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Virtual Pilot Lands Qantas Jet 65

Posted by timothy from the on-behalf-of-your-entire-ground-crew dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Australian airline Qantas has successfully tested an automated landing where both the pilot and the control tower didn't talk to each other. The plane was being piloted by a "Virtual Pilot" located in the control tower."
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Virtual Pilot Lands Qantas Jet More

Virtual Pilot Lands Qantas Jet

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  • In Related News... (Score:5, Funny)

    by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:11AM (#8858907) Homepage Journal
    ...a Quantas flight carrying 357 passengers and crew plummeted to its destruction for unknown reasons.

    Sydney air traffic control reports picking up garbled radio traffic fragments, but is still trying to decode the meaning of "D00D! U G0T PWNT!!!"

  • What about the pilot jobs? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Thinkit4 ( 745166 ) * on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:16AM (#8858932)
    We really have to think of alternate economic systems the more stories like this come up. An automated car doesn't really displace jobs--but this really could.

    • Re:What about the pilot jobs? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pwagland ( 472537 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:37AM (#8859092) Journal
      We really have to think of alternate economic systems the more stories like this come up. An automated car doesn't really displace jobs--but this really could.
      I think you say that without realising how many taxi drivers there are in the world. I would be prepared to bet that the number of taxi drivers compared to the number of qualified superliner pilots would be quite large...

      Food for thought.

    • Look at it this way. The pilots will be happy because they won't have those annoying "fly the plane" tasks interfering with their drinking schedule [bbc.co.uk].
    • Along the same line, why do we need to replace pilots? They are not half as expensive as this tech, and they do a pretty good job currently. I'm all for helping them out in every way, but do you really want to be sitting in an airplane some day with noone up front in case there is an error. Planes do get struck by lightning, and instruments do get screwed up.

      • RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)

        by rpresser ( 610529 )
        The goal is not to replace pilots, but to allow air traffic controllers to make better use of their time. From improved ATC efficiency, they expect also expect to gain things like reduced "circling" time, better (more direct) flight plans, and reduced fuel usage.
      • Is the autopilot smart enough to tell me we're passing Pike's Peak on the right? And if it does, will it use an irritating automated voice? There's something to be valued in the human being even if pilots and stewards spend most of their time being tour guides and food venders and occassional emergency workers.
    • Old pilot joke:

      In a few years' time there'll be only two crew on the flight deck: a captain and a dog. The captain will be there to feed the dog, and the dog will be there to bite the captain if he tries to touch the controls.
    • One thing that will keep these from replacing a human is emergency procedures. Even with redundant systems something could go wrong that this computer can't fix.

      Also, at least for the time being, most people wouldn't trust a computer to fly them anywhere. It's true that autopilot can do a lot, but most people don't think of it because they know there's a human being at the controls.
    • >>An automated car doesn't really displace jobs...

      "Johnny Cab says: Have a nice day!"
  • Flight QF10, carrying 400 passengers, went from 39,000ft to a standing stop on the tarmac without the pilots or tower talking.

    Isn't the point of testing to determine if the system works before you start using it in critical real world applications?

    What if the virtual-pilot system malfunctioned and the pilots were unable to gain control before the plane crashed and killed everyone. Mass criticism would ensue for using 400 passengers as genie pigs.

    • Re:Are the sure it's safe? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      1. What if the virtual-pilot system malfunctioned and the pilots were unable to gain control before the plane crashed and killed everyone. Mass criticism would ensue for using 400 passengers as genie pigs.

      It would be if they were. They weren't; this technology has been around for 10+ years.

    • Re:Are the sure it's safe? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you consider genie pigs, it's pretty logical that your own website is called almostsmart...

    • Re:Are the sure it's safe? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      All autopilots are designed to be overidden easily, and overpowered by the pilot in the event of AP system failure. No company would put hundreds of passengers at risk in this way. These systems have been deployed for years as a method of taking some of the cockpit management load off pilots who can get quite busy with procedureal functions in addition to flying the plane in nasty weather. The sky will not be falling anytime soon (at least not from this )
      -m
    • I didn't catch where the article said that this was the first test flight ever.

      No matter how many thousands of times you take it for a "dry run", eventually you have to test it in a real situation. For all we know, this might have been the culmination of an exhaustive series of difficult tests.

  • Remote control of air planes (Score:4, Informative)

    by bomblaster ( 580308 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:21AM (#8858963)
    Airplanes have been able to land on auto pilot for years using the Instrument Landing System (ILS)!!

    This is more about remote control of an air plane than automated landing. According to the article, digital commands were uploaded to the 747.

    With all this technology already in place, it is certainly possible to develop systems to enable commercial air planes take off on auto-pilot too. But that will require huge costs in new infrastructure to be installed at airports similar to the ILS for landing. Real-time software testing costs will also be enormous. Maybe FedEx mighe be interested in funding this :-)

    • Re:Remote control of air planes (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Muad'Dave ( 255648 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:57AM (#8859238) Homepage

      I heard that autopilot-controlled ILS landings were routine for cargo carriers, but the FAA doesn't allow it when passengers are aboard. UPS and FedEx can do zero by zero landings (no visibility at all) if the controllers allow it.

      • I seen a passenger carrying jumbo landing where all the pilot did was close the throttle once the plane had landed (I'm pretty sure the taxiing was manually controlled). I don't know what system was being used, but it was accurate enough for it to land on the the lights running down the center of the runway without any human intervention since cruising altitude was reached after taking off.
      • Actually pilots like to land themselves most of the time, but when the visibility goes down to less than 50 meters or so, they are pretty much required to let the autopilot land the plane. A human isn't that precise at reading the instruments and flaring the plane at the right moment in heavy fog.

        This was what a airline pilot friend of mine told me, at any rate.

      • Re:Remote control of air planes (Score:5, Informative)

        by grozzie2 ( 698656 ) on Thursday April 15, 2004 @01:54AM (#8866587)
        I heard that autopilot-controlled ILS landings were routine for cargo carriers, but the FAA doesn't allow it when passengers are aboard.

        you heard wrong. The rules are very specific in this area. A 'normal' instrument landing into weather of cielings greater than 200 feet with visibility greater than 1/2 mile may be flown by a pilot, or by the autoland system, with no preference. A Category II ILS (100 feet, 1/4 mile) _should_ be flown by the autoland, but pilots may elect to hand fly if equipment problems dictate so. A Category III ils (cieling 0, visibility 0) may NOT be hand flown and MUST be flown by autoland, no exceptions. A non functional autoland is cause to divert to an alternate airport with weather conditions suitable for a hand flown landing.

        Fedex and UPS do a lot more zero-zero autoland operations because they have invested in the equipment to allow them to do so on most of thier fleets. Very few airlines actually invest in the equipment and training to do CAT III approaches, and it's surprising how many dont even invest in the requirements for CAT II.

        From a safety perspective, this is an absolute no brainer. Just look at the statistics, and look for the number of landing accidents attributed to 'pilot error', and then look for the number attributed to 'autoland malfunction'. Ratio those numbers against the number of hand flown landings, vs the number of autolands performed over the sample period. You'll find the difference between the ratios to be larger than 3 orders of magnitude, with the autoland a clear winner.

        When it gets right down to it, in normal operations, on autoland capable equipment, there is really no reason to hand fly airplanes today. The autoland will do a safer job, and pilots get plenty of practise in the 'bad situations' in the simulator. The flight management system will fly a more precise profile, using less fuel, with a higher safety factor. This translates into safer operations and lower costs.

        I've been flying for 28 years, made my living flying airplanes for 18 of those 28. Pilots of large aircraft today are nothing more than systems managers. They assemble and analyze data in real time, and act as keypunch operators for the flight management system. They provide an audio interface between the air traffic control system and the flight managment system keyboard. The article was completely out of context of reality, in reality the system being tested just eliminates the audio step of transferring air traffic control clearances into the on board flight management system, and instead transfers them via a data link, thereby removing the potential for keypunch errors.

        The reporter writing the article saw something they didn't understand, and tried to dramatize it to a point it's totally removed from reality. There was no remote control, just automated data transfers of data that would normally be spoken then keypunched. I guess the reporter must be a /. regular....

  • Is this really big news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kabocox ( 199019 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:28AM (#8859023)
    I know the mil. has had auto landing and take off tech for years according to popular science. I know com. airlines have autopilot on most big planes. I just figured that it there was more of a political reason than a tech. reason why pilots haven't been entirely automated. I'd rather have a trained human "flying" my aircraft, but it may be faster/safer/cheaper to have a computer do it. The big reason that I've heard that we will always need pilots is if anything happened midair the pilot could either fix it fly around it recongizing that the incoming data from his instruments couldn't possibly be true.

    Actually, I've always wanted an autopilot for my car. I'd feel alot safer if there was a dependable/safe/cheap autopilot for cars. Most car accidents are caused by human error. I'd love to prevent human error from my car.

    • Commercially, the autopilot is the preferred method because it can make the tiny imperceptible changes for maximum fuel efficiency, that a normal pilot wouldn't (they're unnecessary from a flight point of view).

      When the autopilot fails, the normal pilot takes over.

    • Re:Is this really big news? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:55AM (#8859218)

      Once I had a lay over, so I spent the night at one of those off-airport hotels where aircrews rest overnight.

      I went down to the bar expecting the SAS bikini team to be there, only to find a lone senior pilot. Anyhow, there was nothing else to do around there, so we chatted over a beer while watching the game. Among the things he said were: "9 out of 10 landings are by autopilot. The tenth one has to be manual according to the book so we don't forget how to land manually.... You know how sometimes the landing is quite bumpy? that's the manual one."

    • Re:Is this really big news? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @12:04PM (#8860559)
      I just figured that it there was more of a political reason than a tech. reason why pilots haven't been entirely automated.

      In the case of landings, it's called "weather", or more specifically, "wind". My father flew single-engine planes and you had to have lightning fast reflexes on windy days. It's better in a jumbo because of their mass, but they get tossed around a decent amount too.

      Pilots are in the cockpit because planes are complicated. Planes can, and often do, suffer from mechanical breakdown, requiring improvisation or "best effort" solutions. Instruments do regularly fail requiring again, educated guessing or getting the information in other ways; GPS fails? Pilot whips out the charts and uses the ADF to navigate by VHF beacons. Avionics fail? Well, landmark time. The pilot can handle it- the computer goes "beep" and prints out "service code #432565, call Boeing". You rave about autopilots, but we've had a string of problems with both autopilots and some control systems- most infamously the Airbus disaster where the plane gave the pilot the wrong altitude AND refused to let him apply full power to save the plane from crashing.

      We have this redundant setup whereby the actions of the pilot in command are confirmed by the copilot. And if one kicks the bucket entirely, the other one is fully capable of taking over. They've even often got a guy just to handle watching over the plane(engineer) in many cases.

      Most major incidences in the last 10 years of US commercial airflight were due to mechanical failure. Not pilot error. The very last fucking thing we need to do is put more machines into the equation when we've proven we can't handle building them correctly in the first place.

      • Re:Is this really big news? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        >ADF to navigate by VHF beacons

        That would be some pilot... since the ADF tunes non-directional beacons in a MF band.

        I think you meant to write VOR... the 'V' stands for VHF... and besides... everyone hates NDB approaches.

  • Landing was tough (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:36AM (#8859077) Homepage Journal

    Airplanes have been able to land on auto pilot for years using the Instrument Landing System (ILS)!!

    Interesting. I don't keep up with this technology, but years ago the landing was the diciest part of flying a plane which couldn't be automated, where cruising and take-offs could be automated.

    Even now, when I'm on a commercial flight, I always implicitly rate my pilot based on the landing, how much of a bump, whether we hop, etc. Just like I rate Chinese restaurants based on their Hot & Sour Soup.

    • I always implicitly rate my pilot based on the landing, how much of a bump, whether we hop, etc. Just like I rate Chinese restaurants based on their Hot & Sour Soup.

      You rate your soup on how much of a bump it gives you, whether you hop, etc.?

    • And rightly so- hot & sour soup is awesome. If they screw it up- what else is going to be bad? There is a buffet place by me that puts chicken in their hot & sour soup. It is kind of wierd and I don't think I like it. I'll stick to my tofu and mushrooms please.

      I am now craving some- I wonder if China Chili sells it by the bowl (it is usually just a side with a lunch order)

    • "Even now, when I'm on a commercial flight, I always implicitly rate my pilot based on the landing, how much of a bump, whether we hop, etc."

      The ethnic group I belong to is known and sometimes laughed at) for cheering and applauding the pilot of an airplane after a successful landing (WOOO WE MADE IT!), most often in chartered flights to/from caribbean resorts. I guess we were right to do it all along!

    • Interesting. I don't keep up with this technology, but years ago the landing was the diciest part of flying a plane ...

      Not really, taking off is the 'diciest' due to the fact that should you lose an/the engine at that point you are going to lose a heap of airspeed instantly due to being in a climb configuration (high angle of attack, lots of drag) compound that with the fact that you are pushing the engine(s) hardest at takeoff, often only having just warmed them up....

      Landing a plane requires slightly

  • Virtual Terrorist? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @09:37AM (#8859087) Homepage Journal
    How long until a virtual terrorist hijacks the uplink and "lands" this automated plane in a building?

    • Re:Virtual Terrorist? (Score:5, Funny)

      by WayneConrad ( 312222 ) * <wconrad&yagni,com> on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @10:05AM (#8859300) Homepage

      How long until a virtual terrorist hijacks the uplink and "lands" this automated plane in a building?

      I'll bet that nobody thought of that. We know that aviation people just don't give a darn for safety. And people just don't worry about protecting themselves from terrible things that have already happened.

      There's probably not a pilot on the plane who can take over any time he wants.

      The whole system is probably connected to the internet, too.

      Heck, the uplink is probably unencrypted tones on a CB channel that any kid could generate by whistling into his walkie talkie.

      Yes, we should be scared.

      • What good is the pilot taking over if you have lost an important part of the aircraft? One accident which comes to mind happened not long after 9/11. An airbus(I believe) was taking off with a strong crosswind, misjudged his sideslip, stomped the rudder, and took off the vertical stabilizer because the rudder movement put too much force on it. It only takes a single extreme momentary control input to bring down an airliner.

        The system doesnt have to be hooked up to the internet, since the communication i
        • That was the Queens incident soon after 9/11 involving a American Airlines Airbus A300.
        • That plane was an Airbus A300 [wikipedia.org] (Thanks to mcbridematt for the info). I doubt it has fly-by-wire capabilities, the last revision was in 1988. I'm sure a computer controlled rudder would not let a catastrophic command like that execute.
        • OR, what if a terrorists happens to use common place equiptment to over power the control towers radio signal and tells a pilot it is safe to land... when it isnt.

          Quick we should eliminate radios they are an opportunity for terrorists.

          Or worse yet... what if a person with access is offered a significant sum of money to allow terrorists into the control tower.
      • Right and the entire air traffic control system has been replaced by a network of Sony Playstations with all important maneuvers being determined by ten year old kids who think they are just playing a game.
    • There are some who think this has already happened ... [propagandamatrix.com]
    • Exactly. While automation in itself is a good idea, one must remember that a computer has no inherent moral standards: if someone (with sufficient "authority") tells it that it IS supposed to land in a building, it won't argue. DARPA's automated cars/tanks would have the same problem. Aside from incapacitating jamming, DoS, etc., couldn't some script kiddies in "generic enemy country" take over one of these? A soldier who is told to do something blatantly against his country would probably refuse, or at le
  • Physics access error appears on the screen. Will the plane suddenly stop in mid-air, like in a bugs bunny cartoon? Or will they have to phone up Bill Gates and have him re-write the laws of physics?
  • ...and took over the controls, would this be considered a "Virtual Hijacking"?
  • That's one milestone down. Now the airline can move forward with plans for training koala bears [rareads.com] to fly the planes.
  • The system is more of a replacement for two humans talking on a radio to keep two computers (the ATC system and the FMS) updated with the same information. It's not remote control; it's not piloting at all. The autopilots in these planes can already do everything that was described. This just saves the PNF (pilot not flying) from doing some typing.

  • I think this is probably driven by... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mantera ( 685223 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @02:33PM (#8862370)

    Imagine a 9/11 style aeroplane hijacking scenario, wouldn't it be cool for the tower to take over the steering and landing of the aeroplane to get it down safely by remote control regardless of what its pilot is either forced to or intends to do?

    I'm suspecting this could be the prime motive out of testing this technology right now.

    • Re:I think this is probably driven by... (Score:4, Funny)

      by rkhalloran ( 136467 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @03:06PM (#8862743) Homepage
      Thinking of ST II: Wrath of Khan [imdb.com], where Kirk uses the 'prefix code' of the ship Khan's hijacked to drop its shields just before blasting it... Then you have the problem of keeping the in-cabin override switch unknown to the general public so the hijackers can't just lock out the tower as soon as they take the cockpit.
      • But you forgot about the air-traffic control tower's super-secret override switch, which overrides the in-cabin override, restoring control to the tower. I guess the real question is where do you want the ultimate physical control of the aircraft to reside? Is it easier to secure the aircraft or the control tower, and what are the consequences of each approach?

        If one aircraft is compromised and hijacked, there's only limited damage it can do. If an entire control tower were compromised, hijackers might

  • Coming Soon (Score:3, Funny)

    by mrlsd ( 194099 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2004 @06:17PM (#8863990)
    Coming soon: virtual passengers to save the airline industry.

  • currently there is heated debate here in sydney about aircraft noise, particularly now since we are not getting a second airport. Planes are flying low over suburban areas for long distances requiring throttles to be well above idle. This system is supossed to allow planes to glide in from higher altitudes with throttles on idle. Saving fuel AND reducing noise.
    Hope it works well, but i wish I could find out which flights they are testing it on - so I can change my flight to another one
  • People seem to be misunderstanding what they've done. They've replaced all that radio voice chatter between the pilot and the tower. Autopilot complete with landing has been reality for years. What Qantas has done is replace the human conversation. They maybe have automated the decision making tasks. I don't understand why they chose the term "Virtual Pilot" for the machine in the tower, it confuses the issue.

  • Where are the savings? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AB3A ( 192265 ) on Thursday April 15, 2004 @03:35PM (#8873448) Homepage Journal
    So, the air traffic controller gets to send instructions in a text form straight up to the airliner in a format acceptable for the FMS to use. The autopilot is slaved to the FMS and so I guess the air traffic controller is telling the aircraft where to go.

    My question is why anyone thinks this is a good thing? What happens here that saves fuel?

    It may come as a surprise to most of you, but air traffic controllers know shockingly little about what performance to expect from the aircraft they "control". They know even less about the weather those aircraft fly in. Their radars aren't designed to show weather. They're designed to show little bits of metal in the clouds.

    Air traffic controllers don't often have a feel for ice formation aloft. They don't know what the cloud formations look like ahead, so they can't know in advance if they're likely to send you in to severe turbulence. Terrain is not often mapped on their scopes, and sometimes they make mistakes. Thats why TCAS and GPWS are found in nearly all the large airliners and why the Capstone project with ADS-B has been such a big success in Alaska.

    I'm not belittling air traffic controllers. They have some incredibly complex staging and sequencing work to do to bring large fleets of airliners in to an airport in a timely fashion, while allowing for transitory traffic through the vicinity. They do this job amazingly well with very few problems. But the reasons I just cited are honest and valid situations where ordinary pilots routinely refuse the traffic instructions given to them by the center and terminal controllers.

    Finally, I don't suppose most of you know what it's like to be IFR in the goo, receive a hand-off to the next sector and then play 20 questions with the new air traffic controller because s/he has no idea who you are, where you came from, or where you're trying to get to. Even as good as these folks in ATC are, they screw up just like the pilots do.

    Pilots have a reason for being just as Air Traffic Controllers. I don't understand why mixing the two professions in to one saves anyone anything.

  • The problem with zero, zero landings ... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If there's a crash, the emergency crews have to be able to find it.

    Many years ago a Transport Canada guy told me that although Pearson Airport (Toronto) had ILS systems that would permit completely blind landings, they weren't going to permit it for the above cited reason.

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