What a huge loss to aviation!

Farewell Col. Cotton!

I lived very near Atherton, and, since I spent a lot of my time in Atherton , Palo Alto, Redwood City, and so on, I am sure I knew his house. I looked it up and it sure looked familiar.

Also, since he was United's Chief Engineering Test Pilot in San Francisco for 13 years, I'll wager my father knew him. I bet he was at some of my parent's parties.

 

Anyway, farewell, Col. Cotton, and may your "Last Flight" be your very best ever. Fair Skies, and light winds to you sir! :pilot:

 

Pat☺

Pat,

 

I didn't know Col. Cotton. However I can relate to what you are saying! People used to fly airplanes, now people program computers which fly their airplanes for them!! Even in simms, no-one seems to as interested in flying as how to program a computer to do their flying for them!!!!?? Why buy a sim if you're going to cross your arms and watch it land itself??!!

 

Who's to blame? First off I suggest the ATC people and airline owners around the world who don't want people flying planes in their patterns. If you turn it over to the machines, you can cram planes much closer together than when you allow someone to fly a plane.

 

If we're talking about saving fuel and cramming the most planes into an area over a period of time, that probably makes sense. UNTIL A PLANE HAS A CATASTROPHE! NOW YOU NEED A PILOT, WHO KNOWS HOW TO FLY AN AIRPLANE. TBTG when the plane lost power over the Hudson River because of bird strikes, there was one man aboard WHO ACTUALLY KNEW HOW TO FLY AN AIRPLANE!!! Captain Sullenberger preached that people should know how to fly an airplane without assistance before the "miracle on the Hudson" and still does. But then long term for corporate earnings reports a few hundred dead people from time to time can't cancel out the cost of fuel savings of using robots to fly.

 

Sadly we're now morphing into a similar scenario where people won't learn or don't even want to learn how to drive an automobile. Why bother? There are robots who can take care of everything! What can go wrong? Go Wrong? Go wrong?

The day the world doesn't need pilots is the day teleportation is invented. Hell even these military UAVs are still piloted by a human. May not be on the machine itself, but still is there for the human logic and decision making.

I agree with ya 100%. I may use the autopilot to light a smoke, or go grab a soda (or get rid of one :D ), but other than that, *I* fly the plane. C172 or F/A-18, prop, jet, chopper, I don't care. I fly it. I don't use the sim to get in a tube at one airport, push some buttons and "End Flight" at another. I want to FLY.

Live each day like you are flying an F-111 through New York.

Heck with that, I DO fly an F-111 through New York! Or whatever.

 

Really, all a human (Humon!) is needed for on the RPV's any more is authorize weapons release. They fly an entire profile from start to shutdown automatically. I hope to heck they programmed in the Three Laws of Robotics, but given what Predators DO, they didn't.

 

By the bye, I read the Navy's Approach magazine, various articles and adventures of real-world Naval Aviators, and they HATE RPV's. There have been SO many near-mid-airs and actual Mid-airs that they can't stand sharing airspace with them. Just an example of what can happen if you mix computer controlled and human controlled machines. As far as the comp is concerned, the human-controlled birds don't exist, and they have no way, yet, to scan for them.

 

Cars, maybe, even probably, will do better to be all computer operated. Aircraft? Not yet!

And SO many "pilots" these days can push buttons fine. Unusual attitude recovery? Forget it. Fire? What do ya do after the checklist?? Smoke in the cockpit? Panic time.

Sad, isn't it? I'd REALLY rather be in a plane with a Military Pilot on his second job than someone that hasn't touched a stick since he started learning!

Pat☺