There are still studies going forward about letting large aircraft fly with passengers and cargo, with one or no pilots. Some people say it is inevitable, thinking back to the days of professional drivers, or elevator operators, pilots are just an extra expense the airlines can get by without. Technology has improved, it does seem like the pilots don't need to fly the airplane as much as they used to. I've explained how software reliability has improved, and the tools needed to build new autopilots are getting better.
Looking at Air France 447 might be a good place to start. That airplane was apparently flown into the ocean by a pilot, that was confused. The autopilot should have done better, one would think. If the timeline is followed, it will show that the autopilot was confused, and gave up as well (alternate law), relinquishing control to the human pilots. The airspeed sensors (pitot tubes) apparently iced over, causing the automated systems to not have enough correlated information to process the data it had. The pilots left in the cockpit to monitor the systems were not experienced enough to know what to do in this situation.
Talking to most pilots, they will tell you about automation failures all the time. Sometimes stuff just breaks. I know two pilots that were flying back and forth Houston to Austin one day for an airline, and they decided to hand fly the trips and let a flight attendant judge who flew smoother. The next day the one pilot had to take that same airplane from Houston to Orlando, and it turned out the autopilot had failed sometime the day before, and no one knew it broke. He had to hand fly the plane from Houston to Orlando.
The idea of a single pilot in the cockpit is probably just as bad as no pilots. Sometimes pilots have troubles, including health (getting sick, incapacitated, etc), alertness, and just plain forgetfulness. Using a second pilot on the ground might seem like a great idea, one pilot can monitor several flights and "take over" if there is a need. The trouble with the ground pilot is the need for 100% reliable automation, and datalinks. If the part that fails in the autopilot is the same part that the ground pilot will be using for controlling the aircraft (IE servo) it won't help to have someone on the ground wanting to control it, the part is broken for whoever is trying to use it.
Thoughts about using pilotless cargo aircraft are perhaps more palatable, since no one will get killed if the automation fails. That will make sense, if everything being shipped has no value. Things shipped by air a typically worth more than things shipped by truck or train (per Cubic Foot). The pilotless aircraft may still crash, and there will be no heroes on board to steer the aircraft away from the stadium full of people.
Economics probably won't make a pilotless aircraft worth it. Certainly automated systems can be built to make things seem to be cheaper. Certainly pilots are paid well, and have health insurance, pensions and vacation pay that must be paid for by customers. An automated system should eliminate the pilots pay from this picture. There will probably be more maintenance, and a higher price for the initial aircraft purchase. Then the insurance picture may remove all the financial benefits.
Oh, and according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, about 27 people per year are killed in elevator accidents in the US.
What is a life worth?
Showing posts with label Cockpit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cockpit. Show all posts
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
The Connected Cockpit
The internet of things (IoT) is kind of the current discussion in many publications. The idea behind the internet of things is that everything will be connected to the internet, allowing monitoring and control of those things. As things are going, it is still too expensive to connect everything to the internet, and there many implications of connecting everything to the internet.
Many aircraft are getting WiFi in the cabin, people think the next step is putting an iPad in the cockpit, and connecting to the cabin WiFi and that should do it. Get all the flight plans, updates, weather and other data from headquarters we are all done. The trouble is, and was pointed out in the first post of this blog, there are security thoughts that need to be considered.
On transport aircraft, most of the cockpit is connected. Well connected, in that the FMS talks to the airopilot, and the EFIS may talk to the ACARS system, and the radios share a common bus. The trouble is, the cockpit is not talking IP, so it isn't easy to connect it to the WiFi, and it probably isn't a good idea.
In your GA business jet, it might be OK to connect the cabin to the cockpit. The people in the aircraft are usually well vetted, and may actually own it. They have a serious reason to be riding in the aircraft to the destination. Smaller aircraft may not have the means to get WiFi to the ground, but WiFi or other Ethernet connections could actually be done allowing the GPS to talk to the ADS-B transciever, and the MFD in the panel.
Allowing the cabin WiFi be connected to the cockpit of a part 121 transport aircraft is probably a bad idea. Probably the biggest problem would be if the aircraft were in a place with weak connection to the ground, and bandwidth was limited, who would get priority, the passenger watching Netflix or the cockpit needing a new route around some weather. The marketing department might argue the passengers, but flight operations department might argue the cockpit should have priority.
The other reason connecting the cockpit to the cabin using WiFi is a bad idea would be straight up security. There would be 100 people in the back bored wondering what is going on in the flight. It may be a curiosity for some, or a goal for others, they may just want to look at things, and manage to get access to say the current flight plan, in the FMS, and accidentally adjust it. Sure there could be firewalls and whitelists and other techniques to keep only the cockpit in the cockpit network, but there are ways for others to get in.
Having a separate cockpit connection to the ground is probably the right answer to the security question. having an isolated cockpit will make it harder to keep the cabin people out of the cockpit network. It will be important to consider all the connections to the cockpit, and how secure they may be. If there is only an unsecured connection to the cockpit, then the cabin can probably still get to it through some ground station. Worse, if the cockpit doesn't have a secure connection to the ground, now there may be thousands of bored people trying to see what is going on in the aircraft.
Security has to be the first thought when building cockpit connected interfaces. Security through obscurity isn't real security, so proprietary standards won't be a long term solution. Bored people look at proprietary standards as a new challenge, and eventually they get figured out. Using industry best practices will be the only way to insure interoperability along with proper security.
It may be that the aircraft cockpits are only connected using one vendor (IE ARINC as things are today), where they provide an isolated network that only they can get to the aircraft. The messages will have to pass though a filter, and have proper originator white lists. All messages would be encrypted such that only known originators and destinations can see and use the messages. Certainly ARINC can't let Southwest Airlines read Delta Airlines messages, as well as some random person on the ground should not be able to sent messages to any aircraft.
It will take a bit of time for things to shake out, but eventually the cockpits will be connected.
Many aircraft are getting WiFi in the cabin, people think the next step is putting an iPad in the cockpit, and connecting to the cabin WiFi and that should do it. Get all the flight plans, updates, weather and other data from headquarters we are all done. The trouble is, and was pointed out in the first post of this blog, there are security thoughts that need to be considered.
On transport aircraft, most of the cockpit is connected. Well connected, in that the FMS talks to the airopilot, and the EFIS may talk to the ACARS system, and the radios share a common bus. The trouble is, the cockpit is not talking IP, so it isn't easy to connect it to the WiFi, and it probably isn't a good idea.
In your GA business jet, it might be OK to connect the cabin to the cockpit. The people in the aircraft are usually well vetted, and may actually own it. They have a serious reason to be riding in the aircraft to the destination. Smaller aircraft may not have the means to get WiFi to the ground, but WiFi or other Ethernet connections could actually be done allowing the GPS to talk to the ADS-B transciever, and the MFD in the panel.
Allowing the cabin WiFi be connected to the cockpit of a part 121 transport aircraft is probably a bad idea. Probably the biggest problem would be if the aircraft were in a place with weak connection to the ground, and bandwidth was limited, who would get priority, the passenger watching Netflix or the cockpit needing a new route around some weather. The marketing department might argue the passengers, but flight operations department might argue the cockpit should have priority.
The other reason connecting the cockpit to the cabin using WiFi is a bad idea would be straight up security. There would be 100 people in the back bored wondering what is going on in the flight. It may be a curiosity for some, or a goal for others, they may just want to look at things, and manage to get access to say the current flight plan, in the FMS, and accidentally adjust it. Sure there could be firewalls and whitelists and other techniques to keep only the cockpit in the cockpit network, but there are ways for others to get in.
Having a separate cockpit connection to the ground is probably the right answer to the security question. having an isolated cockpit will make it harder to keep the cabin people out of the cockpit network. It will be important to consider all the connections to the cockpit, and how secure they may be. If there is only an unsecured connection to the cockpit, then the cabin can probably still get to it through some ground station. Worse, if the cockpit doesn't have a secure connection to the ground, now there may be thousands of bored people trying to see what is going on in the aircraft.
Security has to be the first thought when building cockpit connected interfaces. Security through obscurity isn't real security, so proprietary standards won't be a long term solution. Bored people look at proprietary standards as a new challenge, and eventually they get figured out. Using industry best practices will be the only way to insure interoperability along with proper security.
It may be that the aircraft cockpits are only connected using one vendor (IE ARINC as things are today), where they provide an isolated network that only they can get to the aircraft. The messages will have to pass though a filter, and have proper originator white lists. All messages would be encrypted such that only known originators and destinations can see and use the messages. Certainly ARINC can't let Southwest Airlines read Delta Airlines messages, as well as some random person on the ground should not be able to sent messages to any aircraft.
It will take a bit of time for things to shake out, but eventually the cockpits will be connected.
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