d246 is absolutely right!
We're history! or at least well on the way to becoming it!
Consider the following:
Beancounters objective: to reduce operational cost to the absolute minimum.
One of the costliest components of the Industry are the human resources, so lets replace them with technology to the maximum extent possible.
But of course this can not be just a straight line effort of designing technology that can deal with 99.99% of occurrences in flight operations. The human element (Pilots) on whom the other human element (passenger) likes to rely on has to be discredited before it can be discarded without a backlash from the farepaying passenger.
This can be achieved by changing the training of these aircraft handlers from actually handling flight controls to becoming specialized in programming a third party to the entire operation the FMC, which now becomes the focus of the entire mission.
This shift in focus will have several beneficial consequences towards the advancement of the ultimate objective.
1.) Airline managements are quite willing to adopt new standards of competency for "Pilots"allowing cost savings by hiring persons with minimal actual experience but good computer skills.
2.) An added benefit will be a lower quality of handling skills among these late 20th century aviators as an automatic consequence of never having acquired them in the first place and having little opportunity and less encouragement to practice them.
3.) The lack of capability to deal with anything but precise inputs to produce an acceptable output of the current generation of FMC's, combined with the reduction of actual situational awareness and substandard handling skills of the operator, then contribute to dramatic instances of so called"human error"further demonstrating the human shortcomings and lack of reliability to the travelling public.
I therefore predict that within my lifetime (I'm 57) we will see "remotely piloted" aircraft transporting people for hire around the globe. At first it will be perhaps one person dedicated to "handle" one flight from takeoff to landing, shortly therafter there will be further cost savings by having one "operator" sitting at a desk on the ground, handling two or more flights in different phases of flight.
I suppose one thing won't change, when there is a loss of aircraft (and cargo) it will probably still be called human error!
The one thing I'm wondering about is, how will I travel when it gets to that stage? It takes quite a while to cross the Atlantic (much less the Pacific) by sailboat.
However, for now I continue to enjoy what is by now a dinosaur, a 732 with an SP 77, which most of us are disengaging for everything except cruise.