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Comment by bobthepanda

3 months ago

there are already a lot of screens and things to look at in a cockpit. and in emergency situations, screens can fail. audio has the advantage of being highly backwards compatible and extremely reliable, so long as the pilots are alive and conscious (and if they're not, the plane is most likely SOL anyways: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522)

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bobthepanda

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ryandrake  3 months ago

Also, you can process and respond to audio without taking your eyes off of whatever they are on, and without taking your hand off the stick/yoke.

I hear in my headset "Clear for the option runway two-five-right, number two behind a cessna, two mile final, on the go make right traffic" and I know exactly what is expected of me without having to look at a screen. A digital display would be a step backwards.

  • dickfickling  3 months ago

    It doesn't sound like GP is saying we have to do away with audio, just that it's absurd to stick to _just_ audio. Great to have a screen that shows "Clear for option 25R etc etc". I think I saw the latest Cirrus planes have something like that, doing live transcription of tower/ATC calls.

    EDIT: I will add I get that adding something like that to a general aviation cockpit is much easier than putting it on a commercial 787, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

    • bobthepanda  3 months ago

      it isn't really just audio though. The pilot is staring at things while talking, and there are automated systems like TCAS that provide alarms and visual indications as well. And a lot of commercial airliners have HUDs.

      If anything, the helicopter needed more avoidance technology from the sounds of it. And that has more to do with the lack of integration the military does with civilian systems.

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    • V99  2 months ago

      It's really sort of the opposite. You don't see 727s or MD-80s at the terminal anymore (freight somewhat excepted). Airliners are used constantly, wear out and get replaced/sent to other countries. Buying another computer is a negligible cost in a new 787 or retrofit into anything an airline currently flies.

      But there are tons of flying general aviation planes that are from the 50s/60's, and a long tail going back even further than that. Some of them don't even have a radio to talk on. Or an electrical system to run it.

      Mandating ADSB took many years, and still has exceptions carved out. And that's a fairly simple technology. There are companies that build it all into a replacement tail light LED "bulb" to provide compliance for ~$2000.

      Still that might be 5-10% of the value of your 1977 Cessna 152. If you take the cheap airframes out of the sky, that makes new pilots getting their 1500 hours more expensive before they can go get a job on the big boy planes.

ApolloFortyNine  3 months ago

>and in emergency situations, screens can fail.

Audio makes perfect sense as a backup, but 99.99% of flights would benefit from having a screen showing object and current planned route.

In this particular case, simply having that information available would have allowed an onboard computer to predict a collision.

  • dadadad100  3 months ago

    Take a fly on an airliner in MS flight simulator sometime or watch any of the YouTubers that show this stuff. CitationMax is a good one. The screens tell the flight plan, altitudes, traffic, weather, terrain and more. The audio part is, as mentioned above, extremely efficient and shared. The audio is used for clearances from one step to another ( very loosely speaking) This improves everyone’s situational awareness. This may have been an issue at DCA where the commercial flight was on VHF and the chopper was on UHF.

    If a plane loses comms there are well defined procedures and everyone knows exactly what that plane will do as they proceed to their destination.