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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
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 Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 7:11 am Post subject: The cost/benefit ratio for automation |
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I have had an in flight fuel starvation event that was not resolved until after a no power landing which was successful. I know from that experience that a fog of confusion came over me and after replaying the event in my mind, I could not recall the point that the aux fuel pump was turned on. I had been through the drill many times to simulate an engine out emergency but I know for me when it actually happened, I did not perform as well as I could/should have. An automatic switching to the aux fuel pump could potentially take care of a problem without me having to remember to do it in the event of the fog. Of course I would want some indication of the switch occurring. |
Airplanes, the individuals who ride in them and the circumstances of environment through which the flight system moves offers infinite combinations of variables.
Some combinations add up in ways that increase risk, others will stack up in ways that reduce risk. The core process for risk reduction is the failure modes effects analysis. The oft repeated litany of questions to be asked/answered are:
In what ways can this component fail?
How will that failure manifest?
Does failure create a condition from which recovery is difficult/impossible?
Can the failure "hide"? In other words, can the failure exist behind an inability or unwillingness to pre-flight test for integrity?
If this failure has a high order of criticality, what steps can be taken to reduce criticality and/or back it up?
Since the dawn of aviation, designers, builders and operators of airplanes have wrestled with these questions. In some venues, individuals who know-more-about-airplanes-than-anybody have decreed certain behaviors under force and penalty of law. In every case, the justification for a proactive activity has been to "Make airplanes SAFE for children and all living things."
Something we need to accept from square-one is that there is no such thing as a SAFE airplane. Like chain saws, automobiles, ladders, lawn mowers ladles full of molten steel . . . they are simply tools. Used within the boundaries of acceptable risk, they can add a great deal to the quality of life . . . bump those boundaries and life can become less than ideal . . . or get terminated.
It is an inarguable fact that the pilot is a core component of the flight system. Pilots are human . . . subject by some degree to all of human-kinds weaknesses including ignorance and ease of distraction. As complexity of the mission grows, weak links in pilots inexorably drives up risk.
There have been countless experiences shared over suds and burgers (or Internet forums) that cite close calls. I have skated onto thin ice more times than I would like to recall . . . EACH instance involved a distraction from my training and an abrogation of duty to first be a pilot . . . insofar as possible, be one with my machine.
The benefits to be gained from automation are inarguable. Mooney proved this many years ago with their Positive Control feature that was, for a time, standard in all production airplanes. This was a vacuum servoed wing leveler that was ON at all times. The device could be momentarily shut off by depressing a button on the control yoke. Alternatively, control forces exerted by the pressure limited servos were so light that the pilot could maneuver the airplane at will whereupon automatic wing leveling would resume as soon as he turned loose of the wheel.
What an elegant concept.
How many lives and airframes might have been saved if the Mooney PC concept was standard equipment? At the same time, how would skills of the family of pilots be diluted by the existence of such systems in ALL production aircraft?
I would not advise anyone to eschew some move to 'upgrade' the level of technology in their airplane. At the same time, be cognizant of your first duty as builder, system integrator and ultimately operator of the machine to consider both the GAINS to be realized from the upgrade. Consider the potential for LOSSES that may add more risk than you gained with the transistors.
Some innocuous thing like automatic pump control does not occur in a vacuum. The little splash of technology on the panel has ripple that radiate outward . . . the effects of such ripples may be small but are never zero.
Technology places a pilot in a kind of soft 'vise' being squeezed from one side by a willingness to abrogate risk reduction to some piece of technology while being squashed from the other side by a little chip of silicon. Any failure in an array of 10,000 transistors reduces the chip's value to less than that of pebble on the beach. Without a doubt, technology has offered quantum jumps in risk reduction for operations while adding new risks in terms of both physical failure of hardware and psychological failure of gray matter.
That vise squeezes oxygen from the brain's situational awareness and common sense centers. Allowed to progress without restraint and we witness events like a cockpit full of pilots flying a 777 full of people into the seawall on a CAVU approach . . . or another cockpit full of pilots flying an L-1011 into the swamp while chasing a light bulb failure.
Can anyone say "driverless cars"? I will suggest that the infinite combinations of variables I cited at the opening of this missive is best managed by educated and attentive gray matter . . . aided by things like check-lists.
Bob . . . [quote][b]
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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
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| Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:35 am Post subject: The cost/benefit ratio for automation |
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Is there a failure mode of the DFII that could result in the unwanted shutting off of a fuel pump? I am not saying that could happen, just saying that unexpected things could happen if the pilot is not very familiar with automatic systems. Regardless of the electrical system architecture, the builder needs to ask, "If this part fails, how will I know it, what are the consequences, and what is my plan B?" |
Good question. The answers for this (and perhaps others) are not readily apparent from reading the literature for EFII.
I have no basis to suggest that the system as supplied is not a good thing . . . as the same time, much information that allows the system integrator/pilot to understand and confidently use the system is not known.
I have suggested throughout the evolution of the z-figures that the legacy approach to operating two pumps from two switches can be improved upon by crafting separate power paths and perhaps sources for energy to drive the pumps. When there is no risk for having both pumps on simultaneously, then the less-is-more approach to operation offers the least risk for fuel starvation due to pump failure. The same thought processes apply to any combination of system components necessary for comfortable termination of flight.
This presumes, of course, that the pilot's skills for use of pumps is as ritualistic and deeply entrenched as his/her ability to grease landings, managing quartering cross-winds gusting to 25, dealing comfortably with failed alternators, radios, or instruments, and striving to never have less than x gal of fuel on board at destination.
Once we add automation to manage such things, we're (1) challenged to have a plan-b for failure of the automation to perform as advertised and (2) subject to rise in risk for apathetic abrogation of situational awareness to the capabilities of the silicon (like 777s hitting the sea-wall).
It's a pretty sure bet that a Bob Hoover type hand flying that airplane would have greased that approach into gusting cross-winds while tracking numbers on the panel with precision. It's attitude and skills that separate pilots from airplane operators. Buttons the panel labeled "taxi, takeoff, fly, land, and park" make us operators.
Bob . . . [quote][b]
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jrevens
Joined: 21 Nov 2013
Posts: 34
Location: Arvada, CO
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 8:48 am Post subject: Re: The cost/benefit ratio for automation |
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Bob,
I love your careful analysis of this issue. If approved, I would like to publish a copy of your reply below in my EAA chapter 's newsletter (Chap. 43 in Denver, CO) with credit to you and the List of course.
[quote="nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect"] | Quote: |
I have had an in flight fuel starvation event that was not resolved until after a no power landing which was successful. I know from that experience that a fog of confusion came over me and after replaying the event in my mind, I could not recall the point that the aux fuel pump was turned on. I had been through the drill many times to simulate an engine out emergency but I know for me when it actually happened, I did not perform as well as I could/should have. An automatic switching to the aux fuel pump could potentially take care of a problem without me having to remember to do it in the event of the fog. Of course I would want some indication of the switch occurring. |
Airplanes, the individuals who ride in them and the circumstances of environment through which the flight system moves offers infinite combinations of variables.
Some combinations add up in ways that increase risk, others will stack up in ways that reduce risk. The core process for risk reduction is the failure modes effects analysis. The oft repeated litany of questions to be asked/answered are:
In what ways can this component fail?
How will that failure manifest?
Does failure create a condition from which recovery is difficult/impossible?
Can the failure "hide"? In other words, can the failure exist behind an inability or unwillingness to pre-flight test for integrity?
If this failure has a high order of criticality, what steps can be taken to reduce criticality and/or back it up?
Since the dawn of aviation, designers, builders and operators of airplanes have wrestled with these questions. In some venues, individuals who know-more-about-airplanes-than-anybody have decreed certain behaviors under force and penalty of law. In every case, the justification for a proactive activity has been to "Make airplanes SAFE for children and all living things."
Something we need to accept from square-one is that there is no such thing as a SAFE airplane. Like chain saws, automobiles, ladders, lawn mowers ladles full of molten steel . . . they are simply tools. Used within the boundaries of acceptable risk, they can add a great deal to the quality of life . . . bump those boundaries and life can become less than ideal . . . or get terminated.
It is an inarguable fact that the pilot is a core component of the flight system. Pilots are human . . . subject by some degree to all of human-kinds weaknesses including ignorance and ease of distraction. As complexity of the mission grows, weak links in pilots inexorably drives up risk.
There have been countless experiences shared over suds and burgers (or Internet forums) that cite close calls. I have skated onto thin ice more times than I would like to recall . . . EACH instance involved a distraction from my training and an abrogation of duty to first be a pilot . . . insofar as possible, be one with my machine.
The benefits to be gained from automation are inarguable. Mooney proved this many years ago with their Positive Control feature that was, for a time, standard in all production airplanes. This was a vacuum servoed wing leveler that was ON at all times. The device could be momentarily shut off by depressing a button on the control yoke. Alternatively, control forces exerted by the pressure limited servos were so light that the pilot could maneuver the airplane at will whereupon automatic wing leveling would resume as soon as he turned loose of the wheel.
What an elegant concept.
How many lives and airframes might have been saved if the Mooney PC concept was standard equipment? At the same time, how would skills of the family of pilots be diluted by the existence of such systems in ALL production aircraft?
I would not advise anyone to eschew some move to 'upgrade' the level of technology in their airplane. At the same time, be cognizant of your first duty as builder, system integrator and ultimately operator of the machine to consider both the GAINS to be realized from the upgrade. Consider the potential for LOSSES that may add more risk than you gained with the transistors.
Some innocuous thing like automatic pump control does not occur in a vacuum. The little splash of technology on the panel has ripple that radiate outward . . . the effects of such ripples may be small but are never zero.
Technology places a pilot in a kind of soft 'vise' being squeezed from one side by a willingness to abrogate risk reduction to some piece of technology while being squashed from the other side by a little chip of silicon. Any failure in an array of 10,000 transistors reduces the chip's value to less than that of pebble on the beach. Without a doubt, technology has offered quantum jumps in risk reduction for operations while adding new risks in terms of both physical failure of hardware and psychological failure of gray matter.
That vise squeezes oxygen from the brain's situational awareness and common sense centers. Allowed to progress without restraint and we witness events like a cockpit full of pilots flying a 777 full of people into the seawall on a CAVU approach . . . or another cockpit full of pilots flying an L-1011 into the swamp while chasing a light bulb failure.
Can anyone say "driverless cars"? I will suggest that the infinite combinations of variables I cited at the opening of this missive is best managed by educated and attentive gray matter . . . aided by things like check-lists.
Bob . . .
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John Evens
Thorp T-18 N71JE (sold)
Kitfox SS7 N27JE (built & flying) |
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raymondj(at)frontiernet.n
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 12:38 pm Post subject: The cost/benefit ratio for automation |
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I was wondering about automatic fire extinguishers and whether or not
this philosophy might be applied to them.
Raymond Julian
Kettle River, MN
The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty,
understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system.
And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness,
egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men
admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
-John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)
On 08/28/2014 11:49 AM, jrevens wrote:
| Quote: |
Bob,
I love your careful analysis of this issue. If approved, I would like to publish a copy of your reply below in my EAA chapter 's newsletter (Chap. 43 in Denver, CO) with credit to you and the List of course.
[quote="nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect"]
>
> I have had an in flight fuel starvation event that was not resolved until after a no power landing which was successful. I know from that experience that a fog of confusion came over me and after replaying the event in my mind, I could not recall the point that the aux fuel pump was turned on. I had been through the drill many times to simulate an engine out emergency but I know for me when it actually happened, I did not perform as well as I could/should have. An automatic switching to the aux fuel pump could potentially take care of a problem without me having to remember to do it in the event of the fog. Of course I would want some indication of the switch occurring.
Airplanes, the individuals who ride in them and the circumstances of environment through which the flight system moves offers infinite combinations of variables.
Some combinations add up in ways that increase risk, others will stack up in ways that reduce risk. The core process for risk reduction is the failure modes effects analysis. The oft repeated litany of questions to be asked/answered are:
In what ways can this component fail?
How will that failure manifest?
Does failure create a condition from which recovery is difficult/impossible?
Can the failure "hide"? In other words, can the failure exist behind an inability or unwillingness to pre-flight test for integrity?
If this failure has a high order of criticality, what steps can be taken to reduce criticality and/or back it up?
Since the dawn of aviation, designers, builders and operators of airplanes have wrestled with these questions. In some venues, individuals who know-more-about-airplanes-than-anybody have decreed certain behaviors under force and penalty of law. In every case, the justification for a proactive activity has been to "Make airplanes SAFE for children and all living things."
Something we need to accept from square-one is that there is no such thing as a SAFE airplane. Like chain saws, automobiles, ladders, lawn mowers ladles full of molten steel . . . they are simply tools. Used within the boundaries of acceptable risk, they can add a great deal to the quality of life . . . bump those boundaries and life can become less than ideal . . . or get terminated.
It is an inarguable fact that the pilot is a core component of the flight system. Pilots are human . . . subject by some degree to all of human-kinds weaknesses including ignorance and ease of distraction. As complexity of the mission grows, weak links in pilots inexorably drives up risk.
There have been countless experiences shared over suds and burgers (or Internet forums) that cite close calls. I have skated onto thin ice more times than I would like to recall . . . EACH instance involved a distraction from my training and an abrogation of duty to first be a pilot . . . insofar as possible, be one with my machine.
The benefits to be gained from automation are inarguable. Mooney proved this many years ago with their Positive Control feature that was, for a time, standard in all production airplanes. This was a vacuum servoed wing leveler that was ON at all times. The device could be momentarily shut off by depressing a button on the control yoke. Alternatively, control forces exerted by the pressure limited servos were so light that the pilot could maneuver the airplane at will whereupon automatic wing leveling would resume as soon as he turned loose of the wheel.
What an elegant concept.
How many lives and airframes might have been saved if the Mooney PC concept was standard equipment? At the same time, how would skills of the family of pilots be diluted by the existence of such systems in ALL production aircraft?
I would not advise anyone to eschew some move to 'upgrade' the level of technology in their airplane. At the same time, be cognizant of your first duty as builder, system integrator and ultimately operator of the machine to consider both the GAINS to be realized from the upgrade. Consider the potential for LOSSES that may add more risk than you gained with the transistors.
Some innocuous thing like automatic pump control does not occur in a vacuum. The little splash of technology on the panel has ripple that radiate outward . . . the effects of such ripples may be small but are never zero.
Technology places a pilot in a kind of soft 'vise' being squeezed from one side by a willingness to abrogate risk reduction to some piece of technology while being squashed from the other side by a little chip of silicon. Any failure in an array of 10,000 transistors reduces the chip's value to less than that of pebble on the beach. Without a doubt, technology has offered quantum jumps in risk reduction for operations while adding new risks in terms of both physical failure of hardware and psychological failure of gray matter.
That vise squeezes oxygen from the brain's situational awareness and common sense centers. Allowed to progress without restraint and we witness events like a cockpit full of pilots flying a 777 full of people into the seawall on a CAVU approach . . . or another cockpit full of pilots flying an L-1011 into the swamp while chasing a light bulb failure.
Can anyone say "driverless cars"? I will suggest that the infinite combinations of variables I cited at the opening of this missive is best managed by educated and attentive gray matter . . . aided by things like check-lists.
Bob . . .
> [b]
--------
John Evens
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=429524#429524
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racerjerry
Joined: 15 Dec 2009
Posts: 202
Location: Deer Park, NY
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| Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 4:28 am Post subject: Re: The cost/benefit ratio for automation |
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| Quote: | | I had been through the drill many times to simulate an engine out emergency but I know for me when it actually happened, I did not perform as well as I could/should have. |
After flying an ultralight for 300 hours, I was certain that I wanted to continue flying and bought an older 172 with hopes of quickly obtaining my private pilots license. Immediately, I proceeded to plaster any available blank panel space with ‘cheat sheets’ or reminders and checklists to help me along. It worked well. Each list was laminated and stuck to the panel with a dab of Velcro so I could easily modify them as needed. Most of those early reminders have since disappeared, but many still remain. One list still worthy of retention is an ENGINE OUT CHECKLIST, because it is so little used, escapes memory and you usually don’t have time to fiddle with the manual.
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