Automagic No-Fly-Zone Enforcement 536
An anonymous reader writes "SoftWalls is the name of an aviation project at UC-Berkeley that's developing a system for commercial airliners that establishes and enforces no-fly zones. Basically, through GPS, if a plane begins to enter a no-fly zone (eg, around a mountain, or over Lower Manhattan), an alarm goes off in the cockpit. If ignored, the system actively removes control of the plane away from the pilot and co-pilot to steer the plane out of the no-fly zone. The technology is intended as both an accident prevention technique and a deterrent to terrorists planning to ram a building. ABCNews recently profiled the project (with video) and also rode along with a working prototype built by Honeywell that successfully kept a Beechcraft from hitting a mountain."
Why get in a plane to ram a building.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Situation... (Score:5, Interesting)
"...I can't"
"Sure you can, just turn!"
"NO... I physically CAN'T, the plane won't let me."
BAM.
Taking the control out of the pilots hands is a bad thing.
The real question is ... (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of lives would have been saved if a plane would have at least a small database of known mountains in the flight path. Why don't our planes avoid mountains automatically?
This sounds like a great idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Setting up some form of fine system would achieve the desired effect without endangering the lives of thousands or millions of people.
What happens to the planes when GPS is dis-abled (Score:3, Interesting)
Car implications (Score:3, Interesting)
Think about it: Doing a similar system in the air is a great place to learn about how to do this with cars...since asside from takeoff and landing, there's a much bigger tollerance for error in the wide blue skys.
--
Written in the name of sacred jihad [anti-slash.org]
shot down? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the FAQ [berkeley.edu] (warning, PDF).
I hate cutting and pasting from PDF files.
Anyway, the statement Today, that plane would be shot down. to me is a bit absolute... is this really true? IF a pilot had problems, called in said problems to the tower and acted according instructions or his own judgement, would he really get shot down? Additionally, I have a problem accepting that jets would scramble fast enough to be able to do so...
sounds neat but... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is unless I guess commercial airlines transmit on L1 & L2 frequencies. Provided of course the military sees fit to allow commercial airlines to use that frequency. Which makes me wonder about what juridstiction the United States would have if say a Japan Airlines plane was using that frequency when it pulled in our airspace... Oh well back to work
ATM project (Score:5, Interesting)
The big difference between the 2 projects is that ours only gives possible solution to the pilot and then he has to accept the route deviation rather than removing control from the pilot.
I mean realisticly these solution are bleeding edge and wont make it into service for 20 years. Personally I'd like to see more of a grouund based solution but that probably because my background is ATC systems.
Re:shot down? (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd be surprised, then, at how quickly on-the-ground alert aircraft can be scrambled. Perhaps more to the point, however, is that according to CNN and other public news sources many of the no-fly zones in the US now have random aircraft patrolling. A 767 might be capable of just-subsonic flight, but has no chance to get from the edge of a nfz to an interesting target against an F-15E that's already in the air. That doesn't even consider the speed of Sparrow, AMMRAM, Sidewinder, and other aircraft-mounted anti-aircraft missiles.
Remote Control Planes (Score:3, Interesting)
Best of all, remote control airplanes would allow terrorist groups to work in larger numbers. Right now, terrorist groups are pushed to their limits to take over 4 airplanes. In this new system, a terrorist group that hacks the remote control code procedures for the soft walls project might be able to take take down 20 to 30 planes before the airlines are able to ground the fleet.
The current airline security system pretty much exludes those terrorist groups that have people willing to kill for their beliefs, but not willing to die for them. This will be welcome news to any terrorist organization with good hackers.
As for my comfort flying, the fact that I know that someone can take control of the airplane from the pilot will make me just that much more likely to buy one of those airline insurance policies.
Re:You forget these are nutters (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me a heartless bastard, but I'll take the torture of one 6 year old girl over thousands of deaths and countless little girls tortured for life by the sudden violent slaughter of their parents any day. And that's not even counting the financial disaster, and the country- and world-wide consequences of a voluntary plane crash, such as the paranoia, warmonging and world-peace-threatening attitude of the government of the country that was hit.
Re:Lone Gunmen (Score:4, Interesting)
First sane thought I've seen in this thread.
Over many years we had trained ourselves to cooperate with airplane hijackers and wait to see what they wanted. The 9/11 terrorists knew this and used it against us.
They won't do it again, because they know that every person on the plane will try and rip their throats out.
They'll watch, see what we aren't paying attention to, and use that next time. Bad news for us - we cannot pay attention to everything.
A.
Re: It's about restricting, not permitting options (Score:4, Interesting)
You make a good point, but I think you (and others) might be polarizing the issue more than necessary.
I can imagine this being implemented as a restriction of options rather than prescriptive flight path. As you mention, pilots already deal with a myriad of decision factors, and this would act as another. If you need to put your 747 into an Immelmann or Split-S, just make sure you're not doing it into a mountain -- because the computer won't let you. The computer won't dictate what you have to do, just what you can't.
We see these restrictions all around us. Water drums near highway barriers. Curbs on sidewalks. Large rocks surrounding bridge supports. Pilots are just beginning to benefit from the fact that these influences can be virtual.
Shot down WHERE? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, something I'd like to check - I Am Not An American - isn't the White House kinda surrounded by Washington and lots of people (in a general kind of way). Where do you shoot it down that doesn't do more damage to the surrounding populace? Not all plane crashes end like Con Air.
Re:sounds neat but... (Score:2, Interesting)
The Soft Walls FAQ [berkeley.edu] says:
Re:shot down? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pilots *have* to be able to make arbitrary decisions in the interest of safety at the last minute without fear of being second guessed by anyone. (Of course the FAA might ask for an explanation on the ground.) One several instances I've broken off approaches that I considered unsafe, and if anything had interfered with my choice of heading or altitude, I could very easily be dead. Trying to think ahead of the aircraft doesn't work too well if the aircraft suddenly decides it doesn't like where you're going and refuses to obey.
Even flying with an ordinary autopilot can be kind of strange sometimes, and that does nothing but fly pre-determined headings and hold altitude. A nice tool, but very importantly one that is easy to disable in an instant.
I'm afraid that such a system would make pilots more hesitant to respond to emergencies during takeoff and landing, for fear of making the problem worse by getting in a battle with the computer. Until you've been in a tense situation involving aircraft control, you have no idea of what it's like and just how far you have to push yourself. Thankfully I haven't been in many, but I've seen enough that there's no chance in hell I'm getting on an airplane with this kind of system, as pilot or as passenger.
-John
(yes, IAAP)
Re: It's about restricting, not permitting options (Score:3, Interesting)
Fly by wire already does this. The aircraft is actually controlled by the computer. The pilot says 'turn left 10 deg'. The computer actually figures out how far to move the control surfaces, depending on alt, weight, speed, etc. It will not send the a/c into an Immelman.
Fighter aircraft are limited by the FCC in the same way. Limited to a specific turn or G rate depending on the load. An F-16 with 2 ea 2,000 lb bombs on the wing will not turn as hard as an F-16 with only missiles. No matter how hard the pilot wants it to.
Turning a 747 into a dive bomber (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The real question is ... (Score:3, Interesting)
He did not go against his TCAS out of his own volition. He obeyed orders given by a dimwit dumbfuck from the ground. Which the Swiss air control tried to hide and blame on the pilot. Just as they usually do. They are the second most famous after the French in Europe about it. Ever heard of a crash in Swiss air space when the pilot is not guilty? Even if he is given instructions to try to land from the hill side in a snow storm in near zero visibility like that CrossAir flight to Zurich three years ago?
The case with UPS and the russian 154 was the most recent in a whole lineup of other ones. Just in those cases the Swiss have been successfull in covering up because the crash occured on Swiss soil and they "investigated" it.
Thanks god the case which you are referring to crashed on German soil and it took their police only 24h to find out that the Swiss Air traffic control is bunch of lieing homicidal twats. As well as the fact that the reason for the crash was that someone gave the pilot orders to do so. Which by the way can be done with the no-fly-zone programming.