how we humans are tactile beings

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Mar 19, 2014 12:50 pm

fantastic insight into the crash of air france 447 -- american design conservatism versus european sexiness.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9231855/Air-France-Flight-447-Damn-it-were-going-to-crash.html

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Wed Mar 19, 2014 1:29 pm

The mystery of AF447 has taken three years to resolve, involving immensely costly mid-Atlantic searches covering 17,000 square kilometres of often uncharted sea bed to depths of 4,700 metres. So remote was the place the airliner went down, in equatorial waters between Brazil and Africa, that it was five days before debris and the first bodies were recovered.
*****

Now the MH 370 has dwarfed the AF 447 mystery.

P.S. why still no comment on the maldives sighting of a "jumbo plane?" What about the ultra sophisticated Radars on Diego Garcia? - are they good only to monitor events in far away Baghdad or Damascus ?

by Seva Lamberdar Wed Mar 19, 2014 1:35 pm

This article is unusually long (could have been cut to 10% of its current length) to make a very small technical point.

by Propagandhi711 Wed Mar 19, 2014 1:38 pm

Seva Lamberdar wrote:This article is unusually long (could have been cut to 10% of its current length) to make a very small technical point.

as opposed to a whole internet full of blogs to repeat the same point (sorry three points) ad nauseam

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Mar 19, 2014 1:45 pm

more on the final conversation:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877-2

multiple human errors after some relatively minor weather related instrumentation problems. foremost among them, the captain the seniormost of the three pilots deciding to take a nap exactly when the plane is about to fly into some nasty weather leaving the juniormost pilot in charge, instead of the other somewhat more experienced guy.

by Propagandhi711 Wed Mar 19, 2014 3:04 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:more on the final conversation:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877-2

multiple human errors after some relatively minor weather related instrumentation problems. foremost among them, the captain the seniormost of the three pilots deciding to take a nap exactly when the plane is about to fly into some nasty weather leaving the juniormost pilot in charge, instead of the other somewhat more experienced guy.

looks like airfrance is run like a low cost carrier with typical french socialist attitude when it comes to training. god knows their service in the cabin is abysmal.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Mar 19, 2014 3:19 pm

Propagandhi711 wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:more on the final conversation:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877-2

multiple human errors after some relatively minor weather related instrumentation problems. foremost among them, the captain the seniormost of the three pilots deciding to take a nap exactly when the plane is about to fly into some nasty weather leaving the juniormost pilot in charge, instead of the other somewhat more experienced guy.

looks like airfrance is run like a low cost carrier with typical french socialist attitude when it comes to training. god knows their service in the cabin is abysmal.

i am baffled why he'd take a nap when his experience was exactly what was needed in such nasty weather. and i am sure many lessons have been learned about man-machine interactions. there is value in touch and feel rather than complete automation and instrumentation. i am reminded of an austrian scientist i used to work with, a brilliant old geezer who always preferred mercury manometers to digital pressure transducers. i always thought he was slightly kooky, but he was probably responding to some deep human biological tendency.

by Guest Wed Mar 19, 2014 3:22 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Propagandhi711 wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:more on the final conversation:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877-2

multiple human errors after some relatively minor weather related instrumentation problems. foremost among them, the captain the seniormost of the three pilots deciding to take a nap exactly when the plane is about to fly into some nasty weather leaving the juniormost pilot in charge, instead of the other somewhat more experienced guy.

looks like airfrance is run like a low cost carrier with typical french socialist attitude when it comes to training. god knows their service in the cabin is abysmal.

i am baffled why he'd take a nap when his experience was exactly what was needed in such nasty weather. and i am sure many lessons have been learned about man-machine interactions. there is value in touch and feel rather than complete automation and instrumentation. i am reminded of an austrian scientist i used to work with, a brilliant old geezer who always preferred mercury manometers to digital pressure transducers. i always thought he was slightly kooky, but he was probably responding to some deep human biological tendency.

well, some automated things do work much better than old hand-etc techniques...

however, so far i never worried if i am flying on an airbus or boeing. guess now i will be much more conscious of the fact.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Mar 19, 2014 3:44 pm

there is such a thing as too much automation in designing and building complex machines like airplanes which in the end are operated by humans. that's the take away bottomline message. pilot errors apart i am sure airbus learned a lot about instrumentation and software and how they interact with humans from this crash.

by Guest Wed Mar 19, 2014 3:50 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is such a thing as too much automation in designing and building complex machines like airplanes which in the end are operated by humans. that's the take away bottomline message. pilot errors apart i am sure airbus learned a lot about instrumentation and software and how they interact with humans from this crash.

Aside, do you think if this was an american airline, the press here would have been so forthcoming about making the details public like this? or is it just me in believing UK/Europe is still more blunt when calling out a human error as one. The report does scare you.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Mar 19, 2014 7:35 pm

Tracy Whitney wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is such a thing as too much automation in designing and building complex machines like airplanes which in the end are operated by humans. that's the take away bottomline message. pilot errors apart i am sure airbus learned a lot about instrumentation and software and how they interact with humans from this crash.

Aside, do you think if this was an american airline, the press here would have been so forthcoming about making the details public like this? or is it just me in believing UK/Europe is still more blunt when calling out a human error as one. The report does scare you.

i don't know. weren't they very open with the TWA flight 800 crash investigation?

by Guest Wed Mar 19, 2014 7:55 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Tracy Whitney wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is such a thing as too much automation in designing and building complex machines like airplanes which in the end are operated by humans. that's the take away bottomline message. pilot errors apart i am sure airbus learned a lot about instrumentation and software and how they interact with humans from this crash.

Aside, do you think if this was an american airline, the press here would have been so forthcoming about making the details public like this? or is it just me in believing UK/Europe is still more blunt when calling out a human error as one. The report does scare you.

i don't know. weren't they very open with the TWA flight 800 crash investigation?

oh ok. I meant specifically human/pilot error. But ya, thanks to this, got to read about TWA 800 crash again. I am now marveling how I went to india twice last year.

by truthbetold Wed Mar 19, 2014 9:18 pm

Compared to the early aircraft system, today's aircraft is nearly 100% automated.
I do not think lay people like us could differentiate the quality and reliability between Boeing and airbus. Making a judgement based on few news items and articles written by non technical people is utterly naive.
lot of thought and a little bit of engineering compromise goes into these systems. They have served us well. Risk is negligible.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Mar 19, 2014 10:01 pm

truthbetold wrote:Compared to the early aircraft system, today's aircraft is nearly 100% automated.

true.

truthbetold wrote:I do not think lay people like us could differentiate the quality and reliability between Boeing and airbus. Making a judgement based on few news items and articles written by non technical people is utterly naive.

recognizing that there are design differences doesn't require a whole lot of detailed technical knowledge, just an ability to read, understand and judge the quality of information being presented which is something we all do every day in all walks of life in which we are not necessarily experts.

truthbetold wrote:lot of thought and a little bit of engineering compromise goes into these systems. They have served us well. Risk is negligible.

a strawman. (def: a straw man, also known in the UK as an aunt sally, is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of the original topic of argument)

by Kris Wed Mar 19, 2014 10:29 pm

Propagandhi711 wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:more on the final conversation:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877-2

multiple human errors after some relatively minor weather related instrumentation problems. foremost among them, the captain the seniormost of the three pilots deciding to take a nap exactly when the plane is about to fly into some nasty weather leaving the juniormost pilot in charge, instead of the other somewhat more experienced guy.

looks like airfrance is run like a low cost carrier with typical french socialist attitude when it comes to training. god knows their service in the cabin is abysmal.

>>It is scary to think that the 'my shift is up' could permeate even to high stake jobs where lives are on the line. I have heard horror stories on the service as well.

by truthbetold Thu Mar 20, 2014 4:56 am

Max
What strawman are you talking about.
I was reacting to ta's statement "I am never worried if I am flying airbus or Boeing".
If you can make a case for or against, I would like to read it.

by Propagandhi711 Thu Mar 20, 2014 8:48 am

Tracy Whitney wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is such a thing as too much automation in designing and building complex machines like airplanes which in the end are operated by humans. that's the take away bottomline message. pilot errors apart i am sure airbus learned a lot about instrumentation and software and how they interact with humans from this crash.

Aside, do you think if this was an american airline, the press here would have been so forthcoming about making the details public like this? or is it just me in believing UK/Europe is still more blunt when calling out a human error as one. The report does scare you.

bullshit. if anything, european countries try to sweep things under the carpet due to their national pride issues...france and england in particular, are notorious for doing so. america for all it's faults hangs its heroes to dry if they slip up, sooner than later.

by Propagandhi711 Thu Mar 20, 2014 8:59 am

truthbetold wrote:Max
What strawman are you talking about.
I was reacting to ta's statement "I am never worried if I am flying airbus or Boeing".
If you can make a case for or against, I would like to read it.

the article makes a very clear case for favoring boeing's design in this particular case. the popular mechanics article goes into even further detail on all the things that went wrong on that flight. there are arguments made on continental side that the pilots could have looked at the headsup displays and not depended on the position of the joystick but in the perfect storm (inexperienced pilot at controls when various sensors failed and incorrect data being reported to fly-by-wire systems) pilot instincts are far more valuable. in those situations, tiniest of the edges matter: having tactile & instinctive feel of the stick and whether they're going up or down probably made the life and death difference.

by Guest Thu Mar 20, 2014 9:34 am

Propagandhi711 wrote:
Tracy Whitney wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is such a thing as too much automation in designing and building complex machines like airplanes which in the end are operated by humans. that's the take away bottomline message. pilot errors apart i am sure airbus learned a lot about instrumentation and software and how they interact with humans from this crash.

Aside, do you think if this was an american airline, the press here would have been so forthcoming about making the details public like this? or is it just me in believing UK/Europe is still more blunt when calling out a human error as one. The report does scare you.

bullshit. if anything, european countries try to sweep things under the carpet due to their national pride issues...france and england in particular, are notorious for doing so. america for all it's faults hangs its heroes to dry if they slip up, sooner than later.

oh ok.. I thought in a senstive matter like this they would just do a smooth 'possible-human-error' and not go into detail talks until years later.

Anyway, I have had this go-around experience 12 years ago. In Chicago the weather was very cold, windy, rainy that day in March. We were to land on Midway airport. And after having gone through a LONG travel - 2 train rides to the airport and 4 hours delays in Detroit - AND coke dropped on my clothes by my hyperactive 3-year-old, I was simply looking forward to that landing. And finally there was a landing happening. I saw the runway approaching... approaching ... close ... close and bam, we flew up again. Was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Then they said the weather is too bad and they are gonna try to land at O'Hare and if they can't do that, then they are gonna fly back to Detroit. Because of all these jerks, my kid threw up - on me ofcourse. That's the point I almost cried. But luckily, they were able to land at O'Hare. And I had to wait another 1-2 hours for my BIL to get there as I didn't have a cell phone and had to rely heavily on 1800-CALL-ATT. *shudder*

by truthbetold Thu Mar 20, 2014 9:30 pm

http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/boeing_versus_airbus/

Prop/ Max/ tw
I read the articles posted by max. The article provides a gooddetail of the events before the a330 accident.
The report highlights the problems with side stick.
But as I said before it is not easy for a lay person to differentiate between Boeing and airbus quality based on this limited information. Airbus a330 has an overall better safety record than comparable 767. It sold more than a thousand. No airline has dropped a330 after that accident report.
fly by wire is now used industry wide and has been a model to other transportation vehicles.

by truthbetold Thu Mar 20, 2014 9:43 pm

http://www.airbus.com/innovation/proven-concepts/in-design/fly-by-wire/
Some info on fly by wire.

by Propagandhi711 Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:18 am

truthbetold wrote:http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/boeing_versus_airbus/

Prop/ Max/ tw
I read the articles posted by max. The article provides a gooddetail of the events before the a330 accident.
The report highlights the problems with side stick.
But as I said before it is not easy for a lay person to differentiate between Boeing and airbus quality based on this limited information. Airbus a330 has an overall better safety record than comparable 767. It sold more than a thousand. No airline has dropped a330 after that accident report.
fly by wire is now used industry wide and has been a model to other transportation vehicles.

you keep saying that..I found the articles easy to understand and logical enough to give boeing an edge over airbus. fly by wire is not the question here, it;'s the particular design of that joystick that doesnt give instinctive, tactile feedback to pilots in times of stress

by Seva Lamberdar Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:44 am

Propagandhi711 wrote:
truthbetold wrote:http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/boeing_versus_airbus/

Prop/ Max/ tw
I read the articles posted by max. The article provides a gooddetail of the events before the a330 accident.
The report highlights the problems with side stick.
But as I said before it is not easy for a lay person to differentiate between Boeing and airbus quality based on this limited information. Airbus a330 has an overall better safety record than comparable 767. It sold more than a thousand. No airline has dropped a330 after that accident report.
fly by wire is now used industry wide and has been a model to other transportation vehicles.

you keep saying that..I found the articles easy to understand and logical enough to give boeing an edge over airbus. fly by wire is not the question here, it;'s the particular design of that joystick that doesnt give instinctive, tactile feedback to pilots in times of stress

It's not just flaws in the particular design of the joystick, but flawed concept too ... to have a joystick to manually control a plane during the emergency situations.

by Propagandhi711 Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:50 am

Seva Lamberdar wrote:
Propagandhi711 wrote:
truthbetold wrote:http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/boeing_versus_airbus/

Prop/ Max/ tw
I read the articles posted by max. The article provides a gooddetail of the events before the a330 accident.
The report highlights the problems with side stick.
But as I said before it is not easy for a lay person to differentiate between Boeing and airbus quality based on this limited information. Airbus a330 has an overall better safety record than comparable 767. It sold more than a thousand. No airline has dropped a330 after that accident report.
fly by wire is now used industry wide and has been a model to other transportation vehicles.

you keep saying that..I found the articles easy to understand and logical enough to give boeing an edge over airbus. fly by wire is not the question here, it;'s the particular design of that joystick that doesnt give instinctive, tactile feedback to pilots in times of stress

It's not just flaws in the particular design of the joystick, but flawed concept too ... to have a joystick to manually control a plane during the emergency situations.

what should they have, a steering wheel?

by Seva Lamberdar Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:52 am

Propagandhi711 wrote:
Seva Lamberdar wrote:
Propagandhi711 wrote:
truthbetold wrote:http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/boeing_versus_airbus/

Prop/ Max/ tw
I read the articles posted by max. The article provides a gooddetail of the events before the a330 accident.
The report highlights the problems with side stick.
But as I said before it is not easy for a lay person to differentiate between Boeing and airbus quality based on this limited information. Airbus a330 has an overall better safety record than comparable 767. It sold more than a thousand. No airline has dropped a330 after that accident report.
fly by wire is now used industry wide and has been a model to other transportation vehicles.

you keep saying that..I found the articles easy to understand and logical enough to give boeing an edge over airbus. fly by wire is not the question here, it;'s the particular design of that joystick that doesnt give instinctive, tactile feedback to pilots in times of stress

It's not just flaws in the particular design of the joystick, but flawed concept too ... to have a joystick to manually control a plane during the emergency situations.

what should they have, a steering wheel?

They can look into that possibility too.

by Propagandhi711 Fri Mar 21, 2014 10:18 am

Propagandhi711 wrote:
Seva Lamberdar wrote:
Propagandhi711 wrote:
truthbetold wrote:http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/boeing_versus_airbus/

Prop/ Max/ tw
I read the articles posted by max. The article provides a gooddetail of the events before the a330 accident.
The report highlights the problems with side stick.
But as I said before it is not easy for a lay person to differentiate between Boeing and airbus quality based on this limited information. Airbus a330 has an overall better safety record than comparable 767. It sold more than a thousand. No airline has dropped a330 after that accident report.
fly by wire is now used industry wide and has been a model to other transportation vehicles.

you keep saying that..I found the articles easy to understand and logical enough to give boeing an edge over airbus. fly by wire is not the question here, it;'s the particular design of that joystick that doesnt give instinctive, tactile feedback to pilots in times of stress

It's not just flaws in the particular design of the joystick, but flawed concept too ... to have a joystick to manually control a plane during the emergency situations.

what should they have, a steering wheel?

maybe you should write a blog on how ancient indians controlled airplanes by thought and prayer to various gods and send them to boeing designers

by truthbetold Fri Mar 21, 2014 10:24 am

Prop
article is well written and may even have solids facts to back up their argument. But it us still limited data set to judge the plane. it is not as if this joy stick caused multitude of accidents. add to that bonin's peculiar behaviour.
computer based flying, fly by wire and joy stick are all integral to airbus design. that design saved operating costs and weight. it gave airbus the ability to compete with Boeing. Airbus concept is now accepted by Boeing as well as other high cost transportation devices.

by Seva Lamberdar Fri Mar 21, 2014 1:11 pm

Propagandhi711 wrote:
Propagandhi711 wrote:
Seva Lamberdar wrote:
Propagandhi711 wrote:
truthbetold wrote:http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/boeing_versus_airbus/

Prop/ Max/ tw
I read the articles posted by max. The article provides a gooddetail of the events before the a330 accident.
The report highlights the problems with side stick.
But as I said before it is not easy for a lay person to differentiate between Boeing and airbus quality based on this limited information. Airbus a330 has an overall better safety record than comparable 767. It sold more than a thousand. No airline has dropped a330 after that accident report.
fly by wire is now used industry wide and has been a model to other transportation vehicles.

you keep saying that..I found the articles easy to understand and logical enough to give boeing an edge over airbus. fly by wire is not the question here, it;'s the particular design of that joystick that doesnt give instinctive, tactile feedback to pilots in times of stress

It's not just flaws in the particular design of the joystick, but flawed concept too ... to have a joystick to manually control a plane during the emergency situations.

what should they have, a steering wheel?

maybe you should write a blog on how ancient indians controlled airplanes by thought and prayer to various gods and send them to boeing designers

Considering I have had the actual experience as a part of my jobs in analyzing etc. the control systems used on modern aircraft and spacecraft (including the Space Shuttle's robotic arm), that may not be necessary (limiting my blog to "how ancient indians controlled airplanes by thought and prayer to various gods").

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