From: rdd@cactus.org (Robert Dorsett)
Subject: The Captaincy Question
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 09:05:51 GMT

This is typed in without the publisher's permission; but the copyright 
statement is clearly intended for commercial users, and implies consent
for this type of use.


---
Robert Dorsett
rdd@cactus.org
...cs.utexas.edu!cactus.org!rdd

--------------------------------- cut here -----------------------------------

The Captaincy Question
David Learmount
Flight International
September 23-29, 1992
Pp. 35-36

Airliner pilots have gradually come to accept that they will relinquish
an increasing  amount of control to on-board computers.  The next, and
more controversial, step in this  technological debate is now brewing
about how far aircrews should accept intervention  from systems outside
their aircraft.

The technology which would allow real-time monitoring, or even control
of an airliner  from the ground, is already well advanced.  To date,
however, the airline industry has  appeared slow to take up the highly
sensitive issue of how such technology should be  implemented. 
Manufacturers and airlines alike no doubt fear a backlash from airline 
pilots alarmed at the prospect of others making decisions about the
progress of flights for  which they will have taken full legal
responsibility.

Bernard Ziegler, Airbus Industrie's senior vice-president of
engineering and the  company's former chief pilot, shows no such
reticence in putting forward his opinions, but stresses they are his
own and not those of Airbus.  He argues that, in the future, it will 
no longer be an airliner captain's task to be "capitaine apres Dieu"
(captain after God).   Instead he will be "part of a management
system," by which Ziegler means a much bigger  management team than the
crew on the flightdeck and the cabin crew.

He argues that it is essential for the change to be made before
ultra-high-capacity (UHC)  aircraft are introduced, bringing heightened
issues of airline safety.  He states bluntly that  a datalink to give
ground controllers a real-time check on pilots' activity must be put in
 place before these aircraft come into service.

On present standings, that could be within the next ten years.  Both
Boeing and Airbus  reconfirmed at the Farnborough air show that the UHC
aircraft is to go into service in the  first few years of the new
century--possibly earlier, if Boeing bases its offering on the  747.

Although there is general agreement in the industry that change will
have to come,  aircraft manufacturers have been reluctant to voice
their opinions in public.

Boeing merely says that it has "...not heard of such a proposal" for
aircrew-monitoring,  and says that it "...could not envisage any plan
of that type applying to a UHC airplane  which would not apply to a
747-400."

Airbus, too, has been wary of making public statements on the issue,
for fear of being  misunderstood in the light of the A320 crashes at
Bangalore, in India, Habsheim and  Strasbourg, in France.  Ziegler,
however, is adamant that human factors should be given  center stage as
technology develops.  "We should be attacking the role of the crew, not
disputing endlessly on the size of a button," he says.

Ziegler's comments are perhaps not as revolutionary as they first
appear.  Sinc the  invention of the air-traffic controller, pilots have
not been free to make decisions without  considering the advice or even
orders of others in the aviation infrastructure.  With the  advent of
primary radar, then mandatory flight plans (for operation in certain
controlled  airspace), secondary surveillance radar (SSR) and digital
flight-data recorders, pilots have  become ever more closely monitored
and controlled.

DIGITAL DATALINKING

With the advent of digital datalinking, the technical opportunities for
real-time  monitoring of every control action a pilot takes becomes
theoretically possible.  This  would use multi-channel S-band SSR or
satellite communications (satcom) in systems  such as automatic
dependent surveillance--now in operation over the Pacific--or VHF-
based radio data-downlinks over land.

The question is exactly how monitoring will be carried out and by whom.
 Will  monitoring be put in the hands of controllers, or
airline-operations staff, or both?  If such  detailed crew monitoring
were to be set up, what power of intervention would ground  staff
actually have?  How would the intervention take place?  Would the crew
receive  voice instructions/advice as they do now?  Alternatives
include sending instructions via  the electronic flight-instrument
system screens, or, more controversially, using direct  intervention to
control the aircraft via its digital flight-management system (FMS).

While pilots are unlikely to block proposals designed to improve
safety, they may well be  nervous over the concept of direct
intervention in control of the aircraft by an authority  on the
ground--even if it could be over-ridden by the aircrew.  An
International Air  Transport Association (IATA) official working on the
International Civil Aviation  Organizations (ICAO's) future
air-navigation systems (FANS) program says that direct  intervention is
still "a long way off."  He believes that the air-traffic controller
will still  basically be confined to traffic separation, not the safety
or progress of the aircraft in  other ways.  He refers, however, to
"conflict-probing," the system whereby the controller  can set the
surveillance equipment to predict potential conflicts.  It has not yet
been  determined how the controller will issue a preventative
instruction to the aircraft in the  event of a predicted conflict, he
adds.  Today, if the controller sees a conflict developing,  he simply
gives specific voice instructions to the pilot to alter his flightpath.

"Ziegler's rationale for raisin the subject rests on the growing
percentage of accidents  which are caused by human factors.  Increasing
technical safety and reliability of aircraft  has left human factors,
crew training and flight management in its widest sense as the  only
areas in which significant advances in flight safety can be made. 
Accidents caused  by technical faults represent only 3-4% of all
crashes, maintains Zigeler, with human  error causing close to 75%.

"Strasbourg and Kathmandu could not have happened," Ziegler insists, if
the pilots'  actions had been monitored as he says they should be in
the future.  Both fatal accidents  involved airliners hitting high
ground, despite the absence of any technical problems to  explain the
aircrafts behavior.  The A320 Strasbourg crash in January took place
on  approach, while the Thai Airways International Airbus A310-300
accident at Kathmandu,  in July 1992, happened as the aircraft departed
on a diversion after carrying out a missed  approach in bad weather. 
At Kathmandu, the aircraft's departure on a dangerous heading,  instead
of following a published standard instrument departure, could not be
monitored  because the airport does not have even primary radar.

At Strasbourg, the aircraft's approach was being monitored by area SSR.
The controller  had noticed that the aircraft's altitude seemed to be
reducing at an unusually high rate,  given its position on the approach
and the terrain in the area, but it was not his job to  question the
captain's judgement in that respect; there was no problem of
air-traffic  separation and the aircraft was on track.

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

"I am integrated into an organization which makes me part of a
management system,"  says Ziegler, explaining that, if he gets anything
wrong, his colleagues are not slow to  correct him.  The new system
should "...introduce a new role for aircrews... they become  part of a
management team with a boss.  This does not deprive [the captain] of an
 important task, but makes him part of a team."  The fundamental
requirement is to enable  communications systems to pass the
information to the cockpit.  The communications  would probably
comprise satcoms and a worldwide standard would be needed.  "Forget 
radio, with all its possible faults and misunderstands; send it direct
to the screen," says  Ziegler.  He suggests it should not be just in
written instruction form.  If the instruction is  a change in flight
plan, the course change should be highlighted on the navigation 
display.

Pilots appear willing to offer support for such systems where they
would improve safety.   Capt. James Gaskell, group vice-chairman of the
British Airline Pilots Association's Air  Traffic Services Study team,
welcomes the concept of data downlinks which would allow  ground
engineers to monitor technical problems in real time and give the crew
advice.   "Anything that can help us with an engine problem [over
mid-Atlantic] would be  welcome," he says.  While acknowledging that
"...good decisions are based on good  information," Gaskell is more
cautious over the possibility of direct intervention from  outside the
cockpit, arguing that pilots should make the ultimate decisions.

IATA has just signed an agreement with Inmarsat, the international
operator of  communications satellites.  The agreement sets up
cooperation to develop satcoms for air- traffic control, improved
emergency services and aeronautical public communications.   As  IATA
says: "It will be a crucial component in the implementation of ICAOs
FANS."

Of course, the debate is not just about where pilots fit into the new
system, but also about  a new role for controllers.  In congested
airspace sectors, it is already predicted by  organizations such as
Eurocontrol that aircraft will be computer-controlled through their 
own four-dimensional navigation-capable FMS--the fourth dimension being
time.  This  will allow aircraft to fly according to electronically
filed flight plans with an accuracy  impossible to obtain when using
manual techniques, and enabling massive improvements  in traffic
flow-management efficiency, increased traffic volumes and reduced
separations.

Such a set-up would have live pilots sitting, inactive and silent,
monitoring their FMS and  watching progress on their navigation
displays.  Controllers would be watching screens  and saying nothing
unless a fault develops or help is requested.  The human-factors 
implications are fearsome and both IATA and ICAO are calling
conferences in 1993 to  examine the issue.


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