i remember drinking a nice coffee sitting in first class on concorde while cruising at M2.00 @ Fl600 in a suit and that was with 1960's technology. We are in 2012 and the skills and equipment is there for a biz jet (not a commercial airliner) to be built that can travel at M2.00 or greater at FL600 with a passenger capacity of say 10 with a single pilot up front with the appropriate flight deck and computer back up for safe reliable flying.
The days of having 2 overpaid bus drivers up front is over, technology will lead the way and reduce the work load for a single pilot, if a fighter jet like a F22 or eurofighter can operate with one pilot a combat situation with dealing with ACM and laying down ordinance then why cant there be a biz jet operating in a straight line at a altitude where there is a low number of conflicting aircraft at a high speed.
I'm not suprised that the iphone crashed, it's rubbish, the computer that i'm typing this on has been running for over 4 years with no crashes and only having to reboot for updates, so the argument against computers assisting would have been valid in the days of windows 95-vista, but a modern pc running a linux derived OS with good software can run for years and with the size of systems now it's possible to have 2 systems running in space smaller than a hard back book so there is no reason for not having a back up in case of hardware failure.
On the issue of having one gray haired old timer up front on a commercial aircraft the solution is simple, mandatory retirement at 50, keep the flight deck crew young and fit and the problem goes away. It's better to utilise the old timers as trainers and in other non essential roles.
Fats