Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

military.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 205 posts

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#141

Post by TechBro8615 »

ensignavenger wrote: post #89
adewinter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Military aviation accidents have killed 224 pilots or aircrew, destroyed 186 aircraft, and cost more than $11.6 billion since 2013"[1] "Combined with information from the Federal Aviation Administration, an average of 383 pilots die every year in the US." [2] [1] https://taskandpurpose.com/news/military-aviation-mishaps-de... [2] https://www.skytough.com/post/how-many-pilots-die-a-year

That is 32 pilots or aircrew killed in military aviation accidents total per year from 2013-2020. The article claims 30 pilot die every year from spatial disorientation alone. I find it unlikely that 30 out of 32 deaths of "pilots and crew" are pilots, and also unlikely that all of these accidents are due to spatial disorientation. (Edit- just read the source article- https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19…

As far as journalism goes these days, that looks like an accurate portrayal of the numbers.

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#142

Post by Zak »

hedora wrote: post #122
tempestn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those checklists exist for a reason. Far, far more incidents and accidents are caused by ignoring them than by relying on them. These planes are sufficiently complex that pilots can't come close to holding all possible contingencies in their heads; the checklists are designed specifically to allow them to react appropriately in any foreseeable situation. I'm not saying it's impossible that if they'd ignored the check…

I wonder why new planes are so complex. Computers make it technologically feasible to simplify things, but also to make them more complicated. Big organizations always inject as much complexity as possible into engineering projects.

Broadly speaking, because they have to be able to handle a huge range of conditions.

A Cessna 152 (a single-engine, two-seat, low-performance aircraft popular for flight training) isn't very complex to operate. It can't fly at 30,000 feet, cross continents in a single flight, fly in icing conditions, land in zero visibility, safely take off or land in a crosswind that could be described as more than a stiff breeze, or carry much more than two people and a backpack. Airliners do all of those things. Military aircraft have similar performance demands, and people shooting at them.

Automation can probably simplify everyday operation more than it has so far, but virtually every system that can be put on an aircraft has failed in flight at some point so pilots have to be able to quickly identify malfunctions and manually override a half-working system. For a recent example of what happens when that isn't the case, see the 737 Max.

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#143

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

dmoy wrote: post #36
toss1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar striking phenomena happened when I shaved my head instead of haircuts. I was immediately very aware of every slight motion of air even in what seemed like still rooms, or generated by my motion, not even walking. It was like I had a new sensor upgrade. Almost more interesting is that it did not fade or degrade over the months that I kept that (non-)hairstyle. The tactile sense can be a very high-bandwidth i…

So I actually buzz my hair really short for high power rifle season so I can feel the wind better. I'm also balding, so that helps. It mostly boils down to using it as a "don't pull the trigger, the wind just did something funky" sensor. Granted about half the time I end up throwing a baseball cap on it because not getting sunburn/skin cancer is more important to me than a few points at 600 yards, but it does help.

> I'm also balding, so that helps.

Opportunist...

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#144

Post by jw887c »

cdot2 wrote: post #5

"In 1974, the future Dr. Rupert was skydiving naked while he was a student at the University of Illinois. He noticed that the rush of air on so much bare skin kept him oriented, even as he spun and twirled in midair." Where do you sign up for naked skydiving?

Skydiving is cold. Skydiving while naked sounds freezing

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#145

Post by robbiep »

throwawayboise wrote: post #51
mrtksn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, I think the destination is "elevator operator" and we are half way there. Automating flight has quite a bit of low hanging fruits and Airbus has become the first harvester out there. The rest opposed at first, but the only logical path forward is automating people out of the systems. Yes, we had the 737MAX thingy but even then arguments for re-humanisation of aircraft controls didn't catch much traction.

737MAX would not have crashed if it were being flown autonomously, as the entire MCAS system would have been unnecessary. It was there to meet regulations regarding control feel for human pilots.

No, it still would have crashed, because it only was taking angle of attack from one sensor, and so would have been under the erroneous belief that it was stalling

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#146

Post by virtue3 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #51
mrtksn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, I think the destination is "elevator operator" and we are half way there. Automating flight has quite a bit of low hanging fruits and Airbus has become the first harvester out there. The rest opposed at first, but the only logical path forward is automating people out of the systems. Yes, we had the 737MAX thingy but even then arguments for re-humanisation of aircraft controls didn't catch much traction.

737MAX would not have crashed if it were being flown autonomously, as the entire MCAS system would have been unnecessary. It was there to meet regulations regarding control feel for human pilots.

You are incorrect.

The MCAS system was built to work on a very buggy angle of attack sensor. They are notoriously unreliable. The max kept one on each side of the plane (the airbus equivalent has 3 on each side). Further compounded by the fact that the (this was true at the time and theyve joined systems now) pilots computer only used the left side of the plane instruments and the copilots computer only used the right side.

So no. Boeing fucked up in the first place by trying to stealth fix a hardware problem (stalling at a new lower angle of attack in the "same model airplane") with software. And then lying through their teeth about the impact of this.

The equivalent military 737max with MCAS simply allowed the pilot to more forcefully adjust the flight control stick to turn it off. So they knew better.

Companies attempting to skirt legislation in the face of better profits is always going to cause issues here.

The entire max disaster was an attempt by management at Boeing to get pilots to be able to fly all 737s with basically no retraining.

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#147

Post by lsh123 »

Spatial disorientation occurs in the IMC conditions without visual reference to the natural horizon: inside clouds, pitch black night over the water (e.g. Kennedy 1999), etc. Pilots specifically train to fly in these conditions (IFR rating) and also practice to be proficient. I heard there is a research that a pilot w/o IFR rating or w/o current recurrent training or w/o recent actual experience loses control in less than 60 seconds.

The key here is recent experience or training. I fly IFR a lot (I live in Michigan and we have clouds 12 months a year) - I clocked 0.6 hrs instrument time on 1.4 hrs flight today. I always hand fly (w/o autopilot) at least part of the flight and I feel safe doing so. Many (if not all) other pilots who regularly fly on instruments feel the same - when you are proficient, it’s really not a big deal (and honestly kind of boring after a while).

Now, I am not surprised that researcher was able to do all these cool tricks with his invention after recent training and experience using this tool. But that would not help with real problem of pilots being out of proficiency. I wonder if this invention will be as effective for a pilot who didn’t fly for a couple weeks or a couple months. Can this pilot do all the same tricks safely? That would be the actual test on the usefulness of this invention.

Edit: grammar

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#148

Post by chipsa »

smokey_circles wrote: post #118
throwawayboise wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

737MAX would not have crashed if it were being flown autonomously, as the entire MCAS system would have been unnecessary. It was there to meet regulations regarding control feel for human pilots.

MCAS only exists as a bandaid to a terrible idea. They should've built a new aircraft, not strap bigger engines into a 40ish year old frame. If MCAS _actually_ worked, you and I wouldn't even know about it. But as tribute to how poorly it was designed and delivered, we know about MCAS because it killed over 300 people. Just an absurd point you're making. Airbus are an engineering firm, so they are doing clever engine…

They would have built a new aircraft if one of their big customers hasn't announced they were buying a new 737 variant that Boeing hadn't even thought they were going to be making.

Boeing was going to start a clean sheet small aircraft. And then American Airlines announced they were going to buy 100 of a new 737 variant.

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#149

Post by duxup »

sandworm101 wrote: post #4

>> It can take pilots up to 30 seconds to reorient themselves, a long time while behind the stick of a jet aircraft. Their is an old chopper pilot saying: the faster the aircraft the slower the pilot. You think 30 seconds is a long time in a fighter jet at 30,000 feet? Try 30 seconds when trying to land helicopter on the deck of a pitching ship. A 747 flies at basically the same speed as a fighter (~mach 0.8), in man…

> Nobody talks about those pilots having to think quickly.

Most pilot training talks about staying on top of and evaluating the situation.

Staying ahead of the airplane (managing your workload) and falling behind (and the fact that speed changes that) are not uncommon topics.

Re: A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight

#150

Post by jml7c5 »

teachrdan wrote: post #81
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #27

One of the surprises I got after being locally anesthetized for a surgery, was that I could no longer localize my arm in space without looking at it. Proprioception is heavily based on the flow of air against our skin and hair. Some flowmeters are based on that principle, using a tiny mechanical hair that vibrates as air flows over it, and I've always felt robotics should just dump a whole bunch of them on their movi…

Is that really true? Anecdotally, I have no trouble keeping track of where my arm is when I have a coat and gloves on :) I wonder if there's a side effect of anesthesia that inhibits the body's kinesthetic sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception#Proprioception_...

It could be one input used to correct/fine-tune awareness, but I'd be surprised if it's a primary one.

Incidentally, there's a good article (plus embedded videos) on impaired proprioception here: https://theconversation.com/proprioception-our-imperceptible...

Post reply on HN