AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - April 2015 - 10

LETTERS

FROM OUR FEBRUARY 2015 ISSUE

Automation: A Balanced Approach
Readers agreed with Editor in Chief Tom Haines, who wrote in his "Waypoints" column that
while technology is exciting, hand-flying is more fun.
Tom Haines said a lot in a
one-page article. I was a Navy
carrier pilot for 31 years; I flew
mostly fighters. We were single-seat, one comm radio, and
a military VOR (tacan).
I was flying as co-pilot in
a C-12 that had a system that
was very sophisticated for its
time. Taking off at Andrews Air
Force Base, flying to Norfolk,
Virginia, I forgot to initialize
the flight plan. It was CAVU
to the moon, and the first leg
was to a vortac about 20 miles
away. The pilot almost panicked. I said, Hey, all we gotta
do is tune in the tacan. That
guy was the personification of
the sentence Haines had in his
article-something went wrong
and he was totally out of the
operational loop.
Now, as I fly my Mooney
with a GPS and I am cleared
direct on a 500-mile leg, I have
to keep reminding myself to
tune the VORs and keep cognizant of what is going on.
Electronics and mechanical
devices are great but you still
have to fly the darn airplane.
Chuck Long
AOPA 0905465
Chesapeake, Virginia

I had been flying my Cub a
lot since I was between students and really love flying
tailwheel aircraft-simple window-open, stick-and-rudder
fun. So I hadn't had a student
in our Cirrus SR22 in a while
and when I went up for a quick
flight, I felt more at home than
when flying it regularly. The
CFI in the left seat was acting
10 | AOPA PILOT April 2015

Waypoints

automation:
a balanced approach

By Thomas B. haines
Editor in Chief

When highfalutin goes over the top

EdITOr In ChIEf

Thomas B. Haines
enjoys using
technology in the
cockpit, but enjoys
hand-flying more.

The deBaTe about the proper role of automation
in the cockpit probably started the day that Sperry
Corporation developed the first autopilot in 1912. Some
of the pilots of the day undoubtedly declared the contraption was for wimps. They are probably the same
ones who secretly were afraid of the technology.
We saw the same reaction in the 1980s when "glass
cockpits" showed up in business aircraft and airliners. Electronic Flight Instrument Systems (EFIS) were
basically representations of conventional gauges on a
cathode ray tube. In a few cases, the round dials were
replaced by vertical tapes, which started controversy
about how information should be displayed-one that
continues today. Some airline pilots retired rather than
deal with the transition to the new technology.
Automation throughout our lives charges on, changing everything from how we operate our cars to how we
cook dinner. Most would agree that automatic transmissions have made driving easier-and, in some cases,
less fun. I like a stick shift for weekend driving, but I'm
happy to have an automatic in beltway traffic.
When it comes to our "modern" airplanes-which
may only be modern in the cockpit-automation can
improve safety and reliability, increase situational
awareness, and increase redundancy. Yet, despite the
progress, we continue to see a high level of accidents
where pilots seem too dependent on automation.
As NTSB Acting Chairman Chris Hart pointed out at
the National Business Aviation Association Convention
in Orlando last fall, the Air France Flight 447 accident
is an example. Pilots of all levels can wonder how it is
that three highly trained, experienced airline pilots flying one of the most modern and capable aircraft ever
designed could allow it to get away from them and plummet into the Atlantic Ocean because of the failure in the
pitot static system. Based on available information, it
appears that if they had simply pushed the nose over and
properly used thrust, they could have flown on safely
to their destination. Failure of a pitot-static system is
something that is easily replicated in training, but combined with multiple failures in the system, darkness, and
the turbulence from a nearby thunderstorm, the pilots
seemingly misread the remaining instruments and mismanaged the situation. If they had been in an airplane
with more basic instrumentation and been well trained

in its weaknesses, could they have recognized the situation and responded differently? And if that had made a
difference in that particular case, how might the safety
record be different on a day-to-day basis if we declared
that we shouldn't build so much automation into modern airplanes? How frequently are accidents prevented
by automation that we aren't even aware might otherwise have happened?
Asiana Flight 214's crash at San Francisco
International appears to be related to the crew's failure to recognize that their airplane was too slow on the
approach. Rather than simply bump up the thrust, they
watched the speed diminish to the point that their perfectly functioning airplane crashed.
A more recent accident also appears to be airspeed
related. An Embraer Phenom 100 business jet, one of
the most modern business jets available, appears to have
gotten too slow on final to the Montgomery County
Airpark in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in December 2014.
Initial reports suggest the pilot overshot the final and
then, in attempting to correct, did not apply additional
thrust-despite cockpit warnings of an impending stall.
He lost control of the airplane and it plummeted into a
neighborhood, setting a house on fire, killing a mother
and her two children as well as all three aboard the jet.
As Hart relayed to an audience at the NBAA convention, modern subway trains have become so automated
that the "drivers" are bored and not engaged in the operation of the train. So when something goes wrong, the
operators are not in the operational loop. Hart challenged cockpit designers to come up with new ways to
leverage automation while keeping crews engaged and
aware of their surroundings. As with many other things
in life, it's all about balance-balancing the benefits of
automation against the need to have pilots engaged for
when the automation takes a powder. The good news is
that hand-flying is an effective antidote to over-automation, an antidote that is being built into many training
curricula. And who wouldn't argue that hand-flying-
at least during some phases of flight-isn't a whole lot
more fun than watching George ply the skies? AOPA
EmAIL thomas.haines@aopa.org

social

Follow on twitter @tomhaines29

16 | AOPA PILOT February 2015

like he was the hapless new
student trying to kill me as I
failed systems and had to stay
on top of both him and the airplane. We had a good time and
both picked up our game a bit.
The act of being fully
engaged in physically flying
the Cub had kept me prepared
for the more complex aircraft
by minimizing the bandwidth
needed for the basic flying
tasks, allowing more attention
to be given to the automation
and actions of the student.

criticism has caused me at
times to question my teaching technique. Your column
affirmed my feelings about
this subject, making an indelible impression. Thank you for
being ready for that engine failure and thank you for writing
this piece. Never stop sharing.
You never know how significant one small story can be to
somebody-especially me.
Brian Schiff
AOPA 830048
Moorpark, California

"The problem is not
Gregg Beaty
so much dependence
AOPA 5561015
San Diego, California
on the automation as
it is allowing one's Splash!
preoccupation to I just read with trepidation
distract from the my father's February column
engine
primary task of fly- describing the orphanedfailure that nearly
me
ing the airplane. at the age of five ("Proficient Great Escapes
Being head down Pilot"). Dad later taught me I r e a l l y e n j o y e d D av e
to fly, so I could not help but Hirschman's "Fresh Catch:
trying to figure out wonder what I would be doing Bahamas Fishing Adventure."
why the autopilot today, and how different my So much so, in fact, that I
didn't do what the life would be, had his accident decided to draw a picture of the
been fatal. Being prepared for Bird Rock lighthouse. I thought
pilot thought is an engine failure at any time you might like it. Would you tell
the last thing to do is a philosophy he taught me Chris Rose he did a fantastic
student and that I relay to
when the airplane as a students. I too have been job with the photographs?Pitts
my
Crystal
AOPA 6171008
is headed off on an criticized for over-emphasizBismarck, Arkansas
unintended flight ing this possibility, and this
path."
Dennis Wolf
AOPA 418690
Great Neck, New York

Do you usually fly at towered or nontowered airports?

45.2%
Nontowered

29.5%
Towered

25.3%
I fly at
both equally

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - April 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - April 2015