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Didn't it happen in metro trains? Riders were not aware the train is fully automated but driver didn't do anything for months. Now with that high confidence it rides without drivers. That is what automation does, increase accuracy and efficiency.
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Up in the skies, we use the proverbial highways to fly between destinations. These are called airways and are numbered alpha numerically, eg. Q1 connects DEL BOM, Q21 and Q23 connects BLR DEL. With a combination of airways and waypoints, we are able to fly anywhere on the globe. On an airway, each aircraft is separated by the succeeding aircraft by a certain distance in NM, or a time difference or an altitude, ATC may use them individually or a combination of all three to maintain separation between aircraft's. Each airway has a designated width, usually 10 NM either side of the centreline. Anytime you need to deviate for more than 10NM, you need to ask ATC's permission.
As a country situated in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, we receive some pretty intense weather. Abundance of moisture and heat ensure weather systems are massive, both vertically and laterally. If we cannot clear the weather vertically, we have to fly around it. Some of these weather systems extend for more than 300 NM laterally and upto 45000' vertically, far above the vertical limit of most commercial passenger aircraft, your only option then is to circumnavigate this weather system.
Now you are not the only plane in that airspace encountering weather, there are possibly hundred's of planes that would need weather deviations in that same airspace, by deviating more, you are now crossing another airway or even entering another Air traffic region, which may have a converging traffic, the heading that you ask to fly may take you into a prohibited airspace, like Rastrapathi Bhavan, which you can never overfly under any circumstances. We have hundreds of such restrictive airspace's across the country. This causes a cascading effect on the adjacent airspace and the aircraft's in that airspace.
All of this is extremely taxing but still doable when we are flying over mainland India and during daytime, as our primary source of communication, which is VHF has exceptional coverage and we can look outside the flight deck window and visually fly around the weather. Now imagine, you are overflying the Bay of Bengal, at night, with severe weather and you are unable to establish VHF contact, you are trying to request a deviation on HF radio, but are unable to get through, you will have to resort to a procedure called an RVSM Contingency procedure to avoid weather, a part of which involves transmitting blindly on the international air-to-air frequency your intentions, warning aircraft's near you that you are deviating, praying that the aircraft around you is monitoring their frequency, as they may also be busy deviating.
Understanding the weather radar returns in itself takes a long time. In fact some of the best pilots I have seen are really good at understanding the weather radar returns, but they themselves would not claim to have mastered the art. Sure the manual gives you all the information, but there is so much more to it, like the time of day you fly in, the latitude at which you are flying, the terrain over which you are flying, the time of year.
The challenges are compounded when you overfly different nations with extremely accented ATC's, overflying significant terrain, as in the back of our mind, we need to keep a plan ready to fly a designated escape route in case of a decompression scenario.
Sometimes you may just not be able use the airspace, even if it is completely clear of weather, because of geo political tensions, something we experienced with our neighbouring nation in the aftermath of the Pathankot incident.
Any of the aforementioned scenarios may play out individually or in any number of combinations. In such times, it is the experience and ingenuity of the flight deck crew that sees them through the day. You may not get the desired altitude or the heading you want, for any number of reasons. You will have work with what you have, you will have to coordinate with the other aircraft's, the ATC, work the weather radar, find a path through the weather, coordinate again. You may do it once during normal ops. but during pre monsoon, you may have to do this for the entire duration of your flight as your departure airport, your route and your destination may be packed with weather.
This is just weather, there could be medical emergencies, or a passenger going into labour or suffering from extreme gastric pain which could be misdiagnosed for a something else, a mechanical failure. The decision to divert, whether now or later, whether to an airport really close by but with a short runway and marginal weather needs to be taken by the captain within the next 90 seconds or we may loose a life. I believe this ability to take cognisance of your training, your experience and work as a team under duress, this human ability is what AI or automation lacks and why human beings are still in charge inside the flight deck. Maybe some day in the future, we may succeed, but not today.
Automation is amazing, it does so much of the mundane tasks, that it leaves with a calm mind to analyse and take a call when something starts drifting from the normal. It gives me the space to keep a plan B, C and if needed a D, if things don't pan out.
And surely sir, it is a wee bit more challenging than ferrying passengers from Rajiv Chowk to Kashmere Gate. Peace
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