I am paranoid about the safety performance of commercial airlines (despite their being statistically safer to travel with than driving to the airport).
If there is some kind of an emergency landing required, I’d really rather not have to rely on the pilot peering out the window in the hope of making a splashdown on a calm Hudson River.
Today’s invention is to provide pilots in an emergency situation with a visual display (based eg on Google Earth) which shows the real-time best landing site (taking into account fuel load, engine conditions, terrain flatness, population density and control systems integrity).
Flying over land, this would provide a moment-to-moment visualisation of where to put down.
In a real emergency, where flight crew were unconscious, this map could talk to the autopilot landing program and increase the chances of getting down in one piece. In a real disaster, it might help the plane to crash with minimal damage on the ground.
Interesting. I believe pilots of light aircraft are supposed to constantly be thinking about where they’d put the plane down if the engine suddenly stops.
This takes the idea to new heights (or lows?)