I feel I need to chime in here on something somebody said way back at the beginning...as a person who went to school to fix and fly airplanes/helicopters and with an absurd amount of family members that are either commercial or military pilots, the comment of people flying planes is...wrong...It has been for many years now. When you step onto a commercial jet and go for a flight, the (many) computers on board that same plane are VERY capable of TAKING OFF, FLYING TO THE DESTINATION, AND LANDING with absolutely NO ASSISTANCE FROM A HUMAN BEING....well..other then pushing the buttons to tell it to do so...You should hear me rage at the screen when people in a plane on any movie made in the last 30 some years call up ground control and scream 'oh my gooods, we all gonna die! what we do! what we do!'....ground controls response in the real world? Press button j-9, input code 4425, and LET THE frakk GO OF THE STICK. Just...let...go...Let the computer do its job. The reason why pilots are on board? Because there is always that one in a million chance that a 'wtfomgbbq' event may happen that the computer can not deal with, because it was not programmed for it. And for your statistics loving needs, I don't have them at hand and I'm too tired to a) go get my old textbooks, if they aren't at my ex's that is b) go googling...but you know the cause of most airplane crashes? HUMAN ERROR...not computer error...HUMAN...In fact, there have been more then what there should be incidents of where someone overrode what the computer was doing correct and caused the error in a desperate attempt to 'fix' what the computer was doing....
Even smaller aircraft have been leaning that direction as computers get their mighty on and get more compact....And the space shuttle? Guess what...its a giant hunk of computer...with people sitting in front of it...for the same reason pilots are on commercial flights...
Military aircraft? Guess what, same capabilities...people are just more random in combat is pretty much the only (minor) reason left why they haven't gone all hardware, that and the desire to have a person pull a trigger so, you know, the rogue ai's don't come get us (major (serious about that too
)). And ye gods, you have no idea how badly the armed forces would love to replace frail and slow people with fast and sturdy computers....damn their fears, the computers LOVE US I say...
Now, if you have the time, and are into it, I suggest reading a good book that would help explain all this in a fun filled action packed way...go find a copy of Michael Crichtons 'Airframe'....and then realize that the things that happen in the novel are based 100% in reality (well, with the plane at least (though unions can be pretty hard core))...from years back...
Computers, especially now days, are much better pilots then people are. And you shall say 'But we can train our brains to do many hard core things'...Well...sort of...some people have an in built ability to harness more then the 'standard' amount of brain power....we call them savants...and its not for naught that it was most of the time preceded by 'idiot' for many a long ages...because the brain being focused on...lets say math for this case....caused it to you know, NOT function properly or in most cases well...and usually NOT AT ALL...So one would have to balance the ability to do high order math quickly with the fact that you would be a near on vegetable....But, thanks to popular fiction we have the image of people, who, while odd, are still mostly functional...while in reality the people that can harness that kind of oompf are usually near veggie state...But what about the future we cry! What I say! We are dooomed...doomed I say!....as a race we are currently breeding for STUPIDITY. Why? Because smart people wait to have kids until they are financially set and are well prepared....and then its too late...or they have one....While people who think drooling on your shirt is high art start popping out kids from 19-20 onwards...So...ya...I'm going to bet in a thousand years from now, Idiocracy will be fact....which, I found that movie amusing because I saw it right after reading an article about the same damn thing they talk about in the movie with the smart vs. stupid breeding....
But back to my original point...me? I'm damn happy that there is a computer flying my plane when I step on a commercial flight
And that was a long post, I blame it on being up to late....er..early...whatever...
