For some time I have followed articles about the new unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) mainly used by the USAF and DoD and I don't know if I'll break an "unwritten taboo" by simply asking if pilots will be needed in the future.
Those new UAVs or drones are carrying out tasks like electronic surveillance and even light attacks as we have seen in recent events in Afghanistan. The days of the proud military pilots representing their country might already be a future sign of the past. More and more UAVs are being developed - there are probably many more unknown to us - and their tasks are becoming more complex and degrade the pilot - or human - simply as a system monitor.
One day I believe this will break into commercial aviation - like it or not. Imagine yourself opening up the virtual pages of FI or AW&ST in 30 or 40 years. An advertisement of a transport category airplane manufacturer catches your attention.
"Introducing the new [...] We are the first that introduce the new
pilotless 250 seat airliner. Intensive research and testing have shown that pilots are completely unnecessary. The risk of human error is entirely eliminated. No more worries about pilot hiring procedures, training, recurrencies, HR issues etc. Our new plane has sextuple redundancy systems with their respective back-up systems and circuitries."
I could go on writing this ad but I hope you are getting my point. Unfortunately, I believe that we are not too far from this day, since most of us pilots are flying airplanes with very sophisticated autopilots and systems etc. and we are already used to a high level of automation.
Most of you pilots - and I am one of you - will get up and say that this is complete rubbish. Forcing myself to think "out of the box" there's one issue that we will all have to face:
Economics
An airline will not have to face pilot pay rises, retirement issues, etc. Realistically, many times being a pilot, friends of mine and I have heard that we're overpaid and only push buttons up there etc. This "against pilots" list could go one for a few pages, but I am sure that you have heard one or the other insulting(?) argument.
How far away are we from this day X where a pilot is simply an individual who monitors a flight from a computer? Everything will be automatic; probably even ATC - so there's also one less thing to worry about
: No more controller strikes etc.
When will it happen?