You still have to turn on flaps, spoilers, spoilers, deflected socks, landing gear brakes and other mechanization.
If your arrival airport does not have an instrument landing system, or there is a strong side wind, rain, or fog, then you will most likely have to land the aircraft in full manual mode. And here your chances of success are reduced by an order of magnitude. The pilot on duty, of course, will tell you to the last where and what you need to pull, which pedal to press and what numbers to dial, but this is unlikely to help. The fact is that pilots learn to fly an aircraft in bad weather conditions for a long time and hard. A person who is called "from the cold" has no chance.
And, yes, bad news. If you have never been specifically interested in the device of the cockpit of the very aircraft on which you are flying, then both automatic and manual landing will end for you in the same way - a disaster in which everyone on board will die. There is always a small chance of survival, of course, but it is negligible. In automatic landing mode, you will at least have a few seconds to find the right handle or button, and the computer will insure you against serious mistakes. In the manual landing mode, there will simply be no time to look for the necessary buttons, and delay is death.
So no matter what modern aircraft you fly, you most likely won’t be able to land it without at least minimal training. But the good news is that until you land (or crash), you don't actually even know that anything happened to the pilots at all. Flight attendants, most likely, will simply not tell you this, because such information can cause panic on board, and this is already guaranteed death - it is impossible to control a panicking crowd. The flight attendants will try to take all actions for automatic or manual landing on their own until the end.
In 2009, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 crashed near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The disaster killed nine people and injured 120 others. The plane was landing under the control of a professional pilot in automatic mode, and the cause of the disaster was the incorrect output of data by a radio altimeter. But do not panic: in the case when 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 aircraft commander and co-pilot. In the history of passenger aviation, there has not yet been a single case where both pilots failed at once. In November 2012, a Lufthansa Boeing 747 made an emergency landing at Dublin Airport (flying from New York to Frankfurt) after the pilot suffered a severe migraine attack. The co-pilot was helped to land the plane by one of the passengers, who happened to have little experience in piloting turboprop aircraft.
At the same time, there were only five or six cases in the history of aviation when a passenger or a stewardess would be involved in managing an aircraft as an assistant pilot. In all cases, the assistants had, albeit small, but still some experience in flying an aircraft.
But progress does not stand still. At the end of last year, the US Federal Aviation Administration introduced new approach rules for 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 availability of "blind" and automatic landing systems on board the aircraft (the development of an automatic taxiing system along the airfield is also underway) will make flights really safe in the next ten to twenty years. Given the development of automatic systems and the shortage of pilots, NASA at the beginning of last year created the position of "super traffic controller" at airports, and cut the crews of aircraft by half, that is, leave one pilot in the cockpit. 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 the autopilot.
The "super traffic controller" at the airport will become a virtual co-pilot. It will be located in a special control center and will accompany several flights at once. In the event of an emergency or loss of the captain of the aircraft, he will take control. Remote control of the aircraft and data exchange will be carried out via a broadband communication channel in real time. Curiously, in response to NASA's proposal, some airlines decided to go even further and announced that aircraft 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 take-off, flight and landing of airliners to automation. For example, some aircraft are already equipped with RNP-1 specification navigation equipment. This means that in automatic mode the liner with a probability of 0.95 during the entire flight will deviate from the axis of the given route by no more than one nautical mile (1.852 kilometers). Knowing the high accuracy of navigation systems, the Israelis, for example, even intercept zones of air defense and missile defense systems right up to the borders of air corridors.
Major avionics manufacturers, including France's Thales and America's Honeywell, are already developing truly automated systems. Such systems will be independent of airport instrumentation systems and will be able to land aircraft on any runway suitable for them. The equipment of these systems will independently recognize the runways, assess the surrounding conditions and fly the aircraft. However, the integration of such systems into passenger liners is still very, very far away. After all, they still need to be tested, checked for reliability, duplicated. And that takes years of research.
navigationparameters.wordpress.com
Vasily Sychev
The birth of the aircraft industry changed a lot of things in the design of aircraft and their control. Even 20-30 years ago, such a device as an autopilot was unknown to almost anyone. Over the years, the situation has changed radically. Most of the flight control of huge passenger airliners is carried out by autopilots. We can say that the pilot actively participates only in taxiing and takeoff, after which he transfers control to the system. Pilot intervention is also needed when the vessel is landing. The on-board computer of aircraft greatly simplifies the tasks of management and control.
Pilots of modern Airbus models often joke that a dog and one person are enough to fly new models of passenger liners. The dog is needed to bite the pilot so that he does not reach for the levers and control buttons, and the person is needed in order to feed the dog. Of course, this is a joke that appeared due to modern control systems such as fly-by-wire, in other words, this is a radio remote control of the device. It allows for the transmission of signals from the pilot himself to the aircraft's mechanisms in the form of electrical signals. This means that instead of using the old hydraulics, the pilots control by sending signals through the computer to the individual mechanisms of the machine.
What is an autopilot in the broadest sense of the term? This is a software and hardware system that has the ability to drive a vehicle along a given route. Every year there are more and more innovations in many branches of the transport structure. Nevertheless, air transport occupies a leading position.
The autopilot of the aircraft is designed to stabilize all the parameters of the flight of the vessel and maintain a given course. At the same time, the speed and altitude set by the pilot are observed. Before transferring the aircraft to autopilot mode, it is necessary to create a clear flight without slipping or blocking the machine. After the aircraft is stabilized on all planes, it is possible to turn on the automatic control system, but it is necessary to carry out regular monitoring of indicators. It is worth noting that military aircraft also have such systems.
More complex in their design and reliable autopilots began to be installed on domestic aircraft from the end of the 70s.
A Brief History of Autopilot
The first autopilot in the world was created back in 1912. The invention belongs to the American company Sperry Corporation, which was able to create a system that keeps the aircraft on a given trajectory, while stabilizing the roll. This was achieved by linking the altimeter and compass to the rudders and elevators. Communication was set up through the use of a block and a hydraulic drive.
The diagram shows how a typical autopilot works.
Pre-calculated flight parameters are entered into the aircraft computers (1).
After takeoff, the autopilot takes over.
Two displays (2) show the position of the aircraft, its intended route and altitude.
Changing the position of small flaps (3) on the outer surface of the aircraft alerts the computers to the slightest change in the orientation of the aircraft.
To determine the position, the global navigation system (GOS) (4) is used.
The receiver is located on the top of the housing (5).
Computers monitor the route and automatically make the necessary changes through servo mechanisms (6),
who control the steering wheel (7),
elevators (8),
ailerons (9),
flaps (10)
and adjustment of motor chokes (11)
If necessary, the pilot can at any time turn off the autopilot and switch to manual control (12)
Starting from the 30s of the 20th century, some passenger airliners began to be equipped with autopilots. A new round in the development of automatic control systems was introduced by the Second World War, which required similar technologies for long-range bombers. The first fully automatic flight across the Atlantic, including landing and takeoff, was carried out by the US C-54 aircraft. This happened in 1947.
The current stage in the development of automated aircraft control systems has reached a qualitatively new level. To date, the liners are equipped with VBSU or ACS systems. The automatic control system "SAU" provides high-quality stabilization of the vessel on the route and in space. The totality of the system units allows you to control the device at all stages of the flight. The most modern developments allow flying in the so-called helm mode, which makes it possible to facilitate the work of the pilot as much as possible, to minimize his intervention. Such systems independently stabilize the aircraft against drift, slip or bumpiness, can even switch to critical flight modes, while very often ignoring the actions of the pilots.
The autopilot of the aircraft guides the device along a given route, while using the complex information of navigation devices of its own and ground sensors, which analyze the flight. This system controls all units of the aircraft. Trajectory systems also work, which carry out landing approaches with high accuracy without any pilot action.
Control devices in their standard form (levers, pedals) are practically not used. A high degree of automation brought control to the supply of electrical impulses to all parts of the aircraft without the use of hydraulics in the control system. Electromechanical controls allow pilots to recreate more familiar conditions. Increasingly, side stick controls are being installed in cockpits.
Aircraft automatic control problems
Of course, the primary and most important problem in the creation of autopilots is to maintain flight safety. In most older automatic control systems, the pilot has the ability to emergency disengage the autopilot and switch to manual control at any time. In the event of a violation or breakdown of the autopilot, it is imperative to turn off the system in the usual way or mechanically. In the Tu-134 apparatus, it is possible to "shoot" the autopilot with an installed squib. When developing an autopilot, options for disabling it in the event of a breakdown without harm to flight are carefully considered.
To increase safety, the control automation operates in a multi-channel mode. In parallel, four piloting systems with the same parameters and capabilities can work at once. The system also conducts constant analysis and monitoring of incoming information signals. The flight is carried out on the basis of the so-called quorum method, which consists of making a decision according to the data of most systems.
In the event of a breakdown, the autopilot is able to independently choose a further control mode. This may be a switch to another control channel or a transfer of control to the pilot. To check the operation of the systems, it is necessary to carry out the so-called pre-flight run of the systems. This test consists of running a step-by-step program that provides simulated flight signals.
Yet no test can achieve a 100% guarantee of safety and performance in flight. Due to non-standard situations in the air, additional problems with automatic control may arise. Some autopilots have different programs that allow you to fly the aircraft in question in the safest way.
Nevertheless, flying on one autopilot without a human factor is very dangerous and almost impossible. One logical conclusion can be drawn that the smarter the aircraft and the more complex its design, the less likely it is to fly without human intervention. The more new automated systems are used, the greater the chances of them failing in flight. It is almost impossible to calculate all the failure options. That is why the skills of the pilot will remain in demand all the time, since every pilot goes a very long way to the management of passenger liners. Accordingly, skills and quick decision-making remain more important than the actions of computer programs.
The most advanced fly-by-wire automatic control systems have significantly reduced the overall weight of the aircraft structure. At the same time, the reliability of on-board systems has increased significantly. The equipment responds without delay, and is also able to correct errors caused by human error during operation. This suggests that the system will not allow the pilot to start the car in a situation that is dangerous for her and passengers on board. Modern aircraft such as Airbus are no longer equipped with standard levers and control pedals, instead joysticks are installed. All this allows the pilots not to think about what command and how to send a separate unit. No need to think over the angle of ailerons or flaps, just tilt the control joystick - and the computer will do everything by itself.
Nevertheless, despite the whole rosy picture, many crashes and accidents occurred due to the fault of autopilots, which led to human casualties. The history of air crashes due to the fault of automatic control systems, unfortunately, is very rich in facts about the unreliability of such systems.
Entering the plane, any passenger will look not only to the right, but also to the left. Sometimes the door to the cockpit is open and we see how complicated everything is inside. We will explain what the main levers, toggle switches and panels mean.
1. Attitude of the aircraft
The pitch is displayed on the screen - the movement of the aircraft in the longitudinal channel. Simply put, pitch is the elevation of the nose or tail of an aircraft. 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. As in a car, it displays data about the destination, current location, how far the plane has already flown and how far
3. Duplicating device of the spatial position of the aircraft and navigation
4. Clock
5. On-board computer
Before the flight, pilots manually enter data into it: from where and where we are flying, weight, balance, takeoff speeds, wind along the route. The computer calculates the required fuel for the flight, the remaining fuel, the flight time ...
6. Handle release and cleaning of the chassis
7. Sidestick
Aircraft control stick, replaces the steering wheel
8. Autopilot off button
9. Brake pedals
Two pedals are used for braking in an airplane. 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 fighting system
In the event of a fire, the indicators light up. We see in which part of the ship the fire is located, and we turn on the automated fire extinguishing mode. Hand fire extinguishers are located in the cab and in the saloon
11. Buttons for turning on the fuel pumps
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 height. Landing on autopilot is used in special situations, such as fog
14. Engine control lever
This is the same as the gas pedal in a car. It controls the thrust of the engine.
15. Spoiler control toggle switch
Spoilers - folding flaps on the upper plane of the wing. They are air brakes. It is often necessary to slow down in the air, especially when landing. In this case, we release spoilers. They create additional resistance, and the aircraft's speed drops.
16. Flaps control knob
Flaps - 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 gained the required height, we remove the flaps
17. Battery activation buttons
18. Air temperature control buttons in the cockpit and cabin
19. Tablet computer
It contains collections of airport schemes and maps of different countries. You can also display a picture 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 setter, speed. Acting on them, we give commands to the autopilot to control the aircraft
Photo: Maxim Avdeev, Vasily Kuznetsov
