If the pilot doesn't know what the heck they're doing, then they can end up programming the autopilot to fly the plane upside down or to spell out "I'm a Bad Pilot" in the sky. That route translates to a flight plan, and that flight plan gets punched into the computer and logged into the database. To get from New York to LA, a pilot needs a route. And step one is also where things could start going wrong. He once described autopilot as, "Dumb in the sense that it will readily accept illogical input dutiful in the sense that the computer will attempt to fly whatever is put in." It's crucial, and I cannot emphasize this enough, that you know how to fly a plane before you use an autopilot. Narrator: Dumb and dutiful are the "two Ds of automation," according to Earl Wiener, a former US Air Force pilot and an aviation scholar. Greg Zahornacky: Autopilots are dumb and dutiful, meaning this: that if you program them incorrectly, they will kill you. The success of the autopilot depends on the knowledge of the actual human pilot. All of these pieces come together to make sure your plane stays in the air, where it belongs. Servos are the little instruments that actually move the parts. Then the computer tells the servomechanism units what to do. That one there is in charge of this movement. And three-axis juggles those two plus the rudder. Two-axis handles everything the single-axis does, along with the elevators, located here. Single-axis autopilot is also called the "wing leveler" because it controls the roll of the plane and keeps the wings perpendicular to the ground. Single-axis controls the ailerons, which are these guys. There are single-, two-, and three-axis autopilots, based on the number of parts they control. The sensors collect data from the entire plane and send them to the processors, which in turn tell the computer what's what.ĪFCSs come in three different levels of complexity. A modern automatic flight-control system is made of three main parts: a flight-monitoring computer, several high-speed processors, and a series of sensors placed on different parts of the plane. For an airplane, it's lateral and vertical movement. Generally, it uses a sensor to receive some sort of data or input, and the system uses that data to keep functioning in a preset way.įor the polar bear, that preset is body temperature. That cycle is called a negative feedback loop, and it's the same way an autopilot functions.Ī negative feedback loop is a self-regulating system that reacts to feedback in a way that maintains equilibrium. The polar bear's body temperature returns to a comfortable 98.6, and it's free to hunt seals another day. When that happens, its body reacts by releasing excess heat through its hairless parts, like its nose, ears, and feet. It is so well insulated against the frigid Arctic cold that it often overheats. A polar bear's core temperature sits at about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But how does it actually work? Kind of like a polar bear. It's just a flight-control system that allows a pilot to fly an airplane without continuous hands-on control.īasically, it lets a pilot fly from New York to Los Angeles without white-knuckling the controls for six straight hours. There's no robot that sits in the pilot seat and mashes buttons while the real pilot takes a nap. Narrator: Autopilot isn't as "auto" as you might think.
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