"SYSTEMS MONITOR" is becoming the buzz word for pilots. Flight Engineers are one endangered species slowly following the path of Navigators and Radio Operators. Technology will soon overtake the role of airline pilots. And the higher the crew cost, the higher the Tech pressure to replace us!
In order to comprehend this trend one has to adjust the conventional thought processes, including the premises that: Large jets cannot safely be flown without highly skilled pilots and that passengers would never board a jet without two pilots at the controls.
CAT-IIIC Autoland and any other autoflight profile requires more systems programing knowhow than aerodynamics/aviator knowledge.
Twenty years from now computer and nano technologies will have more than doubled in sophistication. Our traditional "hands-on" role as pilots will be diminished if not altogether eliminated and replaced by Systems Monitors. Believe it.
If you have any doubts about the future decline of our profession, catch up on the pilotless aircraft the military has been perfecting over the past few years: Start with the "Global Hawk." It's a UAV about the size of a small bizjet with a single turbofan that can fly across the pond, linger over Europe six hours and return without refueling. And guess what? In one branch of the U.S. military the ground based remote "system operators" are all non pilots.
I'm an airline pilot, but I'm a realist too.
Cheers.
