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12-10-2004, 03:24 PM

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SwampFlier-RCU

Join Date: Jan 2002

Location: San José, Costa Rica

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RE: READ ALL ABOUT IT!! Futaba's Newest Toy

Well BRSSEB, flight might be 100 yrs old but nowadays the pilots are in the cockpit just mostly to check the black boxes and to lend the passengers a sense of "control" I have been in the cockpit of an ATR 42 which compared to a 757, 777 or airbus is as neanderthal as my car is to an F-1 and my experience is the following...
Ok I give you the pilots land the plane and take off --- but after that you engage the flight control system, the GPS tells you when to turn, the radar scans for bad weather in case you want to aviod a storm and if either of the previous things happen, then you reach for a knob and casually while maintaining a conversation you move the knob and voila!!! we turn left ot right with the appropritate banking and maintaining airspeed and attitude... (IOW .. no pedals, handles, yoke or trims are touched)
IMHO we are a hair's apart from simply programming all these actions and then a monkey could be in the cockpit for all we care (a well disciplined monkey mind you ) technology will continue creating wonderful (and a lot of unnecessary) devices but it will also continue creating havoc in our daily lives as well as the work places.... plus the diminishing natural resources.. I guess a lot of intelligent, well trained and unemployed people will have to find a way to keep this ship (the earth) somehow able to support our life

Call me a cautious optimistic...

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