Heard a pilot say 'the box is smarter than me now' on a layover in Atlanta

I was grabbing coffee at the airport in Atlanta last week and a pilot from a major airline was talking to his first officer. He said, 'Honestly, the box is smarter than me now on a standard approach. My job is just to watch it work and catch it if it hiccups.' It really stuck with me. We spend so much time fixing these systems, but hearing the end user talk about them like that was different. It made me think about how our work has shifted from just keeping needles moving to making sure a whole, complex, automated brain works right every single time. The trust factor is huge. Has anyone else had a moment that really drove home how much the job has changed from pure hardware to integrated systems?

2 comments

2 Comments

fisher.mason2mo ago

But isn't that what autopilot has always been for?

lewis.drew2mo ago

You know, fisher.mason, that reminds me of the time I tried using cruise control on a winding back road. The car kept speeding up on the straight parts, then I'd have to slam the brakes for a curve. Felt more like a fight than a help. Modern systems seem to handle those changes better, but they still make me nervous when the road isn't perfectly straight and empty. I guess the goal has always been to help, but the old versions often felt like they only worked in a perfect world.