Posted on 04/18/2017 1:04:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Landing an aircraft on a moving vessel requires a particular kind of precision and know-how that very few human beings can execute with significant technological support. Believe it or not, one psychological test observed that the stress landing on a carrier causes pilots more stress than what troops experience in combat. No wonder cleanly landing on a carrier is a source of pride for pilots.
So F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler pilots are practice landing on the USS Washington (CVN 73) with a fascinating new landing system called Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies, or “MAGIC CARPET” for short. (They must have really wanted to use that acronym.)
The system takes on many of the stressful aspects of aircraft carrier landing, like having to gauge the course of landing with the moving ship and all of the things the pilot has to consider while doing it, such as adding and reducing power, adjusting the pitch, yaw and roll, as USNI News explains. Instead, the pilot simply controls the flight path.
And because the Navy’s Boeing F/A-18E/F’s all have digital flight controls, Magic Carpet makes that function for the pilot even easier.
Consequently, the system improves safety and efficiency for the pilots, taking much of the stress of landing off the pilot and putting it on the system. To be sure, as Breaking Defense puts it, the pilot is still in control. But, with Magic Carpet, he or she has a lot of help:
It’s rather like the old saying about swans. They seem smooth and graceful as they swim, but below the surface there’s a great deal of frantic paddling. With Magic Carpet, the computer is doing that paddling, constantly making tiny adjustments — faster and more precisely than any human could manage — to keep the aircraft on the pilot’s desired course.
In a further birdlike touch, a Super Hornet using Magic Carpet constantly flexes its control surfaces, making the wing look like it’s rippling. “If you ever watch a bird,” said Denham, “he’s modulating lift… to decel(erate) and control which limb he’s going to grab onto…warping and changing the whole wing.” Such “Direct Lift Control” has been tried before, starting decades ago, but without automation, it often proved too complicated for human pilots to keep track of.
When Magic Carpet is switched on, the pilot no longer directly controls the flaps, throttle, and so on. Instead, he or she chooses a path and the computer makes the fine adjustments to get and stay on it. Affecting one aspect of flight — angle, speed, alignment, and so on — still affects the others, but the pilot can focus on one at a time while the computer keeps the others under control. The pilot remains a crucial part of the system. And Navy Aviation News spoke with a Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) official who spoke wonders of Magic Carpet:
“All results showed benefits in touchdown dispersion reduction of more than 50 percent when compared to current landing control techniques,” said James “Buddy” Denham, a NAVAIR senior aeromechanics engineer. Touchdown dispersions refer to the differences between the actual and ideal landing points. The system is expected to be released in 2019. In fact, the Naval Aviation Enterprise leadership told NAVAIR to deliver the system as is earlier than that because it performed so well.
Of course, all of the features set to be on the final version of the system are not complete. But this will actually give pilots, who renamed the system Precision Landing Modes (PLM), more time to experiment with it and pass on suggestions to improve Magic Carpet before the final software is released.
Which works out for the service because they will likely lead to fewer dangerous landings—and less stressed out pilots.
There is such a fine line between landing and crashing either you land or crash is the only two options
The two options are:
Walk away
Don’t walk away
All of this automation will result in pilots who won’t know how to fly without all of this automation.
MAGIC CARPET is too hard to remember. I prefer to just say Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies.
A landing is just a very controlled crash that you walk away from. :)
Good Landing: Everybody walks away.
Great Landing: They get to re-use the aircraft.
Like self driving cars. How long before folks can not remember how to drive?
Lots of variations in landing or crashing though.
Perfect landing, so-so landing, rough landing, landing so hard you pop tires or lose the nose gear, landings where you clip something and damage the plane but no one gets hurt.
Conversely a controlled crash landing sliding on the belly, or with an unlocked landing gear down, to a runway overrun crash, to a crash on water safely thru total destruction, to a crash that breaks up the airplane that people survive, to a crash where its just a huge fireball and no one survives.
They will still have to practice landing without this.
I've heard it said that a carrier landing is the closest thing there is to a crash landing.
True, so true.
They’re making it so easy that even Zoomies can land on a Carrier!
The automation will eliminate the need to have a pilot on the aircraft.
“All results showed benefits in touchdown dispersion reduction of more than 50 percent...”
Crapping yer pants is down to only half of yer landings!
I was looking for a 10x improvement.
If landing on a carrier is equivalent to combat, then what on earth is landing on a pitching carrier deck...in a storm, and AT NIGHT equivalent to? Worse than combat I guess.
I’d still be afraid of the computer lockin’ up. They do that...just when yer life most depenz on ‘em.
“The automation will eliminate the need to have a pilot on the aircraft.”
Commercial aircraft built since the mid-1980s have been able to take off, fly, and land without pilots. The pilots are there for back up in extreme emergencies (think Capt. Sully) and to reassure the passengers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.