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Classic comic reruns every day
<   Rerun of No. 2721   Originally published 2010-07-09   >

Comic #2721

1 Iki Piki: {into intercom} Spanners! Quick! How do I turn on the autopilot?
2 Spanners: {in engine room} Autopilot? Why would you need that? Paris lands the ship.
3 Paris: {running into engine room} Aaaaarrhhh!!
4 Spanners: {into intercom} Did Serron attempt some sort of joke again?
4 Paris: {running across engine room} Aaaaarrhhh!!

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Poll: Do you regularly wear a wristwatch?

Presumably they use some sort of electronic intercom system between the bridge and the engine room. Although I always think that a system of speaking tubes is more classy.


2025-04-01 Rerun commentary: I've since learnt that a crucial part of pilot training is teaching the pilots to trust their instruments. Not just to trust them, but to actively ignore their own senses if there is ever a conflict between what their senses tell them and what the instruments tell them. This is an extremely difficult thing to do, because humans naturally trust their own senses above almost anything else. But in aviation, this can be deadly.

There are several different sensory illusions that can easily occur during flight. Some are caused by adaptations of the vestibular system in our inner ears, which provides our sense of balance and motion, to unusual conditions that can occur in flight, and which cause the brain to overcompensate. There are several different manifestations of this, resulting in various ways in which a pilot trusting their senses can be deceived into putting the plane into an unstable attitude, or into directing the plane upwards, downwards, or into tightening spirals, while believing they are keeping it level and straight.

These sensory illusions are so common that they are vastly more likely than navigational instrument malfunction. So the correct response is to trust the instruments, and ignore your own senses. But this is so difficult to do that many aviation accidents have been caused by pilots trusting their senses over the instruments, and unwittingly putting the aircraft into a deadly manoeuvre or simply flying it into the ground, all the while believing they are flying safely.

In fact, what is called controlled flight into terrain—where a pilot is in full control of the aircraft, but misdirects it into the ground due to a sensory illusion—is the second most common class of aviation disaster, after loss of control—which includes aircraft malfunction or pilot error resulting in uncontrolled flight. Controlled flight into terrain is more common than accidents due to forced landings (by weather or interception), terrorism, collisions (either mid-air or on the ground), or deliberate suicide by the pilot.

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