Aviation is stuck in the 60s

[Alan C.]

Aviation is stuck in the 60s, a reflection on MH 370

 

When I trained as a pilot I was appalled at how 1960s aviation is. This will be hard for you to believe, but even when you have WiFi on the plane, commercial pilots in most cases do not have Internet in their cockpit, nor do they have satellite phones, nor GPS trackers. All they have to connect with ground is old style radios. And radios that sound awful. Radios are not safe, anyone for any reason can interfere with them. Indeed any person can buy an aviation radio without any kind of permit and start pretending he or she is a controller and aircraft have no way of verifying that they are indeed speaking to a real controller. Plus there is the confusion factor.  When you train as a pilot, a lot of what you have to learn is how to understand controllers over a radio, a radio which has poor sound quality and leads to frequent mix ups because of the different accents and languages that are spoken around the world by controllers and pilots. While in theory all controllers should speak English, Spanish traffic controllers for example speak in Spanish to aircraft that have Spanish identifiers, or address them in Spanish, sometimes depriving other aircraft flown by non Spanish speaking pilots of information that could be useful to them. Moreover, radio frequencies force pilots to listen to everything that is said to other aircraft until you are called, something that I find extremely distracting when piloting. Imagine if you had a telephone system in which you had to listen to everyone else's conversations until somebody finally spoke to you. Well that is what is happening in the air right now all over the world.  Primitive. In my view  it is indefensible that we send planes loaded with passengers over the oceans without Internet, real time voice communications nor  GPS trackers. And even over land and near the coasts we use radars to know where aircraft are, but radars don't know really exactly where a plane is because radars are so slow at locating fast moving objects that by the time a controller sees you, you are somewhere else. And radars have very short range so we can't have radar coverage over oceans.  The radar/transponder system is just obsolete.  But still the norm.That Malaysian MH370 can disappear over the ocean and nobody knows exactly where, or the Air France 447 flight over the Atlantic went down and it took months to find the black box, is just irresponsible on the part of aviation authorities. My own Citation, a private jet, has a GPS tracker so we always know where it is. It cost less than $1000. We also have a satellite phone that allows the pilots to call for help anywhere in the world on concrete problems they may face that the radio operator may not be able to solve. Those also cost around $1000. And there is now Internet available to planes around in the world. But commercial planes, even when they have it for passengers, do not have it for pilots.  And it is illegal to install equipment that is not approved by flying authorities around the world. Think of a product like the Dropcam and imagine it on all commercial aircraft showing ground personnel in real time everything that is happening in the cabin, cockpit and recording in real time, that combined with good communication with the pilots would make aviation much less of the black hole it is today.In some cases a passenger with WiFi on a commercial plane can have more vital information than the pilot in the cockpit. For example, weather information. A pilot has a weather radar but the passenger can have real time weather information along the route, and that is as useful and sometimes more useful. But pilots in many jurisdictions are not allowed to use iPads with real time weather information. Private aviation has incorporated iPads and real time weather info much faster than commercial aviation. A commercial plane radar sees the next dangerous clouds (CBs clouds that can bring an airliner down) and that is all they show. But the passenger with Internet can have information about dangerous weather activity all the way to the destination. The passenger sees beyond what the pilot sees. Why can't airlines have those tools if private jets already do? They cost very little more. Think of all the money we are spending on TSA and its equivalents to make aviation safe — can't we spend a little more and have truly connected planes? If all commercial aircraft had GPS trackers, at least we would known exactly where  AF 477 or MH 370 went missing. We should have every commercial airliner install a GPS tracker.  Secondly we should connect all flights to the Internet and provide pilots with real time weather information anywhere in the world to supplement their weather radars as most private jets already have. What I find especially dangerous are flights that cross the Equator, where there are the most high altitude CBs during the night when you can't see them.  Thirdly, we should connect all FDRs (black boxes) to the Internet in real time so airlines know exactly what is happening to planes and alert pilots via the Internet and or satellite phones of unexpected dangers.  Lastly we should give pilots a way to speak both over radio and over the internet/satellite connection so they can obtain help from their airlines or anyone else and not just that controller which has the radio that they can talk to. In many cases the communication could be via messaging that is directly sent to flying instruments and all the pilot has to do is hit OK.  Right now the way things work is incredibly dated, is the best we had, in the 60s.  A controller for example gives a certain aircraft a flying level while all the other pilots are listening in (in case the instruction is for them), then the pilots of the target aircraft have to acknowledge that they received the instructions, then the pilots of that aircraft have to remember what the instructions were (they are not sent in writing in any way and believe it or not, many pilots carry notepads tied to their legs not to forget and write them down while flying), then they have to go to their instruments, say the autopilot, then they have to input the new flight level in the autopilot, then they have to go to that flight level. Wouldn't it be much easier to get an instruction over the Internet, hit OK, and have that instruction go to the autopilot and the plane to that level?Or here is another example, ice detection.  Right now the way pilots fight ice, and let's remember that ice brings down planes, is by guessing when ice forming conditions could be happening and activating anti icing.  In many cases they have to look at their own wings to see if there is ice building up.  Again here night and day are very different, as at night it is harder to see that you are going through ice forming clouds. Some pilots have to turn on lights that shine on the wings.  All this activity should be improved with sensors and real time weather information.  Sometimes pilots have to navigate, be on the radio, fight ice and fight CBs all at the same time.  This is just not fair to pilots.  And all this could be happening without radar coverage and radio coverage. It is a great workload, a lot of which could be automated and improved.Now the good news here is that we now have pilotless aircraft, drones, flying more and more frequently.  It is my view that as driverless cars will show how to make driving safer, drones will show how to make flying safer.

 

This is another example of the stark contrast between 'power and market' as there is no free-market in air travel.

[Josh F]

If you look at smaller planes though, you'll see a lot more change.  I had the chance to fly on a newer "eco" plane, and it ran silent on biodiesel. 

 

I had no idea these dolts hadn't updated the computer systems in the old planes though yet, sheesh.

[Magnus]

The wireless telecommunications (i.e., radio) industry (until deregulation in the 1990s) was stuck in 1928.  Federal licensing of frequencies began in 1928, but the technology that existed then only allowed differentiating between competing transmissions down to only a single decimal place.  That's why the radio dial in your car defines channels as 121.3, or 99.5 (and even then, only on odd-numbered frequencies).  That meant that only about a dozen transmitters could operate in any area at once.  But technology that was developed as early as 1941 allowed radios to hop around to avoid each other, not to mention transmitting on micro-frequencies defined 5, 6 or 7 decimal places.  That's how cell phones work, and why so many can opearate near each other at the same time without interference.  The federal licensing scheme doled out parcels of bandwidth as they were usable in 1928, thereby freezing the use of radio as it existed then.

 

The entire electrical grid is stuck in the 1910s, for similar reasons.

[Alan C.]

That reminds me of an article I read years ago about how most of the water and sewage infrastructure in the New England area is over 100 years old and literally crumbling to pieces, and another about how the DMV often uses computer systems which are 20 to 30 years old.

[Josh F]

and people are afraid of them regulating the internet or bitcoin, please lol

[cobra2411]

And what does this all have in common? Government! I'm sure the next person I vote for will fix it all though... 

 

 

 

any person can buy an aviation radio without any kind of permit and start pretending he or she is a controller and aircraft have no way of verifying that they are indeed speaking to a real controller.

That's a bit of an exaggeration. You would need a good sized antenna and a powerful transmitter otherwise the real transmission would drowned you out. You're not getting a $50 walkie-talkie from radioshack and ordering a plane to fly into the ground. Also, there are lots of armature radio guys out there that listen to air traffic and also love tracking radio signals. In fact, entire competitions exist for playing fox and hound. It wouldn't be long before they would start to triangulate the signal and most of those guys have the FCC on speed dial. They love catching unlicensed operators. 

 

 

 

That Malaysian MH370 can disappear over the ocean and nobody knows exactly where, or the Air France 447 flight over the Atlantic went down and it took months to find the black box, is just irresponsible on the part of aviation authorities.

Middle of the ocean? Sat com is the only thing that's reliable and even that has it's limitations. VHF radio is line of sight and over the oceans it's mostly HF which hasn't changed much since Marconi. I remember 9/11 when people were getting excited because we couldn't contact some inbound international flights over the Atlantic. HAM's are really good about relaying information when they can though. Private sector for the win again...

 

As for the icing comments.... Eh, sensors would be nice but it makes pilots complacent IMO. Look at the Asia Air crash not to long ago where pilots had been used to the auto-land of the Airbus. You actually have to fly the 777 to the ground. They sat back hoping the computer would do it all and slammed it into the sea wall. 

[Mike Fleming]

It's exactly like the Soviet Union and Cuba.  They were basically frozen in time.

 

Government gets it's hands on an industry, regulates it and stops it from innovating and it freezes at that point in time.

[Magnus]

It's exactly like the Soviet Union and Cuba. They were basically frozen in time.Government gets it's hands on an industry, regulates it and stops it from innovating and it freezes at that point in time.

When the USSR collapsed and East Germany opened up for the first time in a couple of generations, people said it was like walking into a technology museum.

[Alan C.]

UCLA campus experienced a water main break which caused major flooding and loss of millions of gallons of water. The article says that the water main is 90 years old. This reminded me of my earlier post in this thread when I talked about century-old infrastructure which is literally disintegrating. This is nothing new to Los Angeles which experiences hundreds of pipe breaks annually.

 

Also see watermainbreakclock.com

[cobra2411]

I don't have a problem with old infrastructure, some it can last 100+ years. No, the real problem is that nothing is being put away for replacing it when it fails. 

 

So, something has an expected lifespan of 10 years and 10 years go by and we spend all our money on other things. The decision then becomes to hold off on replacing it because we don't have the money. Money is initially set aside for replacement in 10 years, but after 5 years the money gets used elsewhere. Another 10 years go by and there is no money for replacement so the goal is to get another 10 years out of it. 2 years later it fails and the taxpayers are faced with large increases in taxes to pay for repairs desperately needed. 

 

Who is really to blame here though? Sure, we put a government in place to manage these things, but why aren't the people taking up torches and pitchforks? You have gross incompetence in not setting aside money for a known future replacement and you have intentional fraud in spending money for something else. What's worse is that in these situations a bond is usually issued that has a maturity similar to the expected lifespan. The bond is never paid down, money isn't saved and in 10 years when the replacement is needed you end up with two bonds that will never be paid down. 

 

In the private sector the customer ultimately decides how much you can charge for something, thus what you can spend on things like deferred maintenance. Run your company this way and you'll fail spectacularly. With government however they just put a gun to your head and tell you that they need your money because nobody could have anticipated what happened. The people that are responsible for this have lifetime pensions with lots of benefits. Are they ever clawed back? Are they ever even questioned about their roll in the debacle? No. So why should any future government employee act any different. They screw up or worse commit abject fraud and the taxpayer suffers the consequences. 

[cab21]

so if congress comes up with x billion/trillion dollar a year bills for government to update technology, would you want them to pass it?

 

now if money is being stolen, certainly i would think it can be put into new technology investment.

[MrCapitalism]

Aviation is stuck in the 60s, a reflection on MH 370

  I'm glad to see this guy getting properly taken to task in comments... This article was terrible. My background: I am a working airline pilot. And no, aviation isn't stuck in the 60's..it's probably closer to the mid to late 50's. Aviation loves to pack new technology on top of old procedures. This keeps the infrastructure accessible to all levels of technology. 

commercial pilots in most cases do not have Internet in their cockpit, nor do they have satellite phones, nor GPS trackers.

The internet sucks and is useless in flight, we already have long range communications equivalent to sat phones, and many airlines have GPS trackers installed. Big deal. 

All they have to connect with ground is old style radios. And radios that sound awful.

Works great...lasts long time. As magnus said, we're working with 1920's technology which does have limitations (blocked transmissions and manual frequency changes being two), but which also has a lengthy and experienced track record. We know the strengths, we mitigate the weaknesses. And that's like 90 years of reliable function. 

Moreover, radio frequencies force pilots to listen to everything that is said to other aircraft until you are called, something that I find extremely distracting when piloting. Imagine if you had a telephone system in which you had to listen to everyone else's conversations until somebody finally spoke to you.

This is an incredible and often life saving feature of the ancient radio system, especially when taking off and landing. It's a shame the author doesn't have this level of awareness. This is the equivalent of being able to press a button in your car and have direct verbal communication with the drivers around you. 

In my view  it is indefensible that we send planes loaded with passengers over the oceans without Internet, real time voice communications nor  GPS trackers.

Again, who cares about the internet. Real time voice is a reality, and GPS trackers are just scare tactics that are a result of this very rare and unfortunate accident of MH370. The only purpose GPS trackers could possibly have would be to locate the bodies faster. In an emergency, the pilots will not be shy in telling everybody they can exactly where they are to the best of their ability... remember, they want the rescue boats to pull them out of the water as well! 

And even over land and near the coasts we use radars to know where aircraft are, but radars don't know really exactly where a plane is because radars are so slow at locating fast moving objects that by the time a controller sees you, you are somewhere else. And radars have very short range so we can't have radar coverage over oceans.  The radar/transponder system is just obsolete.

This is terribly uninformed. Radar (direction, range, speed) and transponders (altitude, unique identification) are vastly superior to GPS based systems, this is why they are still in use. A radar sweeps a full 360 degrees in what, 10-30 seconds? So every 10 seconds the air traffic controller has the real time position of every aircraft within their jurisdiction being directly fed to their equipment, without having the latency of being processed by a GPS tracking service and then routed through the internet, with the possibility of connection problems and information loss/corruption. However, the radar system is going to be supplanted by the addition of GPS, traffic, and other information shared between the controller and pilot. The author is correct that radar cannot see beyond the horizon way off the coast, but the system is designed to function with this limitation. Investigators already had a decent idea of where AF447 was even without radar coverage, and they started collecting debris and bodies within days of the aircraft going missing. MH370 is an unfortunate exception, and hopefully we'll learn some good lessons from this. 

In some cases a passenger with WiFi on a commercial plane can have more vital information than the pilot in the cockpit. For example, weather information. A pilot has a weather radar but the passenger can have real time weather information along the route, and that is as useful and sometimes more useful. But pilots in many jurisdictions are not allowed to use iPads with real time weather information. Private aviation has incorporated iPads and real time weather info much faster than commercial aviation. A commercial plane radar sees the next dangerous clouds (CBs clouds that can bring an airliner down) and that is all they show. But the passenger with Internet can have information about dangerous weather activity all the way to the destination. The passenger sees beyond what the pilot sees.

Internet supplied, ground based, radar is vastly inferior to on-board weather radar, and everybody knows it (except this guy). It has low resolution, low update rate, cannot be adjusted by the pilots in real time, and doesn't have the same vantage point as an antenna bolted to the nose, or hanging from the wings.Internet radar is something pilots use when they cannot afford or it's not possible to mount a radar to the aircraft. It's also handy when you're in the briefing room of the airport and choosing a route of flight. Really good for the 'big picture' decisions but terrible for the real time choices that need to be made in flight. 

Right now the way things work is incredibly dated, is the best we had, in the 60s.  A controller for example gives a certain aircraft a flying level while all the other pilots are listening in (in case the instruction is for them), then the pilots of the target aircraft have to acknowledge that they received the instructions, then the pilots of that aircraft have to remember what the instructions were (they are not sent in writing in any way and believe it or not, many pilots carry notepads tied to their legs not to forget and write them down while flying), then they have to go to their instruments, say the autopilot, then they have to input the new flight level in the autopilot, then they have to go to that flight level. Wouldn't it be much easier to get an instruction over the Internet, hit OK, and have that instruction go to the autopilot and the plane to that level?

These procedures date from at least the 30's - 40's. It would be cool if it could be changed, but gosh it would make my job incredibly easy (read: reduce me awareness of the situation). New lessons would need to be learned about this procedure, but I say go for it. Let the guy on the ground fly my plane for me :-) 

Or here is another example, ice detection... In many cases they have to look at their own wings to see if there is ice building up.  Again here night and day are very different, as at night it is harder to see that you are going through ice forming clouds. Some pilots have to turn on lights that shine on the wings.

Ice can be invisible while it forms, so this is an unreliable standard for fighting ice. We instead use temperature and flight conditions to determine when to activate ice protection. 

All this activity should be improved with sensors and real time weather information.  Sometimes pilots have to navigate, be on the radio, fight ice and fight CBs all at the same time.  This is just not fair to pilots.  And all this could be happening without radar coverage and radio coverage. It is a great workload, a lot of which could be automated and improved.

My aircraft automatically detects ice formation and activates the systems automatically. I have of course had this system fail in flight and had to manually over-ride it. Real time weather is useless for this activity, the only appropriate standards are flight conditions+temperature, or sensor activation. In my experience, pilots are a weird mix between old tradition and new technology. In a pilot forum I frequent, there is currently a thread which amounts to the question of "what is better: letting student pilots use a calculator to solve math problems, or keep mandating that they use a metal slide rule instead?"