Hannes, it does seem that it is possible if not entirely probable that development processes in the design of digital control systems that there may be room for ...err...error..? To identify those processes as logic, seems to defy my kind of logic at times. I have read of a similar situation for folk approaching motorway toll barriers, much to the concern of others following close behind... hmm..!
As for the wonders of modern technology I guess we/you have to be grateful that none of us were on the aircraft flight from South America to France that was flown into the ocean by it`s pilots, killing all on board as the result of a combination of interface issues between the human and computing systems, whereby icing on a sensor created too many alarms for the pilots to make sense of to the extent they eventually ignored all alarms.... The situation initiated by some ice build up on a sensor. Seems the humans reached mental overload to the extent they may not have realised that the trainee co pilot was in the captains chair, thus over riding the flight inputs of the more experienced co-pilot who was in the co-pilots chair and who thought he had taken over control..... When the senior pilot appeared on the scene it was all to late for a recovery process... sigh!
Can things get worse... hmm.. Design and build an aircraft which is inherrantly unstable in flight and beyond human capability to control through manual processes, were they available thus it`s ability to fly is entirely computer controlled...where the human is there, but not entirely necessary, perhaps just that humans currently prefer to think pilots should be human..? I think it was fighter aircraft design was such as I have suggested... however it seems passenger aircraft are not too far behind, though with development issues causing other brand new aircraft to fall out of the sky as the result of the pilots being deprived of control in what might seem a rather fundamental flight control situation.....!!!
All of which reminds me of the cartoon whereby a chap in overalls is standing at a stores counter, pointing to something he wants that is sitting on a shelf just out of his reach, while the store-man`s gaze is fixed computer screen and saying "we have no stock".... the cartoon entitled "The computer says NO"
And you might wonder why I drive a Morgan minus an ECU and chose the TM i.d. of Luddite...
