Give up flying?

[PH]

Greta .. take your protests to China, India even .... stand up against Germany's continuing fossil fuel via thermal coal usage .... but most of all to China .... or are there easy, more comfortable ... and safer, targets to posture around ..... grow up girl ....

You know that China is not only meeting it's climate change targets but beating them? It met it's 2020 targets three years ahead of schedule and it's on target to hit peak CO2 10 years earlier than predicted and that's despite being the manufacturers for the world.

Pollution is a byproduct of consumption and nothing is being done to curb that. It's laughable to complain about the pollution created in China for the production of goods consumed elsewhere. Who's pollution is it?
The story about how Greta can cross the Atlantic for a conference is a typical example, the question isn't how to travel, but if there's any need to do so. We live in a technological age with the ability to participate without being physically present.

[kwackers]

We live in a technological age with the ability to participate without being physically present.

Supposedly. In practice it doesn't work.

Here's the thing, folk know who she is, when she goes somewhere they'll take notice. How did she get there?
There are thousands of scientists producing high quality reports that tell us exactly what we need to do, reports that can be seen online and are forwarded to relevant parties as well.
How many of those does Joe P read or watch? I'm guessing it's as near zero as makes no difference and that's despite the technology that makes reading them easy.

Truth is folk respond far better to people face to face, nuances of communication occur that simply never make it even across video links, throw in latency and in my experience it's useless for all but the transfer of technical information.

Best to think of the cost of moving her around the globe as an investment, she doesn't need to achieve very much for it to pay back either and if she achieves nothing and climate change happens her contribution amounts to so many zeros after the decimal point it doesn't even register.

[Oldjohnw]

A few weeks ago i watched Countryfile and the Tom Heaps segment was about recycling. Whilst of course he was right what annoyed me was how in encouraging people to recycle their plastic water bottles he never once mentioned the obvious: don't use the evil things in the first place.

The Governmnt always tell us to shop around to get the best domestic fuel deal. They never tell us to reduce consumption.

PH is right: consumerism is the enemy.

[Carlton green]

Well that might be true but I tend to work on preventing problems first rather than reacting to them later. Some safety conscious industries use near miss procedures and critical event reporting to alter what they do such that ‘accident’ frequency is reduced.

And that's how flying works.
In the UK at any rate you're supposed to file an Airprox.
Airprox's are one of the mechanism commercial pilots use to report drone use and why we introduce drone controls despite there being no accidents recorded.

Well, that’s how flying is supposed to work but, as per my remarks further up the thread, commercial factors do influence and seemingly override at times.

I too was under the impression that sensors and computers on aircraft ran in parallel to give redundancy and safety in numbers. That does not seem to be the case with the recent 737 disasters and a lot of questions are now being asked that should have been asked before lives were lost ........ Aircraft are complex things and ‘we’ all accept that, but I do wonder about any design that needs complex electronics and sensors to keep it stable.

[Carlton green]

I don't think flying has suddenly become less safe: we all hope, I suppose, that the 737-Max disasters were a one-off, or rather two-off. But in aviation even a one-off disaster is one disaster too many. Are Boeing and/or FAA going to face charges on 346 counts of corpiorate manslaughter? I seriously doubt it.

Apparently the much-derided MCAS system on these aircraft, designed to autocorrect situations where the aircraft is believed to be climbing too steeply, relies on input from a single sensor. If that sensor fails, the MCAS becomes unreliable but still cannot be over-ridden - or at least the pilots were not properly instructed on how to override it. Is that any way to design an aircraft?

I very much doubt that Boeing or anybody else are going to face charges and hence this will not be the last such accident. As a civilisation we must punish and be seen to punish ‘white collar’ crimes.

IMHO it is absolutely not anyway to design an aircraft, some very serious questions need to be asked and changes to corporate attitudes introduced.

[kwackers]

but I do wonder about any design that needs complex electronics and sensors to keep it stable.

You're flying 300 tons of metal, can't do that with string and tape.
Computers? Nah, safe as houses.
Hydraulic systems - hmmm...
Pilots - preferably not.

You know pilots have a saying: "Planes fly in spite of pilots not because of them" and it's true.
The 'max' problem is rare, far more common is pilot error or even the deliberate downing by them.

[landsurfer]

The Surfer is doing naughty early morning trolling. Still, it's lightweight trolling and an opportunity to tell him orf concerning his gleeful fuel-splurging. THERE, you naughty Surfer - consider yourself as having had a strong tut at your wasteful antics, not to mention that "make 'em jealous of my sandwich" trick. I hope you are now suitably remorse.

Cugel, in prefect mode.

I prostrate myself before the alter to your worship ..... curses ! caught again ...

[pete75]

but I do wonder about any design that needs complex electronics and sensors to keep it stable.

You're flying 300 tons of metal, can't do that with string and tape.
Computers? Nah, safe as houses.
Hydraulic systems - hmmm...
Pilots - preferably not.

You know pilots have a saying: "Planes fly in spite of pilots not because of them" and it's true.
The 'max' problem is rare, far more common is pilot error or even the deliberate downing by them.

That'll be why the Boeing 737 Max is grounded because of problems with parts of it's flight computer systems.

[661-Pete]

All software can have bugs. We all know that. I should know better than most: I was in software for most of my working life...

And a computer, no matter how bug-free its software, can only process the data it's provided with. We all know the saying, "garbage in, garbage out".

[Carlton green]

but I do wonder about any design that needs complex electronics and sensors to keep it stable.

You're flying 300 tons of metal, can't do that with string and tape.
Computers? Nah, safe as houses.
Hydraulic systems - hmmm...
Pilots - preferably not.

You know pilots have a saying: "Planes fly in spite of pilots not because of them" and it's true.
The 'max' problem is rare, far more common is pilot error or even the deliberate downing by them.

That'll be why the Boeing 737 Max is grounded because of problems with parts of it's flight computer systems.

Couldn’t help but laughter at Pete’s comment, he’s right you know.

300 tons seems a bit of an over statement, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX
When you do a few sums the weight per passenger is still somewhat large, no wonder they use so much fuel.

Computers might be reliable but, as they say, rubbish in rubbish out ........ and then there’s faulty software to cope with.

Pilots are the last line of defence for the passenger, if a plane can’t be flown easily by a Pilot alone (ie. without computers) then IMHO it’s not safe and stable enough to be allowed up in the air.

[kwackers]

You're flying 300 tons of metal, can't do that with string and tape.
Computers? Nah, safe as houses.
Hydraulic systems - hmmm...
Pilots - preferably not.

You know pilots have a saying: "Planes fly in spite of pilots not because of them" and it's true.
The 'max' problem is rare, far more common is pilot error or even the deliberate downing by them.

That'll be why the Boeing 737 Max is grounded because of problems with parts of it's flight computer systems.

Couldn’t help but laughter at Pete’s comment, he’s right you know.

Actually no, he's wrong.
The computer didn't make the 737 crash, humans told it what to do and it simply did it.

Anyway my point was that out of all crashes computers hardly ever figure. For every crash involving a computer I'll find you a lot more involving pilots.

The 300 tons wasn't particularly aimed at 737 max's, the mtow of a 747 is well in excess of that.

[pete75]

All software can have bugs. We all know that. I should know better than most: I was in software for most of my working life...

And a computer, no matter how bug-free its software, can only process the data it's provided with. We all know the saying, "garbage in, garbage out".

So was I. That's the reason I don't have blind faith in computer systems.

[pete75]

You're flying 300 tons of metal, can't do that with string and tape.
Computers? Nah, safe as houses.
Hydraulic systems - hmmm...
Pilots - preferably not.

You know pilots have a saying: "Planes fly in spite of pilots not because of them" and it's true.
The 'max' problem is rare, far more common is pilot error or even the deliberate downing by them.

That'll be why the Boeing 737 Max is grounded because of problems with parts of it's flight computer systems.

Couldn’t help but laughter at Pete’s comment, he’s right you know.

300 tons seems a bit of an over statement, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX
When you do a few sums the weight per passenger is still somewhat large, no wonder they use so much fuel.

Computers might be reliable but, as they say, rubbish in rubbish out ........ and then there’s faulty software to cope with.

Pilots are the last line of defence for the passenger, if a plane can’t be flown easily by a Pilot alone (ie. without computers) then IMHO it’s not safe and stable enough to be allowed up in the air.

And it's over 600 tons for the big Antonov.
Certainly I'd be happier flying with a former RAF pilot at the controls than with someone who'd learnt on one of those self funded learn to be an airline pilot courses.

[kwackers]

And it's over 600 tons for the big Antonov.
Certainly I'd be happier flying with a former RAF pilot at the controls than with someone who'd learnt on one of those self funded learn to be an airline pilot courses.

Unless they're ancient all RAF pilots would have had more computer assistance than you can wave a stick at in order to fly their planes.
On top of that unless they were flying cargo then it's pretty likely they'd have no hours on type - I wouldn't fly with anyone who had no experience of the aircraft they were flying.

With that in mind it's interesting that the main reason for the 'hack' Boeing fitted was to make the Max feel like the old plane deliberately so that the pilots wouldn't need more training.
(I also think 'self funded' is a bit demeaning, for most it isn't self funded. £100k isn't a trivial amount, neither is it particularly easy.)

Ultimately the blame IMO lies firmly with Boeing and the FAA. Boeing hacked an aeroplane first in a hardware sense by fitting unsuitable engines and then by rigging the computers to compensate for their hack. Throw in a lack of redundancy on the sensors and their desire to avoid having to retrain pilots to fly the new 'type' and you have a disaster in the making.
Also fairly impressive that on something so expensive the bit of hardware that can warn if the sensors disagree was an optional extra! Even at aviation pricing I bet that fivers worth of parts wouldn't have cost more than a grand.

Nope ultimately nothing to do with computers and everything to do with humans.

[kwackers]

All software can have bugs. We all know that. I should know better than most: I was in software for most of my working life...

And a computer, no matter how bug-free its software, can only process the data it's provided with. We all know the saying, "garbage in, garbage out".

So was I. That's the reason I don't have blind faith in computer systems.

You don't need blind faith, you only need statistics.
And statistically plane crashes due to computer faults are incredibly rare - in fact I can't find one.
Plane crashes due to poor software are more common but they're still way behind the number caused by pilot error and even deliberate pilot crashes.

I appreciate of course some folk don't like technology. Planes, self driving cars etc are all just systems just waiting to go wrong and kill them whereas if the controlling ape brain kills them then that's presumably a good honest death.