Originally Posted by
retired guy
Hi Tuffy
in the last ten years out of all major accidents, only one was “western”- AF447. Two were Malaysian , missile and suicide. Then of course Germanwings. Western yes, but bizarre suicide. Two were the MAX , definitely not “western “ by location. 90%were in places that most people couldn’t place on a globe, with airlines that most of us have never heard of, and in what is politely called ‘developing ‘ world.
So I’m not sure what your point is but if you fly on “western airlines” and I won’t define that because there are plenty of “eastern airlines”:with excellent flight safety, QANTAS being a great example, you are historically much safer.
The threat is this. The world needs 500,000 pilots over next 25 years, mainly in the developing world and many are startups. No DNA on how to operate a safe airline. That is a massive challenge. There are two schools of thought
1/ train them to cope with the full spectrum of degraded airplane non normal situations including multiple failures sometimes escalating.rapidly out of control. Ie when computers fail, it’s easy for the pilots to fall back on basic flying skills and airmanship.
or
2/ Automate the problem -out so it can’t happen, and the pilots are there to conduct routine mundane tasks. So they don’t need to be extraordinarily skillful or even moderately so. Even better, set up your own flight academy to generate a constant flow of pilots. It’s a bit like marking your own homework though!
Interesting thread this! Thanks for raising this valid point.
R Guy
There really aren't two schools of thought there is only one.
Automate it.
There are people who may disagree with that approach, but that does not remove this is what is inevitably being pursued.
There used to be people who disagreed the earth being round. Folk even disputed gravity. That isn't a school of thought. It's just denial.
Whether or not automation is the ultimate outcome simply isn't in question. It is.
What is at challenge is whether the negative slope on training and experience is suitably aligned with the positive slope on the capabilities of automation.