Flufdriver,
I therefore predict that within my lifetime (I'm 57) we will see "remotely piloted" aircraft transporting people for hire around the globe
I don't for a second believe that and I'm 34!
If a pilot won't get in the aircraft to fly it, why the hell should I just to travel in it?
Rigas Doganis, author of
The Airline Business in the 21st Century, writes in Chapter 5 about how labour typically constitutes between 15-40% of airline total operating costs whereas fuel has been around 10-15%.
With fuel price having doubled in the last year, in real terms we are now back in a situation similar to the late 70's and where fuel now comprises a similar percentage of total operating costs compared to labour.
This is good for those of us who sit in the seats ahead of 1A because it diverts the characteristic intense management focus of the late 1990's/early 2000's away from the unit labour cost because it is no longer arguable that this cost is the major determinant in airline profitability.
This weeks
Flight International includes an article on how proponents of gas turbine research are now breathing a sigh of relief again as they see their budgets rapidly expand to cope with astronomical fuel prices.
William Koop, from the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate says the
...phones been off the hook!
The same magazine carries an editorial feature on the shrinking budget available for the JSF, a situation not without precedent when one considers the shrunken B2 and F/A-22 programs.
It is also clear that NASA are staring down the barrel of what to replace an increasingly defunct Shuttle with? Scaled Composites
SpaceShip Three?
In
Aircraft Commerce you can get an idea of how great a proportion the financing charges comprise of the total trip cost of any particular aircraft. Feb-Mar 2005 edition compare the 787, 763 and A330. Suffice to say that financing charges comprise a higher proportion of the cost than either fuel or crew.
Which leads me round to my contention that we will see technology make a sideways move in the near future to mitigate against the extraordinary investment costs involved in the development of commercial aircraft and their operation using hydrocarbon based fuel.
The Shuttle will, quite conceivably, be the most complicated flying machine ever to fly, if only because cost prohibits the exercise ever being repeated. Its systems might not be the most capable but its architecture, perhaps, justifies the accolade...
This increasing focus on simplicity and efficiency will have repercussions for us and how we carry out our job.
The notion that one is pre-historic if one espouses a philosophy that argues for as much knowledge as possible about the systems integration and operational capability of a piece of equipment one entrusts ones life to, and the ability to practise using it in order to famailiarise oneself with all its functionality, throughout the envelope,
so that when it all fails you know what to do, seems to me somewhat cavalier.
Do you dive without an octopus?