Would You Fly On An Airliner With Just One Pilot?

[Bringupthebird]

Autonomous UAVs can be far more fuel efficient than human-controlled aircraft because there is no requirement for stability to be designed-in. Passengers get into unmanned trains all the time and they risk death without even thinking about it. Have a little synthesized "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" and you get on and ride to another terminal.

Just because the possible accident could be more dramatic in an airplane doesn't mean much to the person who dies. There will be a little reluctance at first then, after a year or so with no fatalities, folks will wax nostalgic over the days of human pilots and dinner served on china.

Get your kids into a good bio-engineering school and keep them away from the airport.

 

[bizicmo]

Ironically, wasn't it AK that had a CA suffer from a heart attack and the FO saved the day? Although this does not happen often...it does happen and now with pilots older than 60...my guess is more occurrences rather than less.

On a side note, if the Chinese can hack into our most secure computer systems and steal blueprints to our TOP SECRET military programs...I am not sure the public will be ready to read the headlines: Airliner Hacked and Remotely Flown (fill in your own end of the story).

I wouldn't buy a ticket on a single pilot or pilotless plane. Call me old fashion I guess!

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/tech/mobile/phone-hijack-plane

A hacker already has a phone app that can hack into your flight management computer thru ACARS. The article says he can change speed, altitude and direction from his phone anywhere. The FAA refutes the claim stating, among other things, that a pilot can override the autopilot at anytime. Not if there is no pilot there. Just because the capabilities of this hack are limited now doesn't mean that can't be expanded later.

 

[acaTerry]

Maybe, but it may only accelerate the process. Large drones already operate pilot-less & completely untethered to the ground, delivering mail and supplies in Afghanistan.

Eeeeh...no, you're wrong. There is a pilot, on the ground. Away from the craft, but piloting it nonetheless. Don't believe everything you read. I know a number of people who fly the drones, and even the preprogrammed ones are in fact being operated.

 

[JT12345]

Funny if you think these drones other countries have can not be hacked into by us especially if we sell them. lol That will be the end of drones when it happens especially if a terrorist or government turns our drones back on us. 911 redux via remote control.... no need to train hijackers. No need to get through those new cockpit doors.

Trains. That is funny..... A simple isolated monorail is so far from airplanes or the modern day rail system. It is just an elevator horizontal.

 

[wingnutt]

Interesting...although its hard enough to sell a seat on a single pilot charter airplane (pilatus/king air/cj) much less an airliner

 

[shagadelic]

It's coming. Period.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395

Pilotless flight trialled in UK shared airspace

Peter Marshall speaks to Astraea director Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal
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A Jetstream aircraft became the first to fly "unmanned" across UK shared airspace last month.

An on-board pilot handled the take-off, from Warton, near Preston in Lancashire, and landing, in Inverness.

But during the 500-mile journey, the specially adapted plane was controlled by a pilot on the ground, instructed by the National Air Traffic Services.

There were no passengers, but the 16-seater aircraft flew in airspace shared with passenger carriers.

Known as "the Flying Testbed", it contains on-board sensors and robotics to identify and avoid hazards.

National Air Traffic Services unmanned air vehicle (UAV) expert Andrew Chapman said: "Nats ensured that this test flight was held without any impact on the safety of other users of airspace at the time.

Regulatory framework
"Although there is still work to be done it would seem that, on the basis of the success of this flight, a UAV could operate in different classes of airspace."

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Astraea has made significant achievements, placing the UK industry in a good position globally on unmanned aircraft and the development of regulations for their civil use?

Michael Fallon
Business and Energy Minister
It is the latest in a series of test flights carried out by Astraea (Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation and Assessment), which has received ?62m funding, from commercial companies and the UK government, to research how civilian unmanned aircraft could fit in to shared airspace.

A representative of BAE Systems, one of the companies to have invested in Astraea, said: "The flights were part of a series of tests helping flight regulators and Nats to understand how these flights work, and what they need to do were they to go ahead and put a regulatory framework in place for the unmanned flights in manned airspace.

"It's still very early days in terms of that regulation taking place."

Business and Energy Minister Michael Fallon described the latest flight as "pioneering".

Social impact

The specially adapted 16-seater Jetstream had no passengers.
"Astraea has made significant achievements, placing the UK industry in a good position globally on unmanned aircraft and the development of regulations for their civil use," he said.

The project has the support of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

At a media conference last year, Astraea project director Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal said getting unmanned aircraft (UA) into shared airspace was more than a technical challenge.

"It's not just the technology, we're trying to think about the social impact of this and the ethical and legal things associated with it," he said.

"You've got to solve all this lot if you're going to make it happen, enable it to happen affordably."

 

[Amberjack]

You're kidding right? Go purchase a subscription to Wired magazine and pay attention to what's coming in the future. We may not like it, but computers are infinitely better at flying than we are. 15 knots? Seriously? It takes two pilots cause we are so limited in capacity that we can't watch two things at once...computers can look at thousands of inputs at once. More crosswind...more aileron and opposite rudder...a simple algorithm. Aborts? We have a freaking 3-second reaction time built in after a fire bell goes off. Seriously? You think a computer needs that? Fire bell equals 3000psi to the brakes.... no reaction needed. Our cockpits are so far behind what is available right now in the real world it's not even funny. Look at the google car...it knows where it is, can interpret red lights, stop for a kid or a pet that runs in front, it can negotiate a 4 way stop when 4 cars pull in at once, negotiate construction, etc. Flying is infinitely simpler than driving as far as complexities go. Tie TCAS into autopilot...bam, no more mid-airs. It goes on and on.

We sound like every other industry that has gone away due to automation. We're too important, blah, blah, blah. It's coming. Once they show flying boxes is safer than a human at the controls then we are toast as a profession. It may not happen in 20 years....but I bet within 50 for sure.

I'm all for preserving our jobs...and will fight to keep us in the cockpit. But that has everything to do with wanting to keep my livelihood and get paid, and nothing to do with safety being more important. This industry is safer now more than anytime in the last century. That's due to automation, not in spite of it.

+1, its coming.

 

[wingnutt]

lol...no pilot group for the major airline management to whipsaw, THEN who will they blame for crappy management?

 

[Kalifornia]

You're kidding right? Go purchase a subscription to Wired magazine and pay attention to what's coming in the future. We may not like it, but computers are infinitely better at flying than we are. 15 knots? Seriously? It takes two pilots cause we are so limited in capacity that we can't watch two things at once...computers can look at thousands of inputs at once. More crosswind...more aileron and opposite rudder...a simple algorithm. Aborts? We have a freaking 3-second reaction time built in after a fire bell goes off. Seriously? You think a computer needs that? Fire bell equals 3000psi to the brakes.... no reaction needed. Our cockpits are so far behind what is available right now in the real world it's not even funny. Look at the google car...it knows where it is, can interpret red lights, stop for a kid or a pet that runs in front, it can negotiate a 4 way stop when 4 cars pull in at once, negotiate construction, etc. Flying is infinitely simpler than driving as far as complexities go. Tie TCAS into autopilot...bam, no more mid-airs. It goes on and on.

We sound like every other industry that has gone away due to automation. We're too important, blah, blah, blah. It's coming. Once they show flying boxes is safer than a human at the controls then we are toast as a profession. It may not happen in 20 years....but I bet within 50 for sure.

I'm all for preserving our jobs...and will fight to keep us in the cockpit. But that has everything to do with wanting to keep my livelihood and get paid, and nothing to do with safety being more important. This industry is safer now more than anytime in the last century. That's due to automation, not in spite of it.

Wired Magazine, are you kidding? Didn't Popular Mechanics in the 50s predict flying cars standard in every household by this time? The writers of magazines get paid to write a blend of reality and science fiction. And airplanes simpler than driving?? What's the plan when something goes wrong in the car....pull over to the side of the road. What's the plan during a major structural failure in an aircraft that takes out multiple systems?

 

[Kalifornia]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395

"It's not just the technology, we're trying to think about the social impact of this and the ethical and legal things associated with it," he said.

"You've got to solve all this lot if you're going to make it happen, enable it to happen affordably."

There are many, many, many hurdles to overcome to make it happen. Look how Segway flopped. A simple two way scooter was supposed to revolutionize city life transportation. Basic airplane monorail systems suffer hiccups all the time. You can't just stop an airplane midair to restore the system.