Put a retro or "my kingdom for a horse" switch on anything that seems unnecessarily over automated or when the additional sophistication is of a minor advantage.
If anything doesn't seem perfect, tap the retro switch and you are back to flying by the seat of your pants or at least something that is less complicated / more proven technology.
It may seem counter intuitive but this would actually _further_ automation and sophistication by taking some of the pressure off the designers trying to get every unanticipated situation right the first time.
It may also reduce some of the concerns about AI.
It's astounding this isn't SOP in every design engineering dept.
I once had a Sony 4:3 CRT TV with a double sided remote control. One side had over 50 buttons, the other side probably 10 - by sliding on a blanking cover, you hid whichever side you felt less comfortable with.
Other TV remote controls used to have a reset button, called the "granny button" by some.
Many home devices should be similar to that. Just the minimum to get things to run. Being over 60 my wife does not care for the electronic stuff . She just had me to get her one of the Jitterbug flip phones as she thoughe it would be very simple to make a few calls on if she needed to.
Actually the goal was to make 'em comfortable wif eben _more_ sophisticatio n.
Boeing did put one over ride in the software.
"When this system detects a dangerous flight condition, it trims the aircra ft, attempting to prevent a stall by pushing the nose down. Trim is not a f ancy, new fangled technology: the Cessnas I fly have trim wheels, and autop ilots manipulate trim to fly aircraft in an automated way. What is differen t here is: the MCAS commands the trim in this condition without notifying t he pilots AND to override the input, the pilots must deactivate the system via a switch on a console, NOT by retrimming the aircraft via the yoke, whi ch is a more common way to manage the airplane?s trim."
Part of the holdup in the past was they had to design for the dumbest 30% o f the population. GM never sold the EV-1 because they knew it would wind u p in the hands of an idiot who would get stuck on the side of the road with a discharged battery. "The customer is always right. . ."
This is no longer the case as online companies like Tesla can target the fu nctionals and ignore the rest.
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An old _New Yorker_ cartoon entitled "The Bare Minimum"
I think Boeing's engineers have forgotten the single most important rule of a good user interface: The rule of least surprises. When the pilot takes the controls in hand, it's the pilot who flies the plane. The automatics should back off. No extra buttons should be needed.
Someone here once posted the Harrier jump jet had no interface. The pilot was the control system. Using high speed propulsion to low speed VTOL is s o trickity yuman pilots might get better stats with an interface. The tax payer shouldn't be sponsoring extreme motor sports with jet engines.
But there is no question that simple automation, i.e., the gas cutting off if the flame on the stove burner gets blown out, has saved tens of thousand s of consumers' lives with very little inconvenience -- very good numbers i n the cost benefit analysis.
Before "the customer including every idiot is always right" meant dumbing e verything down for the bottom 30%, why GM would never let consumers buy the EV-1. They knew the ijiots would get stuck on the side of the road with a discharged battery
As Musk has proven, this is no longer the case. Products can be tailored t o different people.
So, a least at the consumer level where any mysterious button can now be ut ubed for the 70% of the public more or less functional enough to keep their cars out of the canyon, higher sophistication and automation should be ver y aggressively pursued until the cost benefit ratio starts to approach 1.
This can be facilitated with over rides, legacy or hot wire buttons, etc.
It wouldn't just save consumers time and money. It would force an evaluati on of the long term reliability of each component in the machine which woul d force improvements to the reliability.
If they want to increase fuel efficiency with big fans they need to _really _ start from scratch:
Instead of pussy footing around with incremental increases in bypass ratio GE, RR, Boeing, Airbus and any rooftop not big enough for a real airport ne ed to get together to rethink the entire aviation system.
Put the fuselage inside of 2 counter rotating fans and the core engines in tandem inside of the fuselage, geared together in case one engine fails lik e the Osprey. The engine room would split the cabin area in two displacing a few dozen seats so the wide body version would have a for cabin and an a ft cabin, bathrooms and crews etc.
A yuge increase in bypass ratio / fuel savings.
Reduced the drag from the engines as ducting is no longer necessary.
High low speed thrust for safe VTOL.
Increased Safety. If a fan blade snaps off it can't impale any passeng ers or critical structures.
Possible noise reduction opportunities
Then they have two options:
Conventional landing gear and runways.
Dedicated space saving launch pads that load passengers while the craft is horizontal then, after everyone is strapped in, rotates for VTOL from b uilding roofs.
If they want to increase fuel efficiency with big fans they need to _really _ start from scratch:
Instead of pussy footing around with incremental increases in bypass ratio GE, RR, Boeing, Airbus and any rooftop not big enough for a real airport ne ed to get together to rethink the entire aviation system.
Put the fuselage inside of 2 counter rotating fans and the core engines in tandem inside of the fuselage, geared together in case one engine fails lik e the Osprey. The engine room would split the cabin area in two displacing a few dozen seats so the wide body version would have a for cabin and an a ft cabin, bathrooms and crews etc.
A yuge increase in bypass ratio / fuel savings.
Reduced the drag from the engines as ducting is no longer necessary.
High low speed thrust for safe VTOL.
Increased Safety. If a fan blade snaps off it can't impale any passeng ers or critical structures.
Possible noise reduction opportunities
Then they have two options:
Conventional landing gear and runways.
Dedicated space saving launch pads that load passengers while the craft is horizontal then, after everyone is strapped in, rotates for VTOL from b uilding roofs.
in tandem inside of the fuselage, geared together in case one engine fails like the Osprey. The engine room would split the cabin area in two displa cing a few dozen seats so the wide body version would have a for cabin and an aft cabin, bathrooms and crews etc.
Fixed wings don't provide the lift for a helicopter in any stage of flight.
Like the Osprey the fixed wings provide lift in horizontal flight, but obvi ously not in VTOL mode.
Unlike the Osprey the fans/props do not change orientation relative to the fuselage after takeoff. Instead the entire fuselage rotates to the horizon tal for horizontal flight.
The passengers and pilot are t*ts up on take off and landing.
Another advantage:
The wings are not designed around the inelegant discontinuity of the engine weight.
sengers or critical structures.
Much much less of an issue with larger ductless fans.
Imbalance forces increase with the square of rpm times dia. A 3X large r dia. fan has one third the imbalance for the same tip speed and same mass loss. (1/3)^2 X 3 = 1/3.
The tip speed will be less. The whole point of high by pass is high ma ss flow rate but at lower speed for higher propulsion efficiency at take of f. Take off is where they are wasting all the fuel.
3X more blades can be packed on a larger annular fan. If one comes off it creates 1/3rd the imbalance as a similar fan with 1/3rd the number of b lades.
Without ducting, no impacts on other blades. the lost blade easily cle ars the swept wing which isn't going as fast forward as the blade is travel ing away from the plane.
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compressor, turbine or fan blade at its maximum permissible rotating speed must be contained by the casings while the engine should operate continuous ly for at least 15 s.
s in tandem inside of the fuselage, geared together in case one engine fail s like the Osprey. The engine room would split the cabin area in two displ acing a few dozen seats so the wide body version would have a for cabin and an aft cabin, bathrooms and crews etc.
No engines on the wings but that's where the similarity ends.
The LeDuc engine is inside of the fuselage, same as many older jet fighters which could never take off w/o a runway VTOL because of low / zero bypass ratio.
For radical increases in bypass ratio you need to do it the other way aroun d:
Put the fuselage inside of the engine, or at least inside the fan.
The front and rear of the plane don't necessarily need to look much differe nt than conventional airliners.
ecessarily over automated or when the additional sophistication is of a min or advantage.
o flying by the seat of your pants or at least something that is less compl icated / more proven technology.
n and sophistication by taking some of the pressure off the designers tryin g to get every unanticipated situation right the first time.
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tory.html
Recently the Chinese proved it's harder to reverse engineer than to start f rom scratch. Putin was gleeful they botched their copy of a Russian fighte r.
The Tampa Electric power plant at Sutton Point under went so many modificat ions, had so much stuff packed in ad hoc after all the original designers w ere dead or retired I warned a Hillsborough County engineer someone needs t o do something about it.
A few weeks later the hydrogen enclosure they were using to replace the bea rings ignited killing 3 people. I slept through it but they said they coul d hear the explosion in Plant City. Cargill workers at the Ybor dock who k now the company thought it was the Cargill fertilizer plant in Riverside.
Same for airships. A tiny fan or prop engine hanging off the bottom of a b limp wastes over 90% of the energy in turbulence. If a blimp is 30 m in di a. then the blades need to be as big as the wings on some aircraft, but not nearly as strong or heavy. A blimp fan moves slow enough so the blades ca n run run on a track or belt mounted on the outside of the blimp. A massiv e reducer and massive drive shaft isn't necessary or desirable.
Another engine inside of the fuselage.
Another engine inside of the fuselage.
The fuselage needs to be inside of the big fan for high bypass.
That has fans behind the cockpit but where's the cabin area after the engine room?
For high passenger miles / unit fuel -- the number 1 number in the industry -- you need a lot passenger seats. You also need to reduce fuel consumption with high bypass [yuge run way dragging fans].
For and aft of this shouldn't look too different than a conventional airliner except midship where the fuselage is collared by a pair or 2 of 72 - 96 blade annular ductless fans with blades 2 m - 3.5 m long.
Instead of engines on the wings there's housing for 2.5 m - 4 m tall landing gear so the yuge fan clears the runway if anyone feels more comfortable taking off and landing horizontal.
Up close you should be able to see alignment surfaces and attachment points for the hydraulics of a dedicated launcher for roof top boardings and take offs.
They can do precision vertical and near vertical landings now. They just don't know it.
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