Friday, April 21, 2006
Change?!? Change?!? I don't need no stinkin' change!!
Right after WW2, Airliners such as the DC-6 and the Constellation used 5 crewmembers in the cockpit. Pilot, Co-pilot, Flight Engineer, Navigator and Radio Operator. Over the years, one by one, they've all disappeared, save the pilot and co-pilot. And believe me when I say the airlines are seriously working on ridding themselves of the co-pilot. I do not think I exaggerate when I say that if the FAA didn't require one, they'd probably go away over night. The reason all those people were in the planes back then is because there was very little automation. If you look at an instrument panel from the late '40's, early 50's, the average GA pilot today wouldn't seen anything they didn't recognize as far as instruments go. The primary six instruments were the artificial horizon, airspeed, altitude, turn and bank, rate of climb, and gyro-compass. All the rest of the gauges and switches and dials were related to mechanical systems of the aircraft, and were the responsibility of the other 4 crewmembers. The pilot and co-pilot just worried their pretty little heads over the six primaries.
But with improved equipment comes automation, and the machines that used to require humans to spin dials and flip switches started doing a lot of that themselves, leaving people who would sit there and watch them do it. Large companies are loath to pay people good money to sit there and watch machines run themselves. The radio man was the first to go as radios became smarter and easier to operate. Then radios started incorporating navigation functions along with the communications as the FAA began installing VOR radio stations across the country. These are radio stations that onboard "navcom" radios could use to determine the position of the receiver set through triangulation. (Modern GPS systems have carried this about 20,000 steps further.) Bye bye navigator. Then the "flight director" showed up. This instrument combined the function of most of the primaries into one all-encompassing instrument that also included the auto-pilot, itself more automated than ever before. The flight deck was quite a bit less crowded by now, with just three people up front. In a ten year span starting in around 1980, smaller computers started showing up and became much more reliable and capable, and aircraft companies started using them to run the mechanical systems with a degree of precision and reliability no human could hope to achieve. Guess what? The flight engineer started twiddling his thumbs.
Today, almost 100% of commercial airplanes only have two people left in a cockpit that is increasingly becoming almost totally automated. Today's latest aircraft such as the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A380 are capable of literally flying themselves from "brakes released" to "turnoff at the next taxiway" without so much as one touch from a human. I've heard avionics engineers say in interviews the only thing keeping a human in the cockpit is the passenger's reluctance to ride in a machine with no humans at the controls. One put it this way: "In the future, I foresee only two souls in the cockpit. The pilot and a dog. The pilot's job will be to monitor the computer, and the dog's job will be to bite the pilot's hand if he tries to touch anything."
Now, a lot of old line pilots are having trouble adjusting to the new "glass cockpits" featured in today's generation of aircraft. They feel they're being taken "out of the loop" when it comes to flying the aircraft. And you know what? THEY ARE!! What can they do about it? Not much really. Look at what happened to the fireman in trains. When the diesel trains showed up, the old school of engineers and fireman fought them like crazy. It was a battle they were destined to lose.
It all comes down to what kind of change are you able to be comfortable with? Can you adjust?? Can you learn?? I'm hearing a lot of people griping about having to go back to school to learn another trade, or learn a new generation of equipment.
Folks!! That's the way things always have been, and always will be!!
Look, when I first started out in the mechanical design trade in 1973, a drawing board and vellum were the order of the day. One day, while making the umpteenth change on a drawing and griping mightily about it, this grey haired, grizzled old veteran designer came over and told me "Kwitcherbichin son!! The world is full of change. always will be. Besides, if nothing ever changed, you and me'd be out of a job! Oh, and one more thing, never, never, ever shit on your own time. You'll save a bundle on toilet paper!" I thought about what that old guy told me for a long time, and decided I'd better learn to pick up new skills if I wanted to keep the money coming in.
Now I haven't seen a drawing board since I started using Computer Aided Design almost 20 years ago. I set my mind that this was the way things are going to be, and went with the flow. I knew lots of designers and engineers who hated CAD and everything it stood for. Not me. I loved it. It let me design with a degree of precision and creativity that I never was able to with a drawing board. Yet, I met one in designer in a CAD class who was absolutely terrified of it, and was afraid to so much as push a button. Most of those engineers and designers are either gone now, or are close to retirement. An "old school" drawing board designer would have a tough time finding work in today's market. I'm also convinced there will be another generation of computer aided design that may well take ME out of the loop. What will I do?? I'll figure out something. I did before, and I will again. That's the one advantage, besides opposed thumbs, that human beings have over primates. We adapt.
When we want to.
And we'd better.
Except my chili recipe. As a "certain" individual knows, it's damn near perfect the way it is.............
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ..."
Isaac Asimov
