Proposed "Soft Walls" protect cities

[JimNtexas]

A New Scientist article proposes software "soft walls" around cities that would prevent hijacked airplanes from flying into buildings by using software to override pilot input considered dangerous.

I've also heard this sort of thing called "refuse to crash" logic when used in the context of preventing controlled flight into terrain by having the plane refuse to fly into terrain.

Both concepts are the same. Load a database with terrian/TFRs, put in logic to activate the autopilot to avoid the hazard, and change the flight controls so that the autopilot could not be overrided by the human pilot in these cases.

 

[cessna_street]

good idea....

But what happens when the system has a hiccup and decides that the destination airport near the downtown skyline is now the no fly zone, like in SEA? And at the same time you have say, an engine failure? How do you land? The AP will now prevent you from steering you to the airport so you can make the emergency landing. Was it Newton's law that said, if it can go wrong it will? People want all these computers to start flying airplanes and have the human element completly out of the cockpit. What these uneducated, misinformed people don't realize is that it isn't possible for a computer to completly replace a pilot. (Back to Newton's law again.) The media and all these other people who aren't pilots but they're "aviation experts" always have the solution to the world's "aviation problem." When will they wise up and start asking the users of the aviation system on how to make inprovements? Oops, I forgot we're just mindless expendable laborers in the eyes of the higher ups who have no clue on anything.

 

[XGmaninGA]

Actually it was Edsel Murphy who said "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong". Hence, Murphy's Law.

A corollary to Murphy's Law:

Humans are fallible, but it takes a computer to really scr*w things up.

 

[cessna_street]

I stand corrected