There was a big ferry accident involving a similar transfer of control problem in the New York harbor.
USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
111–120 of 369 posts
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#112It's not just boats that have safety-critical UI design problems. The avionics in airplanes are becoming so complicated that managing the avionics is almost more difficult than flying the plane. I'm a private pilot who has been flying a Cirrus SR22 for twelve years. In that time it has gone through two major glass cockpit avionics revisions. In the first revision, called the Avidyne, the autopilot was either on or of…
Is there a purpose to the display being so colorful? If AP were the only green thing and the others were monochrome it would stand out more.
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#113There was a ferry accident involving a similar transfer of control problem in New York harbor.[1] Ferries have a lot of maneuvering modes and directional thrusters, because they do so many dockings, and so they have a more complex control problem. The pilot put the system into a backup dumb mode while in cruise, then changed stations to where he could best see the dock while still in the wrong mode. Rammed the dock a…
So do other navies have a single person steering their ships like you advocate?
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#114It's not just boats that have safety-critical UI design problems. The avionics in airplanes are becoming so complicated that managing the avionics is almost more difficult than flying the plane. I'm a private pilot who has been flying a Cirrus SR22 for twelve years. In that time it has gone through two major glass cockpit avionics revisions. In the first revision, called the Avidyne, the autopilot was either on or of…
Is there a purpose to the display being so colorful? If AP were the only green thing and the others were monochrome it would stand out more.
Some of the colors do have a rationale. The blue and brown background are actually the attitude indicator display. Blue is sky. Brown is ground. There is now an option available that renders the terrain you're over so you can "see" outside via the PFD even in clouds, e.g.:
http://glasspilot.com/2008/08/is-synthetic-vision-a-game-cha...
But the other colors I think are just "because they can." There are a lot of IMHO stupid aspects of the G1000 UI design. (To be fair, the G1000 has to many features that designing a good UI for it is a real challenge.)
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#115not surprised
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe this is the official transcript: https://www.bea.aero/uploads/tx_elyextendttnews/annexe.01_04... I see that the first link I posted doesn't contain everything, but I don't see any major omissions either. At 2:11:37.5, Robert takes control of the plane. According to the report, he pushed the stick to the left twice. Bonin then took back control. Figure 69 on page 96 of the report you linked shows Bonin's pit…
Figure 69 shows Bonin's stick inputs before Robert took control (and a few seconds after). As explained on p. 182 of the report, Robert pressed the override switch at this point and took control, so Bonin's stick inputs would have been ignored. Bonin then took back control by himself pressing the override switch. In effect, then, at this late stage, the pilots were fighting over the stick. If it had been a physical f…
To me it still sounds like physically linked sticks would have been helpful here, if the fundamental problem was that the pilots did not understand the situation. At 11:38, when this first "fighting over the stick" episode happened, Bonin held his stick fully back to the nose-up limit stop, and Robert was not aware of that fact. If the sticks had been linked, he would presumably have noticed it, which might have helped him make sense of the stall warning etc.
I guess it's still a bit of random luck that he actually took the controls for a moment here. Like you say, this was already at a late stage.
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#117There was a ferry accident involving a similar transfer of control problem in New York harbor.[1] Ferries have a lot of maneuvering modes and directional thrusters, because they do so many dockings, and so they have a more complex control problem. The pilot put the system into a backup dumb mode while in cruise, then changed stations to where he could best see the dock while still in the wrong mode. Rammed the dock a…
As a devil's…inquisitor, I guess— I'm curious what the reasoning has been behind the Navy's (and WWII RAF's) preference for split/seniority control and in what situations that balances out, if any. Are those situations where some known, serious risk of error is mitigated by sharing responsibility? Is betting on experience over skill actually wrong, or is their implementation misguided? Or just not applicable to those…
I'm sure there's a good reason for the "tradition". Similar to a group of monastic monks following some bizarre ritual which could be done in a more efficient way. Someone from westpoint or the naval academy probably knows..
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Valve linkages had immediate effect on the output, but you also had to adjust the boiler heat input to keep the temperature within limits. Can you not vent some of the steam, so the same volume of steam is being produced and the temperature the same but only some of it goes to the drive?
This would mean wasting fuel, no?
It is wasting fuel, I think?
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#119There was a ferry accident involving a similar transfer of control problem in New York harbor.[1] Ferries have a lot of maneuvering modes and directional thrusters, because they do so many dockings, and so they have a more complex control problem. The pilot put the system into a backup dumb mode while in cruise, then changed stations to where he could best see the dock while still in the wrong mode. Rammed the dock a…
User interfaces have gone backwards decades in quality.
Look at your car radio in a 90's car. You didn't need to look at it to figure out how to push the radio button, turn the volume, anything. You could even adjust the bass on the fly with a bass knob instead of navigating to your "eq" menu to do it.
Now, you've got to look away from the road, realize what "mode" your in, you can move the menu around to the "audio" section, then "fm", then select a channel. And of course, it's a touch screen so there's no tactile feedback. But at least it's got PRETTY ANIMATIONS!
My Toyota Corolla will blast audio out of the speakers as it boots but the volume knob doesn't respond till it completely boots up. So you may start the car and have 5-10 seconds of blasting radio that you can do nothing about. GREAT JOB GUYS. A volume knob that needs to boot.
This is what was considered not only acceptable, but a "Feature" in a modern vehicle with hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and NOBODY thought to see if the radio interface was actually... efficient? It's not like people interact with the radio/music console in a car on a regular basis...
Or my 2001 Jetta. It was one of the earlier cars with "climate control". What that actually means is that to set it to heat, you have to tap the "plus temp" button a literal 20-30 times to get it into "HI" to force heat on. And then the day warms up and on your drive home you want AC? Tap it 20-30 times on the "minus temp" button. There was no knob for AC temp. They gave you 1 degree precision on a car that couldn't guarantee 10 degree temperatures. Additionally, the volume control for the car had digital buttons. That's right. Enjoy pressing up/down 50 times. No ability to rapidly change volume. So when you switch radio stations or to casette/cd and the volume is highly different you have to sit there pressing the button over and over. But, even then, at least these were BUTTONS that you didn't have to look away from the road to use. They had little tactile notches on them so you could feel around for them.
Re: USS McCain collision ultimately caused by UI confusion
#120The real cause of the collision was poor seamanship and failure to follow the COLREGS on the part of the bridge crew of the destroyer. Most specifically they were seriously in violation of Rule 6: the Safe Speed Rule http://navruleshandbook.com/Rule6.html Every vessel shall at all times proceed at a safe speed so that she can take proper and effective action to avoid collision and be stopped within a distance appropr…
> The USS McCain was traveling at over 20 knots at the time of the collision
http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170821080742-04-uss-jo...
Sorry. That does not compute. Based on that visual, the ship was dead in the water.