Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

People should use the systems they build. If they don’t who will? A new concept in the military – Optionally Piloted Vehicles – once again raises the issue of using your own systems.

“Eat your own dog food.” This is an old saying in computer terms – are computers old enough to have old sayings? But I digress… The concept is that you should use your own products. If you don’t use them, why should anyone else?

Simple examples:

• Microsoft employees should use Microsoft operating systems and MS Office
• Compiler writers should use their own compilers as they write new compilers
• Car makers should drive their own brand of cars
• Public school teachers should send their kids to public schools
• Congress should obey the laws it passes …ooops, maybe this one doesn’t count?

Something I noticed this week – Optionally Piloted Vehicles or OPVs. The concept is pretty simple, and as an engineer, pretty neat. At a point in time, you move all your aircraft to “fly by wire” systems. That is, the controls the pilot moves – the stick, the pedals, the knobs – are connected to an analog-to-digital converter. All analog movements of the controls become digital signals sent to the flight-control computer.

If you can send 1s and 0s to the flight-control computer from the cockpit, you can do the same from a building a thousand miles away.

Hmm,  no need to have a pilot sitting in the cockpit. Let the pilot sit in a safe location. This is not a new concept as the technology for this has existed for a few decades. The problem, no one would buy a ticket to ride a commercial flight if the pilot was not on the plane. If the pilot would not eat his own dog food, why should the passengers?

The Optionally Piloted Vehicles are for the military. Send a helicopter on a suicide mission, but you don’t put any of your pilots at risk. That makes sense, especially if you are a pilot. There are problems with this scheme.

1. Will any passengers ever ride in these aircraft?
2. The aircraft cost a lot of money.
3. Build special-purpose aircraft cheaper instead.
4. What is less expensive, pilots or aircraft?

Asking question 4. brings a lot of problems. Is it ethical to even ask question 4?

Anyways, OPVs are here and are probably here to stay. A conventional aircraft is now a multi-purpose aircraft. It can be used with a pilot on board or with a pilot tucked away safely some place else. The military has more options, and fewer lives are risked. At least fewer lives of the people who have this technology. More lives are risked by people who don’t have this technology. And that leads to another ethical question.