Still alive. · 5:50am Oct 28th, 2014
Not quite dead yet.
Also, random idea dump from the drive home today, teaser style.
Princess Twilight Sparkle has done it again. A working magical portal based off the mirror to Canterlot High. One step closer to an interlinked portal network that would allow instant travel all across Equestria. If only she could figure out why the energy requirement was so large...
Meanwhile, in a familiar world not so far away, a 747 on a routine flight between LAX and Sydney suddenly starts losing cabin pressure and is forced to descend for an emergency landing in Honolulu. However, the pilots find the radio silent, navigation not working, and a continent below them where there should be nothing but ocean. A continent with but a single runway, too short for their aircraft to land on.
Now Twilight Sparkle, with the help of Sunset Shimmer, has just fourteen hours to figure out how to get the queen of the skies back where she belongs, before she runs out of fuel. And between panicked pegasi, disgruntled dragons, and a flock of overly curious griffons, keeping the sky clear may just prove to be more of a nightmare than she ever knew possible. But with 600 lives at stake, there is no room for error.
Twilight Sparkle is... 
Air Traffic Control
~Have a good one.
you're alive alive alive alive what? does this mean what it needs to mean? More for the arrow 18 stories? pleasies?
Please for the love of god do that story
Aka "Fly Hard"
The sequel can be called "Fly Hard 2: Fly Harder"
I CANNOT EXPRESS MY DESIRE TO READ THIS STORY STRONGLY ENOUGH.
DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!!1!
... Arrow 18 is on my list of 35 most favorite stories (out of 1034 favorites), but I think I would like to read this new idea even just slightly more than more Arrow 18!
This sounds like an excellent idea for a story, but then 'Change is Good' and 'Arrow 18' are both equally good with the added benefit of having already been started.
The stories we have already faved need some love too.
You write it, I'll read it.
Wat
Sounds nifty, but I'd also like to see more of CiG or Arrow 18. OTOH, I understand how fickle one's muse can be, so do whatever you feel is appropriate.
This needs to be a thing. If done right, it would be terrific.
And I wouldn't even be mad if I had to wait a little longer on A18 and CiG to see this become a thing.
...though an update on the those two would be great, hint hint nudge nudge.
Im always a sucker for first contact scenarios. Go for it. A giant plane like that in an era with barely trains would seem like a spaceship.
A thought struck me however that while they may have 14 hours before it crashes on Equestrian soil, the margins must be even smaller then that if the plane is to survive find land while out over the Pacific.
I like the sound of this one.
Sweet mother of mercy....
However, there a few points I might point out.
What about your other stories? Many awesome ones that are still in the making. How about finishing those first?
(That is if you haven't run out of creative juice)
Why the 747? An A380 would be a much MUCH bigger challange. 800 lives and a guidance system that can even be remote controlled from the ground. (Or at least so I heard but I'm not sure if that is a myth)
Oke, that is all.
Edit: Thats funny actually, I had a similar idea a few months back while listening to one of your songs, I think it was Harlocks Passage. Are you transmitting your thoughts through your music?
2560315
Ground Remote Control is aincient. As in, read Arthur C Clarkes book, Glidepath, where after WW2, one of the lines of technology created was a radar servo loop for ground landing aircraft during inclement weather. That is, the computer on teh ground could see the aircraft through the fog and control it safely, but there wasnt the uplink to display that information on teh aircraft itself.
Makes you wonder, if they could do that almost 70 years ago, why isnt it a small box thats at most the cost of the IFF, transponder boxes fited to aircraft, that has to be a mandatory part of any operational strip? then again, we now have insure by data black box links to insurance companies for cars which cost a lot less than even small aircraft, so why not aircraft? Its not like the data needs a high rez TV rate.. Video store is what the 256 gig MicroSD card in a 1 inch tungsten ball is for.
the oddity approves. also, I'm glad you aren't dead. :)
Summary of responses:
This is a good idea!
Hope you still spare some attention for some older stuff!
Summary End
That sounds like an interesting story idea.
2560552 pretty much.
"Captain? We're on the ground and not moving. I guess we might as well throttle back the engines."
"Buh? Wha?"
"Let's give him a minute. I'll take care of the engines."
2560462 Its mostly because of convinience. People would rather sit in a plane flown by pilots than one that is fully automated.
Its just like with gear boxes on cars. Manual switching is popular to this day despite automatic being the most efficient.
"This is China Airline Flight Two-Seven-Niner, approaching downwind left pattern, requesting clearance to land on Runway Two-Seven Left..."
"HECK YEAH, WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA!!! WOOOOO!!!
"
"...This is Flight Two-Seven-Niner, negative on approach, breaking off traffic pattern and diverting airspace, good day."
2561315 "Convenience" is an odd way to spell "massive redundancy for safety reasons". And "convenience" is also a very odd reason to drive stick instead of automatic, no?
I think the real deal is the ability to control performance with greater precision and in a wider range of circumstances; it's very difficult to make even very good autopilots capable of handling as many different situations as a skilled human pilot. So difficult that it hasn't actually been done yet.
And as for the reason remote control from the ground hasn't been very popular... well, it's basically the same as ordinary piloting, except that it relies on a (potentially fallible) data link in order to even function at all and the pilot has a harder time maintaining situational awareness. (IFR all the time, yay?) So as far as reliability goes, it's almost strictly inferior; the only real advantage would come from being able to multiplex flights by having the autopilot take over whenever the human pilot isn't needed, but then you have the problem of automatically determining with great reliability when the autopilot will shortly be unable to handle the situation properly….
Suffice it to say that the human factor for high-stakes decision-making is still alive and well in aviation, and will be for a good long while yet. Barring unicorns teleporting into the cockpit, at least.
2561711 "Convinience" was really the wrong way to word it, Sorry. I wrote that comment at 2 AM and my mental facilities weren't up to the task.
At this point Id like to point you towards the US Air Force and their increasing army of drone vehicles. Those drones operate most of the time fully automated, they are able to fly a designated route and can also accept orders from the ground station, they can start and land by them self.
Of course there is always an operator sitting at the controls and his job is pretty minor, mainly to monitor the drones telemetry data. But they are not looking at pure flight data from the instruments, they actually utilise the cameras on board to get a good view of the drones surroundings. Connection losses are also a very minor occurrance and mostly related to gun fire. Even than many drones managed to turn tail and fly home in one piece.
However, I agree that the system still needs refinement to be mass capable and the human factor will always be part of the equasion. By definition the way drones work would be best defined as "heteronomous".
2562288 Unmanned drones in combat are a whole different ballgame from manned airliners. For one thing, liability/safety requirements; for another, the risks of losing the drones are already far higher than airliners, while the chance of losing connection in normal weather (which I'm guessing is likely to be almost the only weather the drones fly in) is quite low, but the chance of connection loss in bad weather (which airliners do have to deal with from time to time) is somewhat higher.
All I'm really saying is, this is not a solved problem; in fact it is decidedly non-trivial, and requires a good hard look at the details of system requirements.
Actually that's not true, what I'm mostly saying is I WANT TO READ THIS STORY ALREADY.
Well, that certainly sounds interesting.
2563499 I agree with you. On the story part at least
O_O
OoooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhIwannareadit