How Aviation is Embracing Automation (While Keeping Humans in the Loop)
As someone with a healthy fear of flying, I've spent countless hours studying aviation technology to ease my anxiety. Recently, I've been exploring how the aviation industry handles automation — from cockpit autopilots to air traffic control systems. What I found offers fascinating parallels to our current debates about AI in software development.
Airbus Says: "Keep the Autopilot On"
Here's something that might surprise nervous flyers: Airbus explicitly tells its pilots to keep the autopilot engaged during turbulence. This isn't marketing speak — it's based on complex data from over a million flights.
Airbus analyzed its flight data monitoring (FDM) systems and found that temporary overspeed events happen roughly once every 1,400 flights. In about 25% of those cases, pilots disconnected the autopilot and made manual inputs that worsened the situation, causing unnecessary altitude deviations.
The autopilot on an Airbus A320 isn't just a simple system — it's monitoring up to 88 distinct parameters simultaneously: airspeed, pitch, roll, heading, accelerations, and…