Aircraft pilot VS autopilot. The decline of the profession "civil aviation pilot"? Airport from a pilot's point of view Learn Civil Aviation Pilots

Quite often, on aviation and not so forums and websites, the question of how much a modern civil aircraft needs a pilot is raised. Like, with the current level of automation, what are they doing there if the autopilot does everything for them?

Not a single conversation is complete without mentioning unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and, as a climax, the flight of Buran.

"You are tormented by this question, you want to talk about it"?

Well, let's talk.

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What is an autopilot?

The best autopilot I have ever seen is featured in the American comedy Airplane.

However, in that film, he accidentally failed, and if not for the heroic loser, the happy ending would not have happened. Although, there was also a flight attendant... Well, in any case, there was a person.

In fact, many pilots do not enter into an argument with people who are far from aviation because they know how the most modern technology sometimes behaves. I won’t argue, I’ll just tell you, and then at least you fight there) It’s a joke.

Our autopilots are a mixture of metal, plastic, glass, light bulbs, buttons, knobs and wires. And switches. Nothing human at all.

The pilot controls the autopilot (the sacramental meaning is already hidden in this phrase) through the consoles. The photo below shows the cockpit of a not very modern B737CL aircraft, but in reality, in this regard, there are no global differences between it, created in the 80s of the last century, and the B787, which first took to the skies a few years ago.

The main control panel for automation in general and the autopilot in particular (MSP) can be seen almost in the middle of the photo. Each button on it is responsible for turning on one of the autopilot modes, and the four buttons on the right (A / P ENGAGE A - B) are responsible, in fact, for turning on the autopilot. By the way, with the configuration of the autopilot controls that is fixed in the photo, the autopilot will not turn on. Let the experts answer why.

The numbers in the boxes indicate the data that is necessary for a particular mode of operation of the autopilot. For example, in the ALTITUDE box, you can see 3500 - this means that if after takeoff we turn on the autopilot and set some climb mode, the plane will take an altitude of 3500 feet and fly stupidly at it until the pilot sets a new altitude value and .. . will not turn on any dialing mode again.

By itself, the autopilot will not change the altitude and will not go into a set.

Moreover. The pilot can choose an altitude of, say, 10,000 feet, but turn on the wrong autopilot mode, and the plane will obediently fly down until it hits the ground.

Similarly, if there is a mountain ahead on the course set by the pilot in the HEADING box, then the plane will fly up the mountain and will definitely crash into it if the pilot does not take any action.

Yes, it is also worth noting that the autopilot of a modern aircraft is paired with an autothrottle - this is another set of pieces of iron and wires that is responsible for automatically changing the engine mode, that is, thrust. In the photo above on the MCP on the left you can see a small switch labeled A / T ARM / OFF, it is responsible for turning on the autothrottle in ready-to-use mode. However, sometimes they have to work Not in pairs (for example, if the autothrottle is faulty), which imposes significant restrictions on the autopilot, since many autopilot modes require changes in thrust. For example, the autopilot needs to descend, but the thrust set to the takeoff mode will not stupidly do this.

In the photo below you can see the control panel FMS - flight management system (flight management system). Through this panel, you can enter some useful data, with the help of which the automation will know which route the plane is flying today, which values of thrust and speed will be optimal today.

After takeoff, the pilot can turn on (or turn on automatically) the autopilot mode, in which the aircraft will fly on commands received from this system. However, as I said above, if it hits a height of 3500 set in the MCP window, then it will not fly higher until the pilot changes this value.

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The most important limitation of modern software systems (and autopilot is nothing more than a piece of iron stuffed with algorithms) is the inability to make non-standard decisions that depend on the specific situation.

The aircraft control algorithms themselves are not at all complicated, so autopilots on aircraft began to appear as early as 1912, and in the 1930s they began to become widespread.

I am more than sure that already then there were talks that the profession "pilot" would soon become obsolete, as well as the profession "coachman". Many years later, Anatoly Markusha, in one of his books, recounted a conversation he overheard of a girl who expressed claims to her young man that he needed to look for another profession, they say, pilots would soon be no longer needed.

Since then, another 40 years have passed, and this topic - decision-making in non-standard situations by the creators of the latest aircraft has not been defeated.

Yes, many aviation professions have sunk into oblivion - the flight engineer who was in charge of the "economy", the navigator who provided navigation, the radio operator - who was in communication ... They were replaced by smart systems, that's indisputable. True, at the same time, the requirements for training increased ... and in some situations, the load on the two (!) Pilots remaining in the cockpit. Now they have to not only cope with a bunch of systems (the way and as automated as possible), but also have a lot of knowledge in their heads, which they usually didn’t use in flight before (and faded over time), because. narrow specialists in these areas were sitting in the cockpit.

Yes, some UAVs fly autonomously (and some are controlled by operators from the ground), and Buran successfully made one (!) Flight in automatic mode without a pilot on board. But these are precisely those algorithms, the programming of which has been possible for a very, very long time.

Any interested programmer for the sake of sporting interest can come up with an add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator and land their Snowstorms even in Zavyalovka, and then go to the aviation forum and mock the profession of "aircraft driver".

But here I am, an "airplane driver", having an understanding of situations that arise in the sky, which require constant decision-making, I will not dare to board an airplane, the brain of which is not a person, but the Autopilot v.10.01 program, in which programming errors have been fixed identified in the previous ten disasters.

For example, today, despite the practical possibility of creating such a regime, aircraft do not take off automatically. And this despite the fact that automatic landing and automatic run after it have been mastered for a very long time. Why?

Mikhail Gromov also said "Taking off is dangerous, flying is beautiful, landing is difficult". True. Taking off is easier than landing, however, if something happens on takeoff, sometimes it counts for a fraction of a second. During this time, the pilot needs to make a decision - to stop the takeoff or continue. Moreover, depending on the factors, for the same reason, one day it is better to stop the take-off, and the next it is better to continue. While the pilot is thinking, a heavy aircraft with a huge fuel supply is rapidly accelerating, and the runway is rapidly decreasing. Failures can be very diverse (alas, but the equipment still fails) and not always the failure comes down to a banal engine malfunction. And engine failures can also be different.

That is, a programmer who wants to remove a person from the aircraft control loop and the decision-making loop will need to write a bunch of algorithms for actions in various kinds of emergency situations. And after each unrecorded case, release a new firmware version.

Currently, "unrecorded cases" are solved by having a person in the cockpit who will swear (or remain silent, depending on the shutter speed), but will cope with the situation and return the aircraft to the ground.

And in most cases, idle inhabitants simply do not know about such cases, because not everything is reported in the press.

Not a single instruction provides for such an oversight - to leave a piece of the emergency escape cable overboard. What would Autopilot v.10.01 do in this case, how would he know that his window will soon be broken? No way. He would continue to climb 11 km in height, and when a window would break there, according to the program laid down, he would undertake an emergency descent with the throwing out of masks ... but they would not help the passengers much.

What did the pilots do? Firstly, we received information about the passing event quite early. Secondly, despite the unrevealed nature of the phenomenon, they understood how this non-standard situation could end and made the only right decision - to descend and return to the departure airfield.

And this is just ONE of the situations that happened in the career of only TWO pilots (me and the co-pilot). And there are thousands of pilots, and hundreds of thousands of situations.

Some "householders" oppose figures, they say, a person is a weak link, according to statistics, 80% of all disasters occurred due to the human factor.

All right. The technology has become so reliable that in most cases a person fails. However, I will remind you once again that idle "householders" simply do not think that many flights in which the equipment failed ended safely only because the human factor was in the cockpit.

I assure you, if you remove the pilots from the cockpit, then the proportion of the human factor will increase EVEN more, but only in this case, the human factor will be understood as a programming error.

Further, in an airplane, everything may work very well for the whole flight, however ... it may not work very well on the ground. In order for the plane to fly to the airfield and land there, a whole bunch of systems have been created, which are what? ... That's right, sometimes they fail. And in this case, the pilot "wakes up" and does his job.

Banal decision-making when bypassing thunderstorms. Here, for example, my flight to Genoa, I called it "the tinker's flight"

Or a flight to Sochi:

And that's just three flights. And only one individual pilot has hundreds of times more of them.

Thunderstorms look different on the radar, and one bypass solution will not always be as good for another case. And when this thunderstorm is located in the area of the airfield ... And if this airfield is mountainous? You have to think and make decisions...

If a plane is hit by lightning, or it seizes a discharge of static, then people will not die from this hit, but systems can fail unpredictably. And there were cases that ended well only because the pilots were sitting in the cockpit.

It is worth adding to all of the above that far from all airports today the plane can perform an automatic landing. It requires rather greenhouse conditions compared to those in which a pilot can land. Of course, this is a matter of programming algorithms, but the task is not easy enough to ensure equal reliability.

Of course, if you skimp on reliability, then it has long been possible to produce aircraft on the line without pilot-operators.

The main reason why aircraft without pilots have not yet entered civilian lines is this very RELIABILITY. For the needs of the military or shippers, the reliability may not be as high as for transporting people by air.

Of course, the degree of automation will increase. This also determines the reliability of the crew-aircraft system. Of course, the search for better solutions will continue to ensure that aircraft reliably flew without human intervention. True, it will be possible to completely exclude human participation from the flight only when artificial intelligence is invented that is not inferior to the intelligence of a trained person. The problem of making decisions in non-standard situations will not go anywhere. An airplane is not a car, so that in an unusual situation it’s just stupid to stop on the side of the road.

One option is for the operator to control the aircraft from the ground. That is, the operator on the ground controls the flight of one or more aircraft, making decisions in non-standard situations. If something happens that he is not able to solve from the ground, he remains alive ... And the passengers die. Then the next version of the software appears.

So let's direct our efforts not to discussing the profession of a pilot (each such discussion sooner or later turns into the topic "what do pilots get sooo much money for?"), but let's concentrate our efforts on creating in our direct specialty.

Fly safe!

In the early 90s, I had the good fortune to work in Nigeria, flying with a local airline on Tu-134s leased from our airline. Now, after almost 20 years, this may seem like a reference to compatriots who are already accustomed to civilization, but then it was a breakthrough into another life and invaluable flight experience, not to mention an order of magnitude higher salary compared to the impoverished Motherland at that time. And so that the picture of “happiness” is complete, I’ll say that I spent my honeymoon in Nigeria ... No, I’m not a fan of the exotic - I just got married, finally, for the second time between African business trips, and there are simply no options to leave my wife for six months was. Such is the exclusive honeymoon. Who is in the Seychelles, who is in Paris, but what about us, what is there - to Nigeria ...
By the way, the plane in the photo is really one of those that flew there. We drove almost all of them to Syktyvkar from Interflug after the unification of Germany. Even the coloring is basically the same. Only the company name, flag and registration have changed.

One of the stories from there:

Aircraft drove to Nigeria usually along the route Syktyvkar-Sheremetyevo-Prague-Casablanca-Bamako-Kano. We spent the night in Casablanca with pleasure, and in the morning there was a 4-hour, at the maximum range, throw through the desert. And now one of the crews, consisting of a flight chief, a young co-pilot, flying abroad for the first time, a navigator who rarely flies abroad and, thank God, a veteran of these flights - a mechanic, started for adventure. They flew through Europe like clockwork. Upon arrival in Casablanca, the navigator told the flight mechanic how much kerosene should be refueled for the flight to Bamako. And this figure turned out to be one and a half times less than the usual refueling. The flight mechanic was surprised, but did not delve into the intricacies of the calculation and filled, just in case, as usual, full tanks. Here it is necessary to explain: on the Tu-134, the fuel system and its indication were invented, probably, in order to make life as difficult as possible for the crew. The pilots delved into its subtleties, usually when passing tests, and then safely forgot until the next time. Only mechanics knew the real gas station. They also set before the flight the amount of fuel poured on the "clock" - a flow meter with a clock-like dial, which, as fuel was consumed, rewinded the readings back. His indication was a no brainer. Another device, the fuel gauge itself, showed the actual fuel in the tanks, but its readings were available only to the most gifted pilots.

So, our flight engineer put the fuel calculated by the navigator on the “watch”, and they took off into the unknown. Further from the words of the co-pilot: When we were already in the middle of the desert, the navigator suddenly lit up (before that he had not been noticed smoking on board) ... not enough ... It turns out that he forgot when calculating that he was dealing with nautical miles, not kilometers (all his previous international experience was in flights to Bulgaria and, accordingly, calculations in kilometers). A mile is roughly twice as long as a kilometer. Accordingly, the fuel. When recalculating, it turned out that it would have to end, at best, during the landing approach. Silent scene. The curtain... Everyone, along with cold sweat, has about the same thought: “Yo. your mother!!!" And, before my eyes, a picture of the wreckage of the Tu-134 among the dunes. The co-pilot has an additional thought: “Why are you killing? For the first time abroad, and I haven’t had time to live yet ... ”. Out of hopelessness, the commander still tugged at the fuel gauge selector, in which he still did not understand anything, and asked for a cigarette (he had never smoked before) ... measures to prevent such incidents, hanging in all navigators of the country. And journalists will not even write that the crew took the plane away from residential buildings due to the complete absence of them at the alleged crash site.

The flight mechanic gave them another ten minutes to enjoy the sensations of the inevitable end and with the words “Your fuel is over, now we are flying on mine” set the “clock” to the actual amount in the tanks ...

In general, mechanics and flight engineers are sometimes peculiar people. Pilots often underestimate them. Well, they sometimes respond with subtle reciprocity. Another example from the life of my current airline:

The plane landed at the wrong airfield... Rarely, but it happens. I don't remember the reason (they usually confuse closely spaced airfields with similar runway configurations), but that's not the point. During the investigation, juicy circumstances were revealed: the commander, a real ass hole, was very rude to the flight engineer during the flight and, as a result, ordered him to shut up and speak only if he asked him himself. The Arabs, alas, are in the order of things. Okay, as you say, but he, of course, harbored anger. The case for revenge turned up a couple of hours later. After landing, the commander, when, to his horror, realized that they had landed in the wrong place, pulled himself together and told the flight engineer to contact the company's control center and report this unpleasant incident. The trouble is, for a moment, in writing off as a punishment from flight work for several years. “And I already said,” the flight engineer said, “when we were still flying on the landing straight ...”

Denis is an instructor pilot for one of the largest airlines in Russia. Which one is easy to understand by reading his blog. And if up to this point you could be tormented by typical questions from the category “How do planes take off?”, “How do planes land?”, “How do you fly an airplane in manual mode?” After reading Denis’s detailed posts, a lot will become clear.

Yuri Yashin
Without a doubt, Yuri is the most smiling of all public pilots. Now he works for S7 Airlines as a co-pilot of an Airbus A-320 aircraft. Thanks to Yuri's passion for photography, we have the opportunity to see in the blog picturesque shots from the cockpit, as well as photos of aircraft at destination airports. And thanks to his talent as a storyteller, we regularly learn about flying everyday life.

Marina Lystseva
Marina says: "You don't have to work for an airline to be as close to the planes as possible." The fact is that Marina is an aviation photographer whose telephoto lenses reach everywhere. Her passion for aviation began 15 years ago when she worked as the editorial manager of the Aviation and Cosmonautics Bulletin. And it still continues, now to the delight of blog readers. And yes, a small remark: in the interpretation of the author, the nickname is correctly read "photographer";)

Andrey Ivanov
Andrei admits that in childhood, like all children, he dreamed of becoming a pilot or astronaut. Vision did not allow him to learn to be a civil aviation pilot, but did not deprive him of the dream of flying. Today Andrei combines several hypostases associated with the sky at once. He is an aeronautical engineer, private pilot, Il-14 restoration project manager and director of AOPA-Russia.

How rigorous is the medical examination for the crew? What is a flight mission? How is an aircraft checked? The other day I was lucky enough to visit places where ordinary visitors to Domodedovo Airport usually fail to get and look at the process of preparing pilots and other crew members of S7 Airlines for the upcoming air journey.

1. Meet - from left to right the pilot " S7 Airlines Tatarov Maxim Vyacheslavovich, aircraft captain Omelyanenko Vladimir Nikolaevich and press secretary of the airline Anna Bazhina.

2. Airport personnel, just like passengers, undergo pre-flight screening, only in a separate room specially designated for this. We take off the cap and forward through the frame. Everything is as strict as for mere mortals.

3. If you are physically sick, and even more so mentally, you won’t get on the flight. Here, the pilots are waiting for a whole medical board of several doctors.

4. Who's next? Measurement of pressure and temperature is only part of the medical "check-up" before the rest of the pre-flight preparation can be done.

5. After that, the crew goes to a large room, called the "briefing room". Check-in for the flight takes place here, each pilot checks in at the electronic terminal by entering his ID and password.

6. The flight task is printed out, documents on board (technical description of the aircraft of the previous team and technicians), all this is carefully studied and discussed.

7. The flight task also includes familiarization with the airports of departure, arrival and possible alternate airfields on the route.

8. This "bible" contains all the information about airfields and more.

9. To a person from the outside, all this seems incredibly complicated and confusing.

10. Just look at this card. The head will spin.

11. Also in the briefing room there is a meeting with the senior flight attendant (often these are acquaintances, since the crews are constantly changing). The chief flight attendant reports on the readiness for departure and the number of cabin crew on the flight.

12. When this whole story is over, we put on special vests and forward to the aircraft. Oh yes, how is the weather there? Previously, a summary (wind direction and strength, precipitation and thunderstorm risks) was received in a separate room. Now all the information is provided to the crews in the briefing room.

13. Here it is our handsome man - Airbus A-319, almost ready to go on flight 19 Moscow - St. Petersburg.

14. Let's take a closer look at him. Here is one of the engines.

15. Front chassis.

16. Place of attachment to the fuselage.

17. And this is what the insides of the rear chassis look like.

18. From this small window, a hellish stream of air - almost blew it away!

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20. When else will you take such a selfie!

21. Meanwhile, it would be nice to feed our liner.

22. Loading luggage.

23. Well, it's time to go inside. For bloggers, as well as for staff, the entrance to the TV ladder is on the side along a special ladder.

24. Teletrap control.

25. Well, well, everything is already in place.

26. The most interesting thing is, of course, the cockpit and cockpit.

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29. Do you know how easy it is to distinguish an Airbus cockpit from a Boeing cockpit, for example?

30. Initially, the co-pilot inspects the aircraft, and the PIC prepares the cockpit. Then they change places. Systems are being prepared and checked, documents are being filled out, and the route and features of the departure and arrival airfields are once again checked.

31. Flight attendant S7.

32. And at the bottom, in the meantime, a tugboat had already taxied. This means that the liner is almost ready for takeoff.

33. We cling.

34. By the way, picking him up is not such an easy task as it seems at first glance.

35. That's it, you can move in the direction of the take-off.

36. Goodbye, dear friend. Although you look strict on the outside, you are kind on the inside. Hope we meet again.

37. Acceleration. Or right, it seems - run.

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39. Breakaway. Although English is considered poorer in some sense, it sounds more interesting in this case - Take off the ground.

40. Bye, green!

Like this. Many thanks to the guys from S7 and the airport management for an interesting event!

Together with the pilots of the S7 airline, I arrived at Domodedovo Airport, passed the medical examination, pre-flight briefing, met the flight attendants, received permission to take off, took a minibus ride to the plane, inspected it, started the engines and ... did not fly anywhere. However, I photographed the entire process of preparing for the flight ...

The pilots enter the office through a separate entrance in the terminal. Just like everyone else, they go through a full screening:

The airport is divided into 2 zones: clean and dirty. A clear zone is an area within an airport that can only be accessed through security. The rest of the terminal building is called the dirty zone:

Immediately after the inspection, the entire crew undergoes a medical commission:

Here the pilots receive a flight task, where all other notes about the flight will be entered. You can pass the medical examination no earlier than 2 hours before departure and no later than one hour. The doctor measures blood pressure and pulse. He looks at the pilot and assesses his condition. If there is suspicion, additional tests may be performed:

In the next room, senior flight attendants receive first-aid kits. After the flight, they hand them back. The contents of the first-aid kits are constantly updated, and a special doctor ensures that all medicines are with an unexpired expiration date:

After the medical examination, the pilots go down one floor and enter the briefing room:

At the end of the hall, in the window, the co-pilot receives the documentation for the aircraft in an impressive suitcase. It is always worn by the assistant commander. A kind of hazing:

There is a large table in the middle of the room where the pilots prepare for the flight. They study route documents, schemes for entering the destination airport, check the weather report on the route, choose the best route, determine the amount of fuel needed, select an alternate airfield, etc.:

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Here they also receive weather data for all flight segments, wind speed and direction at altitudes, and possible turbulence. The entire route is divided into sections, and the pilots know in advance the expected strength of turbulence on each of them:

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S7 Airlines has a separate desk with computers in the briefing room, where the Aircraft Commander (PIC) can view additional information about the flight:

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If the commander has doubts about the weather conditions, he can consult with the meteorologist on duty:

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At the balance controller, the assistant commander fills out and submits a sheet with information about the flight. This includes information such as flight number, direction, tail number, curb weight of the aircraft (AC), total refueling, taxi fuel, takeoff fuel, flight fuel, flight time and number of seats. This information determines where the aircraft's center of mass will be:

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After completing the training, the PIC calls the chief flight attendant and instructs him:

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The philosophy of AIRBUS is that the crew should not be let down. Therefore, every time the PIC and the co-pilot are different. Same with flight attendants. An explanation of this philosophy is in or on the first page with comments on this). They get to know each other already in the rest room before the flight:

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Here the senior flight attendant instructs the crew:

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After completing the preparation, the pilot approaches the controller and informs him that he has decided to fly:

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Pilots go to the plane in a special minibus. By the way, for the airline, each such trip costs 1000 rubles:

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On the territory of the platform, all people must move in green vests. Pilots are no exception.

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There is no ignition key in the aircraft, and it is turned on with a button. An initial check of the system operation is carried out:

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The co-pilot conducts an external inspection of the aircraft. Checks for the absence of the check "Remove Before Flight" on the front landing gear, "because if it is present, the landing gear will not be removed:

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