Determining airspeed without pitot tubes

[Richard McDonald Woods]

With the current suspected problems with the AF Airbus aircraft pitot tubes, I was wondering if GPS could be used instead.

I understand that pitot tubes are used to determine airspeed in aircraft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot), but could determining ground speed with GPS help in determining airspeed, or is the wind vector something that still has to be determined?

Cheers, Richard

[Hardy Heinlin]

Hi Richard,

ground speed is only relevant for navigation. It's of no help if you need to know your stall speed and high speed buffet. In order to to keep the aircraft in the air and to avoid structural damage and unusual attitudes, you need to know information about air density, air pressure and airspeed. All this information is practically integrated in the IAS or Mach.

You could also take groundspeed and wind, then compute TAS, then check baro pressure and OAT (or TAT), then compute IAS. This is a lot of data which GPS and the next WXR station doesn't know exactly.

Cheers,

|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Probably a better approach in case of suspect IAS reporting is to ignore "outside" data and try to reach a flight situation that is "known good". Using power and pitch settings that are known to produce reasonable airspeeds at an altitude that leaves enough room for error. The trick is to get there... usually the problems with airspeed occur in regimes where you are near stall speed or high speed buffet or both. And if you're on automatics, chances are that the stable flight has already been upset by the time you notice the discrepancies.

[Cloudyifr]

I believe the Military fighters use AoA for their approaches.  Of course that probe could freeze over as well.

Great question though.

Curtis
Montana

[Zinger]

a. Wind: The onboard navigation system figures out the wind by calculating the third side of a triangle, whose two known sides are the 1) The aircraft speed vector relative to the air mass, 2) Actual ground speed and track flown.
b. Airspeed system errors:
1) In the first place, an aircraft should stay out of CBs, which near the equator are tall (up to FL450 typical) and fierce. Out of ATC radar coverage, with a known forecast and actual pilot radio reports, the onboard weather radar should assist the pilots in flying around thunderstorms.
2) When the aircraft unintentionally enters such undesired area, pitot and static sytems don't all freeze at once, at the same time and in the same manner, namely an alert crew should be able to see that something is developing, and look for a solution. Engine parameters should also reflect this.
3) The situation should be pretty obvious given the forecast, pilot reports, weather radar and bumpy ride. The pilot should have also reduced airspeed to the recommended turbulence value, around M 0.78- 0.8 for that flight is my estimate.
4) A straightforward pilot approach upon airspeed indication error is to fault isolate a failed component and reroute the autothrust input to come from a reliable source. Should that be difficult, time consuming or impractical, the first thing to do is to disconnect autothrust (which is receiving erroneous data and could result in stall or otherwise control loss) and set, as Jeroen wisely stated, a known thrust value yielding IAS midpoint (to stay within the narrow allowable airspeed band at high altitude cruise). That should take 5 seconds, then let the autoflight system hold track and altitude while figuring a way out of the storm.

I am returning to my now boring tune of accidents, pilot errors and my analysis of their reasons:
a. Insufficient personality screening, selection, initial and recurrent flight training of pilots.  Many can't recognize wake turbulence, abort takeoff when mandatedf, and deal with complications of advanced systems design. especially those who got to the airline following a Cessna 172 PPL / IR  then twin prop CPL.
b. Today's cockpit utomation substantially reduces pilot task workload in normal circumstances, most pilotsd quicly learn to trust and depend on it, and lack swift decision making and appropriate immediate actions when even simple problems are clearly annunciated (e.g. Schipol Turkish B737 NG).
Too much information displayed concurrently, difficult to evaluate irregular developments.


AOA is an extremely useful parameter to a knowledgeable crew. When I flew the A-4 Skyhawk, it depicted best climb, best endurance, best cruise, safe approach airspeed, best steady turn performance etc... AOA affects the separation trajectory of weapons, thereby the accuracy of unguided weapons.
While flying the original F-4E Phantom II, aileron control input is prohibited above 15 units AOA, the pilot now uses rudder for lateral control, e.g. most of the tight air combat, and on final and landing. For carrier landings, the airspeed must be at safe minimum or you tear the arresting cable. etc...

[Lasse]

It might be different on an Airbus i dont know. But to my knowlegde the ADIRU needs airspeed input to calculate TAS and thereby the wind...
I have never flown Airbus, but not all Seattle build models have GPS GS input only position....GS is calculated by FMC/ADIRU unless GPS option is purchased...
AOA displayed on PFD is a buy option on many Seattle build models, Im not sure if its standart on Airbus. I might not be knowledgeable pilot seen with a fighter pilots eyes, but I have never missed a presentation of the AOA in my flying career so far... - Its not part of the Boeing release test flight program to do high performance turns, and Im sure my PAX are glad we are not doing it with them on board either...
True you should stay out of CB's keep in mind they might not have seen them due night time and difficult to pick up on radar due ice before maybe being too late?
What about preflight... Well since I was not there i dont know.
Im very much against pointing fingers before the investigation has flipped all aspects of an accident. However Im sure they where well aware of the NNC Airspeed Unrelieable, but if in severe turbulence checklist reading might not be possible...
Claiming that low timers are more dangerous than non low timers... is a big statement to claim...I have not seen any statistic confirming that... Further indications from accidents is that lots of hours, years of airline expirience or military back ground is not equal to being a fantastic flyer either... Each groupe has different goods and bads...
Training yes... Lots of it, but the passengers dont wanna pay...

Have a nice weekend
/L

[Peter Sagar]

especially those who got to the airline following a Cessna 172 PPL / IR  then twin prop CPL.
 

I think to out of hand challenge the capabilities of pilots entering the airline system with only twin prop CPL experience is unwarranted and unfounded.

The vast majority of airline crews in Australia come direct from a twin prop charter background, and yet the Australian airline safety record is the envy of the rest of the world.

Those few airline crew members that originate from a military background in Australia, have anecdotally not been any more successful or easier to train into a complex airline aircraft type. Many of the General Aviation pilots entering the airlines here, have vastly greater hours of commercial operational experience, including systems, and perhaps engine, failures, giving those pilots greater experiential competency than their military counterparts.

Peter.

[Phil Bunch]

There are some recent news articles about the loss of air speed data in A330 airliners.  Below is a link to a NY Times article on the situation and the upgrade program.  Apparently, Northwest (recently merged with Delta) has had a number of loss of air speed data incidents.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/world/europe/01crash.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[Tor]

Good post Lasse. Very good points.

Opher, that are some quite bold statements in your analysis in my humble opinion. As Lasse wrote I doubt you will find statistics to back up your statements.

As for automation I am of the opinion that it prevent more accidents that it causes. Especially for the airbus, where piloting skills may tend to suffer more.

My guess is that if you take the average pilot. His or her hands-on piloting skills may deteriorate over the years flying an Airbus compared to his or her Boeing equal. However, my guess is that the higher level of automation more than makes up for this.

In the Boeing on the other hand, there is just so more manual work that will keep you sharper - but in the end this sharpness is also required. Hence the result will be equal.

A few weeks ago I had the autopilot flying 1 nm off track after intercepting the localiser on a LOC DME approach. Flight director showing no deviations either. Solution: disengage the AP and switch the FD off and flying the approach raw data.  The localiser had occasional fallouts during the approach which may have been the cause of the AP behaviour. After we landed Technic changed the radio to a new one but couldn't make it work, so the put in the old unit again and it worked no probs on the next flight. What gives... I guess that is Boeing for you.

As for the Turkish accident (Captain former fighter pilot and F/O had a few thousand hours if I remember correctly by the way - with regard to your first statement), in my opinion I think care should be taken in blaming the crew as long voice recordings has not been released.

While I fully agree that basic crosscheck is a natural when the AP is engaged, I still have symphathy for the situation the crew was in. Often on e.g. pprune elder pilots will talk about the lack of manual flying skills and relying on automation with the "children of the magenta line" and how they could hand fly a CATII approach to 50 (so can I but I'm not going to do it i Paris Orly of Frankfurt). What they often fail to take into consideration is in my oppion the changed environment that we work today. With many more distactions from very busy airspaces and also less time to become established with ATC demanding 180 kts to the outer marker and with standard operating procedures that call for constant descending approaches it is not uncommon that the throttles remain at idle untill the gear and landing flaps comes out at 12 - 1500 feet. At the same time reading the checklist to have it completed before 1000 feeet and other distractions by outer enviriontment. On top of that they had a hot and high approach with a further expectation of the throttles being at idle and everything been done very late. A combination with a focus out the windows to become visual and etc...

Missing that the radio altimeter went to 0 is not a big error in my book, and who knows if he indeed noticed but didn't anticipate then subsequent behaviour of the autothrottles. The FMA announcement a slightly larger mistake but stiill no biggie considering the rushed situation. The critical mistake was not realising the engines didn't spool up 10-15 knots before reaching Vref, probably while doing the landing checklist. Further, when using flaps 40 as they did that drag is substantially higher that flaps 30, so we may be talking less than 10 seconds of distaction needed here. I know from personal experience how much thrust is required to regain a few knot below vref when flaps 40, so I can only imagine how fast the speed will deteriorate if the engines are at idle when reaching vref. So getting into this situation could have happened very quickly (and not like some blame that it they didn't crosscheck for 90 seconds). 10 seconds it not alot if you are doing the landing checklist, ATC calls and you try to become visual at the same time.

When they finally was in the situation normal training always focus on recovery from approach to stall with an aircraft trimmed for vref. As one may notice if reading the 737 Fligh Crew Training Manual, the recovery is very different from an approach to stall and a fully developed stall with trim fully back. There may not be enough elevator authority to keep the nose down with full thrust from the underwing engines leading to the counter intuitive neccesity of reducing the thrust.

This accident has been one that I personally have given a lot of though as my initial reaction was the same as many others, "they were fools that didn't make their crosschecks". However, my view has changed to this can happen to me if I am not carefull not to let the environment and other outside factors rush me... I think this conclusion will make me a safer pilot than casting this unfortunate accident a side as negligent crew.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Just a short off-topic remark: Tor, are you, by chance, The Tor who wrote that PS1 installation guide on the old aerowinx site? If so, congratulations on your airline career! – And ... if not, I congratulate as well :-)

Cheers,

|-|ardy

[Qavion]

A few weeks ago I had the autopilot flying 1 nm off track after intercepting the localiser on a LOC DME approach. Flight director showing no deviations either. Solution: disengage the AP and switch the FD off and flying the approach raw data.  After we landed Technic changed the radio to a new one but couldn't make it work, so the put in the old unit again and it worked no probs on the next flight. What gives... I guess that is Boeing for you.

Interesting..
Tor, just curious, what mode were you in when you noticed you were 1nm "off track"? Did this Boeing have Loc updating? (into the FMC) or GPS updating?
By "off track" do you mean both Captain/F/O's Loc signals were disagreeing with your FMC track?
Were both Nav rxr's (raw data) agreeing?
Does this Boeing have two FMC's? (and are the Capt & F/O's map displays independent?)

I agree with the action you took, but I'm not sure how Technic arrived at that conclusion.

Thanks.
Cheers.
Q> (backseat driver)

[Zinger]

Peter,
I haven't asked anyone to agree, whoever does is likely to expand his  professional perception and benefit. My statements are well founded in theory and practice, and not based on a few years in limited flight environment.  As CAA investigator I saw accident results too many times. None of the pilots I trained ever crashed under my command, in 100,000s of hours and harsh conditions. Simple to understand why others might hold differing views. When in a pilot background is a world with  360 degrees, 3 perpendicular plains, flying to the limits of the established flight envelope, and relative to other aircraft in tactical formation. When you work with pilots screened for space orientation and the ability to cope with unexpected changes, you might understand why an A310 captain cannot identify wake turbulence and destroys his aircraft in one minute of flight, why the two MD-11Fs crash- landed, the twin turbo-prop departed controlled flight into terrain in the US midwest a few months ago, and why the Hudson river landing was so well performed.
Not all military organizations have the same standards. El Al is Air Force pilot based, with excellent excellent results. Among other things, that AF developed an unparalleld pilot screening program, resulting in superior cost saving and effectivity. A friend of mine was killed on a B747-200F after takeoff from Schipol, listen to the Internet cockpit voice tapes and see how a Mirage III senior pilot handles a lost situation- heavy, low and slow, two engines just separated from one wing and damaged control surfaces.

especially those who got to the airline following a Cessna 172 PPL / IR  then twin prop CPL.
 

I think to out of hand challenge the capabilities of pilots entering the airline system with only twin prop CPL experience is unwarranted and unfounded.

The vast majority of airline crews in Australia come direct from a twin prop charter background, and yet the Australian airline safety record is the envy of the rest of the world.

Those few airline crew members that originate from a military background in Australia, have anecdotally not been any more successful or easier to train into a complex airline aircraft type. Many of the General Aviation pilots entering the airlines here, have vastly greater hours of commercial operational experience, including systems, and perhaps engine, failures, giving those pilots greater experiential competency than their military counterparts.

Peter.

[Tor]

Hardy, thank you very much, yes that is me. And thank you for PS13 which made the FMC and autoflight system of the 737 second nature for me to use, when I started flying it last year.

Q, the more detailed explanation is that the previous crew told us that the ILS F/O side had fallouts on the previous flight (under Minimum Eqipment List dispatch is allows with 1 ILS inop, so everything was by the book flying with this potential fault). When flying the LOC DME approach I intercepted on heading select. VOR/LOC captured by shooting through the localiser. It normally happens is the speed is a bit high for the intercept, so I waited for 5-10 seconds to see if it would turn back to the localiser, but instead it started flying parallel. The FD showed no deviation, and the localiser was off by maybe half scale deflection or something like that. On the ND it showed tracking to the right of the magenta line. All indications was the same on both sides.

It has GPS updating, two independant FMCs the feed each ND. There was no doubt from either the FMC/GPS position show on the ND or the raw data what was going on. Just the FD/AP was flying it wrong. I don't know what technic did later on, as the radio change was just a short attemt to fix the problem during a 45 min turnaround.

For less technical reading, I have to stress that this was really no big issue, just an example of what I guess you see happening in a Boing from time to time which I guess doesn't happen in an Airbus.

[Peter Sagar]

El Al is Air Force pilot based, with excellent excellent results.
 

Qantas is in the main, a civilian, General Aviation pilot-based airline, and yet it has a documented lower accident rate than El Al.

To quote only one case of a civilian A310 pilot apparently not recognising wake turbulence is definitely over simplifying a complex issue. Neither military nor civilian pilots are immune from incidents and accidents. I am unaware of any quantified investigation to link military vs civilian training background specific to the causality of airline accidents. My point is that I disagree with your out-of-hand comment regarding civilian trained pilots. This is a very old issue of military vs civilian trained pilots, and I would suggest is a global debate. And the argument/discussion will probably continue until there are no more pilots.

I have personally flown as crew member with Military trained pilots and have myself received recurrent training from highly experienced former RAAF QFIs. Anecdotally, I cannot draw an objective and quantifiable distinction of any apparent "superiority" between military and civilian trained pilots as qualified crew members of commercial civilian aircraft operations.

I respectfully end any further participation in such a debate on this particular forum.

Peter.

[Qavion]

It normally happens is the speed is a bit high for the intercept, so I waited for 5-10 seconds to see if it would turn back to the localiser, but instead it started flying parallel. The FD showed no deviation, and the localiser was off by maybe half scale deflection or something like that. On the ND it showed tracking to the right of the magenta line.

Strange. On first look, it seems more like an FCC problem (even though the ILS was reported faulty on the previous sector). However, each ILS receiver (MMR?) has two output databusses. One is for FMC, displays, etc and one is for the A/P's. I suppose that would be a good reason for changing the radio receiver.

Qantas is in the main, a civilian, General Aviation pilot-based airline, and yet it has a documented lower accident rate than El Al.

However, many QF pilots are ex-RAAF


Cheers.
Q>

[Zinger]

1.

Qantas is in the main, a civilian, General Aviation pilot-based airline, and yet it has a documented lower accident rate than El Al.

El Al accidents I remember:
a. Lockheed Constellation, 1955, shot down by Bulgarian MiGs while enroute from Tel Aviv to Europe. Among its passengers was Yoel Palgi, Israel's CAA administrator.
b. Boeing 747-258F, 1992, crashed after takeoff from Schipol killing 39 residents plus 4 crew. Wikipedia: The official probable causes were determined to be: The design and certification of the B-747 pylon was found to be inadequate to provide the required level of safety. Furthermore the system to ensure structural integrity by inspection failed.  [snip]

Qantas record is definitely enviable for no jet age fatality!
The fatalities statistics as criteria, helps little to prevent accidents. From my aging memory of the last 10 years:
Qantas B747-400 crashed on Takeoff from Bangkok (pilot error)
Qantas B747-400 lost all electric power (equipment failure)
Qantas B717 damaged in Darwin during heavy landing (pilot error).
Prior to these Qantas had 11 fatal accidents (79 fatalities) in the early era of its operation.

2. I read a few remarks to my accident factors post. I tend to let people understand whatever they prefer. If anyone has a specific question, I'd be glad to help.
The repetitive call for statistics as proof for an argument is a common shortsightedness, usually from people with some education and experience.  Humans developed certain tools such as statistics for our advance, but this doesn't rule out other posibilities, since we understand so little about a multitude of things. Especially since we know that some people can see and understand things, that most others cannot even recognize when before their very eyes. Exactly for this the Greek Sophists developed structural criteria for optimized functioning of human society.

As you all know, we currently cannot calculate air flow around airfoils with simple equations developed more than 200 years ago.

Putting air forces of vastly differing standards (and statistics...) on a common denominator of pilot background, fails to see the point about expanded screening, academic and flight background, as factor in the ability of a pilot to challenge serious inflight failures.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

This is actually one of the aspects of aviation that interests me most, but at the same time escapes me: the hardwired psychological functioning of individual people, which cannot really be changed/improved by training and education.

Both for air traffic controllers and for pilots (subdivided into transport, fighter, and test/austronaut), this seems to be the major overriding factor when selecting people to start the training.

For controllers, I understood it is the basic capacity to think ahead in four dimensions, plus the overload failure mode. Since I like to play controller games (LondonControl, ATCC) a lot to put my mind off work, I know that my own overload failure mode isn't the desired one. I have a well-defined "snap point" above which my performance suddenly breaks down, and not a slow degradation that can be observed so that I get "relieved" in time. I always wondered whether this would have rendered me unsuitable as a controller (assuming that everything else was okay, which most likely isn't).

As a pilot, I probably would be stopped early because of bad eyesight, overfocus on details, and the tendency to rethink procedures and techniques in an attempt to improve standards on a daily basis.

What psychologic aspects are the typical ones sought after for the above mentioned four professions?


Jeroen

[Zinger]

Air crew requires quality situation awareness (cognitive), combined with (psycho-motoric) ability to make timely decisions while flying in complex situations and conditions. For GA pilots, this is rarely used, but becomes critical during an unsuccessful spin recovery attempt. Relevant to transport category pilots in poor weather or complex failures. Combat pilots utilizes it daily. Combat helicopter pilots utilize it to a wider extent than all of the above due to unique situations (e.g. night landing without lights in rough terrain). As selectee by NASA initiative in 1976 for the initial Enterprise space shuttle experimerntal test flights, I can say that my combined fighter and helicopter experience was enough. Apollo astronauts had all IQ 140 plus. All their natural teeth were replaced...

Common ground to both professionals is the continuous challenge by new problematics on a daily basis. A distinction in my opinion is that ATC is essentially rule-based (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule-based_system), while the pilot is an advanced KBS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge-based_systems).
A major difference between the two occupations is that as ATCo you personally are NOT physically affected by factors such as bodily risk, are not subject to extreme environment such as vibrations, temperature, acceleration, (which among other things degrades brain (judgement) and eye (sight loss) due to oxygen starvation. I'd also like to add dispatchers to a category similar to ATC.

Not a real world air traffic controller, I performed actual planning and control of air traffic in certain operations. I do have thousands of hours controlling air traffic at VATSIM and others, having reached the highest (10th)  rank of senior instructor. I was also a VATSIM division deputy director for training, and Eurocontrol. Ben Gurion approach handling 4 airports and bordering 2 major military wings is as complex as Amsterdam.
From my experience on both sides of the ground-to-air radio, your identification and description of the snap point, isn't only your own personal quality, it is common to most, but not many would admit it. It is where the task workload creates a situation which can no longer be supported by the human personality.
One difference between people is what workload level they are able to manage, and when they snap, what behaviour relevant to their occupation they take on, and how is that relevant to their job performance.


Regarding your observation that people are basically born with the relevant qualities, a few comments based on aerospace human factors and personal observations. Genetic qualities provide the basis, but the environment has very strong influence on human development. My second son was born with average psycho-motoric abilities. He and his first born brother, a pilot, played a lot together, and the younger improved motorically to unbelievable level. To the point that he served as a military police officer performing official motorcycle shows, that for a regular human are not recommended...
My past organization's aircrew screening system is tuned to identifying good squadron commanders, not just good pilots. A factor which makes successful candidates function well under extreme stress.
The strongest factor in the individuals selection formula end value is socialization. For example, being a son of a pilot, growing in that home and being raised under that influence increases the probability of candidates to complete the flight training academy like no other variable (64 variables in that formula). We refrain from using it to not appear nepotistic protectionists, although it would have saved many millions. At a washout rate of about 95%, it is important to identify the good ones early.
Years after my son's graduation, his first instructor (flew with me in the same squadron) asked my if I ever taught him to fly. All we did together was one circuit around the airport in a C-172, mostly for his girfriend. The instructor then said that all my son's flights received a grade of 9 (rare, only God gets 10 in IAF).  On my first Mac and MSFS v.1 that son at age 12 did better air combat against the computer than I. This is the power of socialization.

This is actually one of the aspects of aviation that interests me most, but at the same time escapes me: the hardwired psychological functioning of individual people, which cannot really be changed/improved by training and education.

Both for air traffic controllers and for pilots (subdivided into transport, fighter, and test/austronaut), this seems to be the major overriding factor when selecting people to start the training.

For controllers, I understood it is the basic capacity to think ahead in four dimensions, plus the overload failure mode. Since I like to play controller games (LondonControl, ATCC) a lot to put my mind off work, I know that my own overload failure mode isn't the desired one. I have a well-defined "snap point" above which my performance suddenly breaks down, and not a slow degradation that can be observed so that I get "relieved" in time. I always wondered whether this would have rendered me unsuitable as a controller (assuming that everything else was okay, which most likely isn't).

As a pilot, I probably would be stopped early because of bad eyesight, overfocus on details, and the tendency to rethink procedures and techniques in an attempt to improve standards on a daily basis.

What psychologic aspects are the typical ones sought after for the above mentioned four professions?


Jeroen

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

A distinction in my opinion is that ATC is essentially rule-based, while the pilot is an advanced KBS.

This is exactly why the whole aviation area interests me so much. The foundation is rules, and on top there is knowledge, experience, instinct, and reflexes. The boundaries vary between professions as you said, but the basic layering is the same.

As a computer/information scientist I have always been fascinated by that complex interaction between strictly rule-based machines and mostly non-rule-based humans. In well-designed systems, man and machine make each other better. In poorly designed systems, they make each other worse.

When playing ATC simulations, I always try to come up with rules that are sufficient to cover 70-80% of the cases, so that you retain 80% of your brain for the remaining 20% of tough, unexpected events. As far as I know, this is typical ATC design practise, and I once read that in principle, no controller ever exceeds 70% of her brain capacity.

Ideally I once get to work on a project that tries to improve this man-machine interaction beyond "machine stupid, human smart". Unfortunately it seems to be concentrated in aviation and other control environments. In administration and business, few of these attempts are being made -- there it is all about so-called productivity. And the definition of productivity has little to do with optimising brain capacity and/or combined systems.

Interestingly I recently pulled in the typical aviation concept of safety in a project that is foremost about (information) security. Nearly everybody waved it away as in "we don't do things where lives are at stake." But when I pointed out that in "our" application, an incident or accident means that a few million citizens' personal data gets lost or publicly released, which is certainly a business accident of the proportion that people need to appear in court, they got interested. We now try to integrate information safety (coping with things breaking unintentionally) with information security (coping with bad guys). Fail-active, fail-passive, fail-safe is getting into the design process, instead of just fail-completely-stop-everything which is the common main panic switch on security officers' minds. Transitioning out of a world where you have One Central System that you protect with a Chinese wall, to a world where everything connects with everything, and nothing is independent, isn't trivial.


Jeroen

[Zinger]

As a pilot, I probably would be stopped early because of bad eyesight, overfocus on details, and the tendency to rethink procedures and techniques in an attempt to improve standards on a daily basis.

Jeroen,
flawless eyesight was once a shrine. We fired those physicians and now enjoy many more candidates of the quality we need.
Everything else you describe is mandatory for a good non-robotic pilot! Robots have noticeable advantages, but fail to deliver the very moment scenarios begin to change. I did have a fancy and even envy to Mr. Spock (the other Enterprise) though.