Once upon a time

Once upon a time I studied at Masters level at university, before a very dull AI session myself and a friend were talking about the events of 911.

She said that she used to work for airbus and some of the autopilot systems were ground updatable. She didn't give much detail on which systems :-)

I some times wonder the if the GPS and autopilot system can be updated from the ground. If you update the waypoints and the landing system radar landing, information to the new ILS setting for the new airport. And lock the autopilot on ON!

Sorted one plane on the tarmac or in the sea.

Is this possible or am I dreaming again?


[edit on 3-12-2004 by RAB]

On most modern aircraft, the autopilot can be updated from the ground, indeed quite a few routes can be flown 100% on autopilot, including the takeoff and landing, with flight level changes being made from the ground, pilots are largely there for safety Autopilots cannot be 'fixed' in the on position tho, current systems demand that it is easy for the pilots to override all changes made by the autopilot.

The system you are thinking about has been mused many times before, but its just too simple to break any security around such a system at the moment, not to say it would be impossible to create an secure system, but at the moment its too expensive to do.

sorry, double post..

[edit on 3-12-2004 by engineer]

Originally posted by RAB
I some times wonder the if the GPS and autopilot system can be updated from the ground. If you update the waypoints and the landing system radar landing, information to the new ILS setting for the new airport. And lock the autopilot on ON!

If you are talking about reprogramming the course remotely, I don't think so. If we have any commercial pilots here, they may correct me. Software updates obviously have to be done by the technicians physically on the AC.

I don't know about Airbus, but on Boeing aircraft, most of the newer planes can be flown semi-autonomously and autolanded. They are even capable of taxiing to the gate (within limits). But the flight crew still has to punch in the destination on the FMC, and physically engage and disengage the autopilot and autothrottle.

Speed and flight level changes are made by the flight crew en route. The autopilot then recalculates the flight parameters wrt eta, beginning of descent, etc. During an autolanding, the flight crew still has to lower the gear, engage the thrust reversers and brake the aircraft manually, though the autothrottle will pull back to flight idle at the B/D, and the autopilot will perform the touchdown.