One advantage of non-lethal weaponry in civil disorder crowd-control situations is that the truly dangerous become obvious and easily discriminated from innocent civilians. The true threats may be confrontational from the outset, carrying or wearing gas masks and goggles, and may be wearing body armor as protection against rubber or metal bullets. However, a "sleeper" assailant in an aircraft hijack attempt will have the significant advantage of total surprise, covert backup and knowledge of the aircraft's NL weaponry. The vulnerability of passengers in a confined space is a major consideration for any use of non-lethal weaponry. Many of the measures below could well be lethal to the aged, infirm, asthmatic and very young. In the case of premature or mistaken activation, would this be acceptable? By comparison there should be no unacceptable outcomes in the case of a reversion to ground flight-control.
Fail-safe reversion to ground control. (the RoboLander concept)
Great deterrent effect (particularly once demonstrated to be an effective system).
Works both passively and actively and always alerts outside agencies to what's occurring onboard.
Question: So why cannot hijackers just take the fire-axe and destroy wiring bundles and CB's etc and cause the aircraft to crash anyway?
Answer:In the future, once wiring bundles are remoted and inaccessible and circuit-breakers are physically inside the code-locked E&E bay, (replaced in the cockpit by status lights) then hijackers should be unable to "down" the aircraft.
Question: It could not be solely controlled with today's non-FBW airplanes since the pilot can fly it anywhere he wants manually.
Answer: Consider the dual-tandem operation of virtually all Electro- Hydraulic Valve (EHV) control surface actuators used by autopilots (and a similar parallel redundancy for "cable grabber" autopilots that use electric motors). Autopilot EHV's always receive their hydraulic power from a DIFFERENT hydraulic source than the pilot's controls' mechanically-operated hydraulic valve. This is per-design so that a cable failure to the surface will still allow the A/P to fly the airplane in this failure condition (a parallel control path). This feature could be exploited in such a way to rob control from hijackers in the cockpit. The system that reconfigured the aircraft to make the cockpit "go dark" could close shutoff valves to the mechanical input valves to the control surfaces, thereby leaving only the autopilot EHV's with hydraulic power. It becomes even more feasible when the airplane is full fly-by-wire (a la Airbus family and 777) since you can simply ignore the pilot's wheel (or side-stick) electronic inputs to the flight control system. See http://www.iasa-intl.com/RoboLander.htm
1. Also applies to some other potentially lethal non-hijack emergency scenarios.
2. Gives passengers best fall-back chance for survival in comparison with other methods.
3. If pilots are killed or incapacitated, even a F/A or Sky Marshal can activate it. [That activator button will always remain HOT under its guard].
4. Removes passenger fears about potential shoot-down threat (presently a huge deterrent and a case for pilots not to declare an emergency).
5. If situation is brought under control then autonomous control can be returned to pilots by the ground.
6. If "latching" is lost with the ground via the satellite data-link, then control auto-reverts to the pilots via an onboard latching safety- interlock.
7. Sky Marshal can remain incognito and await further intervention opportunity.
8. The requirements of the concept are not dissimilar to the infrastructure being set up by the use of ADS-B and Safe Flight 21 Technologies. Auto-flight capabilities are very mature.
9. VDL Mode 4 data-link might be adaptable to the concept of bringing a hijacked airplane to a safe landing under ground control. See Safe Flight Link Evaluation Team Report at http://www.faa.gov/safeflight21/documents/letreport1199.pdf
10. Landing under ground control is irreversible but not irrevocable and is a safety-latched and fail-operable design that is presently in Proof of Concept study.
Source: IASA >TK
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