The Engineer Who Stopped Airplanes From Flying Into Mountains 237
New submitter gmrobbins writes "The Seattle Times profiles avionics engineer Don Bateman, whose Honeywell lab in Redmond, Washington has for decades pioneered ground proximity warning systems. Bateman's innovations have nearly eliminated controlled flight into terrain by commercial aircraft, the most common cause of fatal airplane accidents."
Re:As opposed to? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:CFIT vs loss of control (Score:5, Informative)
Correction: cfit is no longer the leading cause. Terrain warning systems make then almost impossible, which is the point of this article.
Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth... (Score:5, Informative)
I was a sailor, not a pilot. And, I've seen many, many times when it was hard to tell the sky from the sea. To almost echo, jholyhead, "Ever heard of storms?"
Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth... (Score:5, Informative)
It's nice to see real Engineers getting a bit of recognition for a change.
On Slashdot.
Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth... (Score:5, Informative)
That 5% includes Africa and Asia, most of which isn't covered by aviation authorities with the same power as the EASA or FAA - places like Singapore etc are, but you need to start including all the smaller airlines that own Boeing 737-200s or 727s, which have been around for over 4 decades and are available very cheaply. They won't fly to Europe or the US, so they get to operate under very relaxed rules - check out the list of airlines banned from flying to EU airports sometime, it's quite enlightening.
Also, corruption is rife in many African countries, which even by itself is a big blocker to reform.
Re:Airplanes? (Score:2, Informative)
Just in the USA.
Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, unless you only want to fly in day time VFR (visual flight rules) conditions, in which case, getting around by airlines would be incredibly unreliable as it would depend totally on a nice sunny day the length of your route and at the start and destination. In other words, aviation as a means of transport would be more or less impractical.
In the real world we have to fly at night, in the clouds or both. Make a navigational error and you could end up piling into a mountainside instead of making a nice smooth approach into an airport.
In the clouds or at night with no visual reference, you can't even tell which way up you are without reference to instruments.
Re:Airplanes? (Score:3, Informative)
Aeroengineering? Aerospace?
Re:Airplanes? (Score:3, Informative)
Aerogel, aerodynamic, aeronautics, aerobic