The recent focus on the auto-pilot system in the Boeing 737 Max appears to have some people asking if we've put too much technology into the cockpit and left pilots more as helpless bystanders. IMO, it's a debate that also applies the vehicles that are supposed to stop themselves or make other maneuvers without any input or control from the driver. Also, you would have to believe this new technology makes vehicle repairs much more expensive.

I would say the safety record of the airline industry over the past 25 years or so would belie that notion.

automakers have been aware of the 12v system being under rated and outdated for the late model vehicles with all these electronics for years and have been looking into a 48v system. the consumer may start to see this 48v system soon

Plus in the auto industry, it has given them a reason to jack the prices up ten fold. There are lots of added features in a vehicle that I would be plenty happy to not have in exchange for a better price.

Hi and lo tech can break or fail. Then you have the human factor. People make mistakes with both.

FAA should have grounded that Boeing long time ago, but protecting the company instead.

Just buy the model without those features

My wife's CR-V has lane-sensing on it. First time I drove it I got to a spot where they had re-striped for construction and later sanded it off. Damn thing tried to follow the sanded spot and would have put me in a guardrail if I wasn't paying attention. Now that stuff is turned off any time I'm behind the wheel. For all the good these things might do, a few simple laws and remembering the first rule of driving would be much better.

Would like the ability to buy a Silverado with no carpet, and without anything on the dash other than a basic AC/Heat control and basic stereo. I think you have to get what is called a "Work Truck" if you want anything close to that. That is what is in my 2018 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited and it is all I need.

my touch screen in my less than 2 year old truck won't even work properly, nor does the navigation or the compass.



why would I trust a self driving car

FAA is to cozy with Boeing.

Planes are definetly safer today. Pilots may be getting to dependent on the technology as the only way to handle a crisis.

I believe this very much about cars. The electronics bs needs to be trimmed back.

I only by base trim model vehicles and they still have more options than I want them to have. I think the only two features that have become standard in recent history that I like are integrated brake controllers and back up cameras.

On my ram pickup truck (2015 model) the oil pressure is a lie. It is a number calculated by the computer based upon the oil temperature and rpm. What the heck is the purpose of that? Just put a damn oil pressure gauge on it! What other things are the same way that people just don't know about?

Agree, and driverless cars will result in less crashes as well, and over all drive better efficiency, less cost, and get you to your distinction fast and safer.

My understanding was that a sensor was either calibrated wrong or mechanically faulty. The pilots couldn’t override it because of one of those reasons. I haven’t read the latest updates on the crash, so that may not be correct.

Pilots should be able to manually override anything and manually control the plane for this exact reason. Boeing and the FAA screwed up, but I don’t generally fear technology. Some of it doesn’t interest me, some of it I find annoying and intrusive, and some is flat out unnecessary. There is a long way to go before cars are fully autonomous, and there are a lot of legal and moral wrinkles that need to be worked out, but the technology itself doesn’t scare me. Nor does traveling by plane. It’s still stistically the safest, quickest way to travel to travel long distances.

Information you hear in the media on the 737 max is pretty much garbage at this point. The official NTSB report will cover the facts.

It’s the safest way to travel any distance.
The question was a general one - the sad events relating to the flaw in the 737 Max 8/9 don’t change the overall number of lives technology has saved and will continue to save. The number of takeoffs/landings and miles flown annually is mind-boggling.

It looks like even this problem has a “fix” in the event the sensor goes haywire, but the pilots were not made aware of it. So tragic.

I’ve been working on aircraft for almost 35 years now, and the advances in that time have been amazing. It takes extensive training for pilots and Mechanics to stay on top of the latest technology. From what I have seen and read about these two latest accidents, the software installed on the aircraft has too much control, and the Pilot training doesn’t specifically cover how to handle the situation. Take off and landings are the most dangerous times of flight, there is a lot going on in the cockpit, and most airlines maintain a sterile cockpit during these transitions. Flipping through a QRH (quick reference handbook) can be stressful depending on the emergency, and even more stressful when at low altitude, full of fuel and the aircraft is trying to drive you into the ground. This seems to be on Boeing and on the training programs of the airlines involved.

I was in Miami last week. There were like 42 canceled flights with these planes. They had a standby list on my flight of 241 people offering a 1500$ voucher if you would give up your seat. I approached them, and they said it could take up to 3 days to get me on another flight to Dallas. I opted to keep my seat.

The cockpit voice recorder of the Lion Air crash reveals pilot struggled through instruction manual trying to figure out why plane is nose diving to the sea.

https://wap.business-standard.com/a...-s-plunging-into-sea-119032000954_1.html

That’s what I figured. Third world pilots untrained on the aircraft.

As comforting as it may be to blame it on “third world pilots”, no pilots were trained on the sensor malfunctioning and it wasn’t in the manual. All pilots were in the dark.

I think it will come to pass that the eveidence will show the Ethiopian crash to have been entirely avoidable.

According to a news report released today, an incident occurred on the plane that would later (next day) crash in Indonesia and a back-up pilot was able to use his knowledge to quickly disengage the auto pilot .

Link

How did our guys get the training/knowledge? Our Max planes are flying well.

This has the smell of one of those things where "operator error" is quickly put to blame before an exhaustive effort is made to uncover other reasons.

It’s typically pilot error. Boeing and the airlines have more money