Well, Jim, try reading the report into the Air France crash; the pilot in
control might just as well have been for all he seemed to know about
controlling the Airbus -- and avoiding the stall. That's how it looks from the
reports and transcripts that I have read.
I flew the Jaguar for nearly 4 years, an aircraft with an inertial navigation
system that was pretty accurate but which needed monitoring for drift. The
Tornado that I flew was similarly untrustworthy for navigation, except for the
fact that there was a back-seater whose job was to look out and keep the kit
accurate with radar fixes.
I use GPS for navigating my car, sometimes, but I work out where it should be
taking me first, and monitor its performance while I am using it.
There is still not much that can beat the human brain for interpreting external
cues of various sorts.
Chris
On 27 Jul 2012, at 18:32, Jim Nichols wrote:
> The first time I flew with Narco Superhomers and Omnigators, I thought they
> would be around forever. Most of my cross-country trips were made with
> these VOR devices. Then came LORAN for a while, and, finally, GPS. Now,
> these all seem in the distant past when I see the new glass panels of
> digital displays with moving maps and keyboards. I'm afraid I might feel I
> was flying a computer instead of an airplane.
--
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