Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Padgett
Blog Post 8
October 31 2016
During On Autopilot, Carr takes a stance from a fact and value basis. This time, he explains
the relationships between automation and air travel. On a factual level, Carr introduces a variety
of stories including the story of Marvin Renslow and Pierre Bonin. Carr uses these stories to
provide examples of how automation is negatively impacting the performance of pilots during
abnormal or dangerous situations. Although Carr acknowledges that flight has become safer
since automation has become more prevalent, he also introduces the point from Bill Voss that
automation is really the primary flight control system in the aircraft. This begins a shift to the
value side of this chapter. Carr continues to assert the argument he has used before, which is
that automation is too much of a factor in the flying of an airplane. He argues that pilots do not
know what to do when there are events that autopilot cannot control. Carr refers to the term
skill-fade to address this. Carr even goes on to address that the pilot may lose a sense of
identity, saying in the last sentence that a glass cockpit can also be a glass cage.
Carr appeals to the logos by presenting stories that actually occurred and are widely known and
verified. He also provides statistics on the trends in air travel safety over the years. Carr also
consults many scholars to provide some psychological explanations of the effects of automation
on pilot performance. A good example as mentioned above would be the skill-fade
psychological theory. By introducing many detailed stories, reviewing the history of automation,
presenting statistical information, and discussing scholarly theories from credible sources, Carr
satisfies the logos of the argument. The pathos is the easiest to figure out. Carr is making the
same argument he has made for many years. He makes the claims that automation and an
increasing trend of technology assistance and usage is depleting our ability to adapt and respond
to situation where the technology cannot help us. Also, Carr specifically addresses the effect of
automation on pilot identity. He says that a pilot determines self worth on the control of their
aircraft. This is decreasing due to the introduction of automation. Carr says that the values of air
travel and pilots is moving further away from the values of Wilbur and Wright who believed the
pilot should have as much autonomy and freedom as possible . The ethos is satisfied because
the message is delivered confidently by an individual who has written on this topic many times
before. Also, all the information received from outside sources is addressed and cited properly.