Originally Posted by
twistedenginestarter
When I started flying, a Trident could do a Cat 3C autoland. That was over 50 years ago. Self driving cars are here now. True, they can't drive on ordinary roads. That may take a decade or more. But flying is not like driving a car. It takes place in a highly organised, structured and protected context.
I am not suggesting there will be pilotless airliners in my lifetime. That would be far too ambitious. What Boeing/Airbus want is to reduce costs and avoid Max-type complications. Going too far would simply present new alternative deadly threats to their revenue streams.
Single pilot is missing the point. That still implies a pilot operating the controls. It still means the pilot has to know what to do in every situation. It still means pilots making mistakes or doing bad things.
No, I think the logic is to enable the plane to carry out all phases of every flight. That in turn puts pressure on everyone to ensure all the pieces are in place (eg The Bergerac Ryanair 737 being set up to perform a GPS approach).
The remaining pilot (or pilots) would still have an important and skilled job in managing the mission (including handling emergencies) although it would quite likely be less enjoyable.
By the way Sully did not handle the Hudson River ditching perfectly. As it happens his mis-settings were not fatal, but they could have been in different circumstances. I think the essence was he didn't know what the correct configuration was for a Hudson River landing because it is something no one would ever train you for. Airbus of course did know, so a computer operated landing would have been just that tad safer.
While again not a pilot myself, I cannot see how Airbus's computer-operated landing would have been safer--this event was unprecedented at the time. In some cases, Airbus or Boeing systems do have settings or semi-autonomous applications that potentially are safer within specific contexts, but it is not clear that would have been superior in Sully's case. If you have specific experience as an Airbus pilot and/or references we can look at--that would be very helpful. Thanks.