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Traffic-handling techniques on the ground have lagged 20 years behind today's planes, but there is also need for more modern equipment on the jets themselves. That equipment is on the way. Sperry Rand Corp. is developing an inertial-navigation system for Pan Am so that pilots soon will be able to know exactly where they are at all times—without any visual reference to ground or water. Airlines are experimenting with lasers and other devices to spot the dreaded "CAT" (clear-air turbulence), which may have torn the tail off a BOAC jet near Mount Fuji a month ago.
For 20 years, companies have been working toward onboard warning systems to prevent mid-air collisions, which are often the result of visual illusions that lead pilots astray. Last month the Air Transport Association announced that development of a practical, economical device is "now closer to realization than at any time in the past." The promising system is McDonnell Aircraft's "Eros" (for Eliminate Range System), which will beep a warning to pilots when two planes get on a collision course. It will also instruct pilots—by means of arrows on the instrument panel —which way to turn to avoid trouble. Everyone is trying to improve altimeters, which are tough to read and may have figured in the first 727 crash, into Lake Michigan, last year. Boeing is tinkering with a radio altimeter, from which a girl's voice calls out the altitude as the plane descends.
The great goal of the airmen is to devise an automatic landing system that will work 100% of the time, whatever the weather, and eliminate the cause of more than half of all fatal crashes. The British are building a computerized autopilot that brings the plane right down to the deck; theoretically, it would fail only once in 1.25 billion landings, but even that is too much for U.S. airmen. Ultimately, computers will control all flight patterns, analyze the weather, and do much of the work in takeoffs and landings. The computers are not smarter than man; they simply solve the complex problems of flight more rapidly and reliably. As Los Angeles Psychologist Chaytor Mason, a former Marine aviator, explains, complex planes call for complex decisions that the best human pilot may not be able to make in time.
It Pays to Ask
Even before the era of computerized flight arrives, the ordinary passenger can do much to lengthen his own odds on security. He can make sure to find out where his exit door is and how it works, where his life jacket is, and what position to fold into in the unlikely event of a crash landing (head on knees, arms locked around legs). He should keep his safety belt buckled throughout the flight, as most pilots do; it can prevent a bad injury in case the plane hits sudden turbulence. The common belief that seats in the tail are safer than those up front has a little basis in fact, but the passenger can do better by sitting close to an emergency exit. Above all, he should swallow his shyness and ask questions. He should not imitate Comedian Mort Sahl's timid traveler who would "rather die than look foolish." The annals of the air are filled with stories of people who led many other passengers out of a crash simply because they had troubled to find out about emergency doors.