Spencer Lepley

English 2010- 1PM

Briggs
4/10/14
Automation in Aviation
As it stands today America leads the world
in aviation safety with the best trained pilots and
training programs that we have to offer. But as
with anything it has its critics and in some ways
Autopilot from the movie airplane Im one of them. Many people believe that the
way that program is going pilots are losing a lot of real world experience in exchange for
simulated experience in some room in a building somewhere. Is simulated experience any kind
of substitute for real world experience or not as so many of us fear. Perhaps its just another
way for companies to keep their training programs at low cost, and we all know how much
companies like to keep as much money as possible. As the world of technology advances so
does our uses off it and the amount that we use it.
One of the biggest fears people have about todays pilots is that they spend too much
time in a simulator or relaxing in the cockpit while auto pilot takes them to their destination. As
stated in a new York times article by Reiner Arnold Decades of technological enhancements and
automation have made flying undeniably much safer but also fostered a subtle disconnect
between pilots and the planes they fly.(p2) this means they will lack the experience that is
required to handle any kind of emergency that may arise. In most cases they are wrong the
pilots that are currently at the helm of our planes come from a time where most of the training
was done outside of a simulator. So they know how to deal with any and all problems that arise
because chances are the more time youre in the air the more problems you will run in to.
(mouaward) They are also a little bit of an older generation of pilots with a lot of experience
due to the fact that the FAA extended the required retirement age. I feel however that the
current system of aviation training will fail future generations of pilots by sending them off
with into the real world with lacking real world experience. In my opinion simulated flight
training is in no way a substitute for real experience this fact will fail the next generation.
Pilots are expected to be able to fly the airplane safely and effectively even if everything
but the flight controls fail. And many pilots today could do that without one problem they are
all well trained and able to fulfill their duties with no warning. Pilots have to go through
rigorous and never ending training, aviation is a very safe industry and it always will be whether
or not we over use technology to train and fly airplanes. Even with all the backup systems that
go into an airplane there is always a chance even it is a very small chance, that some of the
aircraft systems could fail. And there is no substitute for a good pilot that knows what to do no
matter what. The chances that an airplane could experience a total system failure to the point
that it could bring an airplane down are so minimal that pilots could get by with a lacking
experience. But on that one in a million times that something catastrophic does happen the
best chance that plane does have is a strong and knowledgeable pilot at the controls. These
pilots must have the required techniques and skills to handle that kind of situation and I feel
that future generations may lack this skill. The training programs in todays world are seeing a
small increase in the use of simulators but student pilots will always
have to go through flight training in an actual airplane and that is the
majority of the training. And nothing will ever change that the training
it will always be conducted in an actual airplane.
The biggest threat that I foresee to the future generations of
pilots is complacency in the cockpit. It is so easy to just get used to
turning the autopilot on after take off and just sitting back and relaxing
for the next couple of hours. Dont get me wrong its not like pilots turn
the auto pilot on and sit back and take a nap, they are still controlling
the airplane but in a different way. They wont physically have hands on
the control and dictate every turn climb or descent that the airplane
makes. But they will be telling the airplane what to do and when to do
it, they will always be monitoring whats going on with the airplane and
how its doing. This just is not the same as physically holding the
controls in your hand and forcing the airplane to make a turn or to
climb, or just to simply fly the airplane.(Arnold) This is where pilots
have a tendency to get complacent or caught up in some other matter.
For instance the Tv Show Air disaster shows a commercial airliner
about to land at a florida airport when the captain saw that the
indicator light in the cockpit that shows that the landing gear is locked
in position was not turned on. They could not risk landing with out

A CNN report talks about a
northwest airlines flight that
overshot its destination by quite
a bit.
The pilots of the
commercial jetliner that last
week overshot its
destination by about 150
miles have said they were
using their laptops and lost
track of time and location,
federal safety officials said
Monday (Ahlers)

knowing with 100% certainty that the landing gear was down so they told tower that they were
going to circle over the everglades while they checked it out. The plane was set to hold an
altitude of 2,000 feet above the ground, the pilots and flight engineer were trying to fix the light
bulb because it was burned out. They whole flight crew got distracted with this problem that
they did not notice the plane descending . By the time the flight crew got back to trying to fly
the plane it was too late and they impacted the ground.(Boegart) When pilots trust the auto
pilot too much then accidents can happen a lot more easily. This type of accident rarely occurs
because auto pilot is not yet advanced enough to be self sufficient it needs a pilot to control it
and to manually enter the towers instructions when leaving or arriving at an airport. However
this may change as a result of advances of the technology that is used and the pilots jobs will
start to be minimized in the cockpit until eventually there is almost no need for them. When
this happens the pilots who havent been in training for a while will have forgotten some their
skills and if something catastrophic happens to that planes systems or the airframe that pilot
may not be able to handle it.
To deal with the issue of complacency and lack of training that we may encounter in the
future there are several different ways of solving these issues. The first dealing with lack of
adequate training, the FAA is has two options; one is to limit the use simulator training that can
count towards the required amount of hours needed to earn pilots licenses and ratings. This
would mean students would spend more time in an airplane, this however has one major flaw
and that is that renting an airplane and paying for and instructor to fly with you can be very
expensive and nobody likes that. A single flight 2 hour flight with and instructor in a C-172,
which the most common training aircraft can be around 400 dollars, nobody would choose that
over paying less then half of that to use a simulator. The second option that is available to the
FAA is to limit what simulators that can be used for training. There are simulators that can used
for training that are very realistic and simulate actual flight really well, typically these simulators
are full sized room that can simulate motion as well as all kinds of flight conditions. And these
look like an actual airplane and make you feel like you are in an actual airplane, this is not the
case for most simulators being used by students. Students like myself have used simulators that
are little more than a couple of tv screens set up next to one another with a yoke and pedals
and another screen directly in front of you that can serve as the flight instruments. In this you
sit in just a normal office chair and have 5 screens to look at while you can also look around the
room and outside and feel no movement while using these. It all comes down to money and
what people will be willing to spend obviously the simulator that just uses a couple tv screens
together is going to be a lot cheaper then the full size full motion simulators will be and this is
why we dont use them very often. If we could make this type of simulator cheaper or just flying
an airplane cheaper it would benefit our future pilots greatly by giving them the opportunity to
get more realistic flight training. This in turn would make them that much more of an effective
and safe pilot.
The second thing that needs to be dealt with is the issue of complacency now we cannot
just get rid of autopilot that would create more problems than it would solve. A human cannot
fly an airplane as precisely as a computer can and this makes for a slightly less smooth flight.
And when this happens the customers tend to get upset and this will cost the airlines a lot of
money so this will never happen and there is no need to have this happen. The best way to
keep the pilots from being complacent is to always have something for the pilot to do make him
or her a vital part of the function and operation of that aircraft. This will keep them busy and
keep them alert, which will make them more likely to catch something wrong long before it
becomes a real issue. This is in effect right now the pilots of any aircraft play a vital role in its
operation but the way the industry is going humans are being phased out and in the future may
not be a vital player in this game, we cannot allow this to happen.
The future of the aviation industry is following the rest of the world on its journey to
integrating technology into just about everything there is. This change from the old way of
relying solely on the pilot to relying heavily on the use of technology brings with it both good
and bad properties. However I dont see the need for a pilot in the cockpit to go away anytime
soon. Our pilots still need to be well trained constantly alert and homing their piloting skills
over time. With the upcoming of technology in the industry I fear that future pilots will lack the
necessary training and skills required. However the airlines will always be the safest way to
travel and that is not going to change with the integration of technology but there is always a
chance that one day a pilot will need to step up and take command of his aircraft and fly that
plane as safely as they can in order to save many many lives.






Works cited
Arnold, R. (2009, Dec 17). Pilots on autopilot. New York Times. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/434248173?accountid=28671
Huerta, Michael P. "Is The Federal Aviation Administration Making Sufficient Progress On Safety
Initiatives?." Congressional Digest 92.6 (2013): 12-18. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Apr. 2014
"Malaysia flight vanishes amid safety concerns." USA Today n.d.: Academic Search Premier. Web
Mike , Ahlers. "Report: Stray jet's pilots were on laptops."CNN. (2009): n. page. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/26/airliner.flyby/>.
Mouawad, J., & Drew, C. (2013, Feb 12). Airline industry at its safest since the dawn of the jet
age. New York Times. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1285623996?accountid=28671
"Safeguarding Safety." Aviation Week & Space Technology 176.4 (2014): 62-63. Academic Search Premier.
Stephen , Bogeart, perf. Air disasters . Smithsonian Channel, 2011. Film. 10 Apr 2014.