Comments
danteheehaw t1_irh0vnv wrote
It was pretty early in aviation history. Engineers often are not operating the planes. It's easy to make something and not realize it's not user friendly. Simply because you made it, so from your point of view, it's obvious what it does.
Lkwzriqwea OP t1_irg6tpk wrote
Pretty much, yeah. That's how I learned about it, as part of a talk on human factors in design.
escapingdarwin t1_irh4au2 wrote
Gear handle a wheel, flap handle flappy.
Kancho_Ninja t1_irg5tzy wrote
Alt-Alternatively: because of the constant mistakes made by pilots in misidentifying important controls, engineers improved the design and added safety features like weight-on-wheels.
By lowering the standards, the average IQ of a pilot could be just above room temperature and the passengers would be assured of a safe trip.
amigammon t1_irg64y8 wrote
There at at least 1 million people in the air at any one time. Yes, safety.
DroolingIguana t1_irj3ftu wrote
At any given moment there are more planes in the ocean then there are submarines in the sky.
backelie t1_irkd3ia wrote
Are there any sub models which can temporarily shoot out of the water like a jumping fish/whale?
Foreign-Cookie-2871 t1_irprsg6 wrote
That would be true even if there was only one plane in the ocean.
barath_s t1_irz1wr1 wrote
It was early on in engineering days. BTW, it wasn't a mechanical engineer who found the issue and changed the shape. It was a psychologist
Psychologists Phill Fitts and Alphonse Chaponis realized the issue https://medium.com/swlh/the-flying-fortress-fatal-flaw-694523359eb
> One of his major contributions was shape coding in the aircraft cockpit. After a series of runway crashes of the Boeing B-17, Chapanis found that certain cockpit controls were confused with each other, due partly to their proximity and similarity of shape. Particularly, the controls for flaps and landing gear were confused, the consequences of which could be severe. Chapanis proposed attaching a wheel to the end of the landing gear control and a triangle to the end of the flaps control, to enable them to be easily distinguished by touch alone.
In other words, shape coding was created as a result of this.; you're speking with beneift of the hindsight created.
Weight on wheels safety is a far cry from when you have electronic sensors than an era when planes had everything mechanical or hydraulic
[deleted] t1_irg5zut wrote
Slight digression.
In 1944 a B26 crashed in a field near to where I currently live. All 5 crew died on impact. It is believed they mistook the field for a lake. The idea behind this is that there had been some heavy rain, leaving the field waterlogged. All the crew had removed their boots, which apparently was standard procedure for ditching in water. Their bodies were returned to America and there is a plaque in the field.
Raincoats_George t1_irga2sk wrote
There aren't a lot of things that id want to do in ww2 but being a pilot or in a plane would be so low on that list. So many guys died because of simple mistakes, malfunctions, or contact with the enemy.
danteheehaw t1_irh19tc wrote
The pacific theater was especially bad for pilots, at least at the start. The US started the war with late WWI era fighters in the pacific thinking that they were good enough to handle those "copycat" Japanese who were not intelligent enough to innovate.
​
Oh boy were they wrong.
Mitthrawnuruo t1_irh8iyx wrote
The Japanese may not have been great at being innovative, but that didn’t make them dumb.
Before the First World War they very carefully sent military experts to study every military in the world.
And then modeled the Navy after the British, and the Army after the Germans…which is telling, since most of the west considered the French the premier Army in the world before WWI.
And the Germany army that showed up was easily one of the top three armies mankind as every organized, in - long history of war.
ItsallaboutProg t1_irkipn9 wrote
The French got their ass kicked by Germany 40 years earlier, and the British had the only standing professional army at the time, though it was small. Out of the 5 European powers the Germans were the rising country at the time. It was a pretty logical decision.
ATLtinyrick t1_irrifkd wrote
What model of aircraft are you referring to? Even at Pearl Harbor, the US primarily was flying the SBD Dauntless… which was introduced in 1940. I don’t think any nation were flying First World War vintage aircraft in the Second World War
BrandonMcRandom t1_irgi1dh wrote
Here's an article with a picture of it for the curious: https://medium.com/swlh/the-flying-fortress-fatal-flaw-694523359eb
Lkwzriqwea OP t1_irgjnk5 wrote
Thanks, that's a brilliant article. Wish I'd linked that instead.
Mal-De-Terre t1_irg2eb5 wrote
"Often"? I
squigs t1_irhwnby wrote
This is something that often frustrates me in design. People are prone to mistakes (or even downright stupidity at times) but too many people think that this means that we need to fix the person, rather than design around this.
DBDude t1_irjszqq wrote
In the Army we called that private proofing something, but then they'd always make a better private.
There are many examples of a necessary UI fix though. John Denver is dead because someone put a fuel tank switch up behind the pilot seat, and reaching for it could cause disorientation. So could the radio controls on an F-111 when pulling a certain maneuver.
Lkwzriqwea OP t1_iri9ddg wrote
Ik, I'm exactly the same. I work in human factors, and a huge part of that discipline is human error (as in, human error in design, or how to design in a way that minimises the likelihood for human error). There is a culture especially in aviation, where the pilot is blamed for accidents. I read a book which phrased it quite nicely, "when a plane crashed, before the smoke has cleared, the media are looking for someone to blame."
miemcc t1_iri8wtn wrote
I bet the belly gunner wasn't too impressed either!
AnthillOmbudsman t1_irh1xos wrote
Hmm, maybe a $2 squat switch on the landing gear would have saved countless hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is why raising the gear while sitting at the gate doesn't do anything on modern airliners, though if the crew does so it will probably require an underwear change.
hkohne t1_irg2olz wrote
Oops
icematrix t1_irh83zh wrote
The old "piano key" style Bonanzas were like this too.
amigammon t1_irg2bhs wrote
Alternatively: The Boeing B17 designers poorly designed the gear handle to look like the flap handle and also didn’t install a weight-on-wheels safety to prevent the gear from being raised on the ground.