> In practically every example so far in aviation, adding automation makes things harder, not easier.
While somewhat unsatisfying as an answer, I think the industry has done it wrong, exactly because the result was harder, not easier. the UI/UX of modern glass cockpits is incredibly unintuitive and difficult to use. It's extremely opaque as to what the system's actually doing, if much. And no one has truly tackled the core problem of stopping our less trained, less rigorous part 91 pilots from losing control of their airplanes.
We definitely recognize that this creates a new failure mode. However, we're address those failure modes with redundant systems and following the same engineering standards as commercial aircraft. Many of them fly pure fly-by-wire and rely on the probably of a total electrical failure to be extremely low. We are doing the same.
If everything really does fail, there's the full airframe parachute to bring the airplane to the ground as a final layer of safety
> the UI/UX of modern glass cockpits is incredibly unintuitive and difficult to use
Be careful here :)
The current UI/UX is the best that design had to offer ... at one point. That design is then solidified in concrete; It was once considered to be intuitive but the world's design of interfaces always moves on. Touch/swipe based UX drives many design decisions today but those practices can fall over in turbulent situations. That is to say, the "intuition" is not an innate factor of the interface itself. Rather, it's culturally informed.
Any UX design you create will likely seem unintuitive to either the previous or to the next generation. Either way, current pilots will likely just view it as something that needs training to adopt. I don't envy your task of making a new UI that is modern and timeless! It will be fun to see what you come up with though. :)
> In practically every example so far in aviation, adding automation makes things harder, not easier.
While somewhat unsatisfying as an answer, I think the industry has done it wrong, exactly because the result was harder, not easier. the UI/UX of modern glass cockpits is incredibly unintuitive and difficult to use. It's extremely opaque as to what the system's actually doing, if much. And no one has truly tackled the core problem of stopping our less trained, less rigorous part 91 pilots from losing control of their airplanes.
We definitely recognize that this creates a new failure mode. However, we're address those failure modes with redundant systems and following the same engineering standards as commercial aircraft. Many of them fly pure fly-by-wire and rely on the probably of a total electrical failure to be extremely low. We are doing the same.
If everything really does fail, there's the full airframe parachute to bring the airplane to the ground as a final layer of safety