We surrender a lot of lives to computers. They handle our finances and regulate our communications. Computers run factories and assembly lines without much human input, but how much autonomy do we want to give over to machines?
That's an argument that has spilled over into your seat at 30,000 feet.
Do you want the pilot or the plane calling the shots when you're over the Pacific? That's the base argument over the fly-by-wire systems used by Airbus and now being used by Boeing.
Fly-by-wire basically means there are no cables from the controls that attach to the wings or tail to move the plane. It's just a series of wires connecting computers. Boeing still uses a yoke, or steering wheel, in the cockpit. Airbus uses a joystick to the sides of the pilot's seat.
But that's not the only difference.
Airbus has decided to give more control to the computer than the pilot. "It [the computer] kind of looks at what the pilot wants to do and interprets that and says, 'I will assist you in doing that, but if you go too far I'm going to bring you back a bit,'" says flight instructor Scott Kanlyn. "I guess you could say it's almost like a check and balance on the pilot."
Kanlyn is an instructor at Rainier Flight Services at the Renton Airport. He also trained Northwest Airlines pilots on the Airbus A330.
"It won't let the pilot point the plane straight down or straight up," he said. "It won't let it roll it over, so you cannot roll an Airbus or do a loop in an Airbus. It [the computer] says, 'This is a transport airplane. You shouldn't be doing that, we're not going to let you do that.'"
Boeing's fly-by-wire system which is used in the 777 and the new 787 gives the pilot more control. The computer will tell the pilots they are reaching an unsafe condition so they can make the adjustments. The Airbus system makes the adjustments without the pilot even being involved.
As a fail-safe, Airbus pilots can turn off all their systems and fly manually, but that's certainly not recommended.
With all this technology, are pilots losing their feel for flying? In the industry, Kanlyn said it's called "automation complacency."
"You get all this cool stuff, and when it's working it's great," he said. "But what happens when it's not?"
Are pilots being trained well enough to handle manual flying and to fly their way out of trouble?
In the 2009 Air France Airbus crash in the Atlantic that killed 228, the investigation found the pilots didn't have enough training to fly manually. They didn't know how to pull the plane out of stall.
On the "Miracle on the Hudson," also in an Airbus fly-by-wire plane, pilot Sully Sullenberger used the computer safeguards to help him coast gently into the water.
So it seems regardless of how much control airplanes are given, it still all comes down to the pilot.
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