A Dissenting View:
I am a retired Airline Captain, currently flying Business Jets. I have an Airline Transport Pilot Rating qualifying me to fly Captain on Boeing 707/720/727/747-400/757/767/777, Lockheed 382 and L-1011, and Dassault 20 and 2000 Aircraft. I have over 28,000 hours, several thousand of which were in command of 757/767's.
There is no provision for a 757/767 to be flown remotely. It can't be done. Period. Nothing disables the Flight or Voice Recorders, etc., except for the pulling of circuit breakers in the cockpit.
The 1.5 G limit built into the flight control system isn't there. The 757/767 does not have electronic flight controls- "fly by wire" and I don't know of any way to design these limits into the system without fly by wire. Some fly by wire aircraft- the Airbus 319/320/330/340 series and some military aircraft, for example- do have these artificial limits. The limits on the 'Busses is about 2.5 G's. Since the airplane is pulling 1 G in straight and level flight there would only be 1/2 G left for maneuvering- not much.
The 757/767 cannot- repeat cannot be "programmed" to fly without a Pilot. It has a very good autopilot, capable of manipulating the controls as directed by the ON BOARD Crew in climb, cruise, descent, and- in some cases- landing. It must be disconnected for takeoff.
The 757/767 is hardly a Commuter aircraft. These are the small jets such as the Canadair and Embraer Jets and Turboprops used by Regional Airlines.
Herb Fischer
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Viewzone:
As an avionics engineer, I also would like to stress out that there are NO provisions on 757/767 aircraft to have it remote controlled. Also, the CVR itself only can be erased by having the parking brake set and the erase button actuated. Not something you can do in flight. You can before start and pull the CVR CB though.
Regarding turn control: there is a banklimiter but when flown by hand, it won't work. The automatic pilot is similar to the 747-400. It cannot do a complete start. It is able to engage lateral navigation and vertical navigation _after you have reached the radio altitude of 100 and 400 ft if I recall correct. So the AP functions are armed but will NOT be able to control the aircraft at the time you select Take-OFF.
I am pretty sure that there are big question marks about that the Govt of the USA showed and told us and I am pretty sure quite a bit is staged, just like some other past disasters. However, technically, the story "Planes of 911 Exceeded Their Software Limits" in this case, is just BS.
imapbox@xs4all.nl