People who think automation is about no flight crew in the front of an airliner have not read what is being suggested.
Hey John, I have just gone back to the original post and had a re-read of the article to make sure I haven't misunderstood what is being suggested. The first paragraph is
The pilotless airliner is no longer unthinkable. It is just a matter of time before airliners have one pilot, and soon after that they will have none.
My understanding is that we are discussing how long it will be until there are no pilots in the flight deck, just automated machinery controlling the flight. Can you point out where I am wrong there as I genuinely want to know if I am.
With that in mind, my question stands, how would the pilotless aircraft manage the fuel contamination situation where one engine is at 76% and the other at idle and there is no way of knowing if either will remain at those settings.
The silence has been quite deafening.
Once we have determined how the pilotless aircraft would have dealt with that situation I would like to hear how it would deal with this situation which occurred in 2012 to an Air France aircraft:
About 10 minutes after crossing latitude S12.5 the captain, pilot flying, switched his navigation display to 160nm, the weather radar scanning around a center tilt angle of -1.5 degrees, the aircraft moved in clear skies with view of stars, no returns on the weather radar. Dar es Salaam center queried whether the aircraft could climb to FL380, the crew declined due insufficient margin to the maximum cruise level possible. The aircraft was on autopilot and autothrust, LNAV, ALT and SPEED modes active. Another 6 minutes later the cruise speed 0.81 mach suddenly starts to increase, the captain reduces the ND range to 80nm, the crew notices a flash and a cloud to the right of the aircraft, but still no return on the weather radar. When the speed increased through 0.83 mach the crew selected 0.78 mach into the speed window and extends the speed brakes for about 15 seconds, the speed reduces to 0.79 mach but increased to 0.82 mach again. Another flash is observed immediately followed by severe turbulence, the "fasten seat belt" signs automatically illuminate and the autopilot trips off, the aircraft climbs sharply despite the captain issuing nose down inputs. An attempt to re-engage the autopilot results in immediate disconnection of the autopilot, autothrust automatically disconnected just prior to the first officer disengaging the autothrust system. The captain manages to level the aircraft off at FL380, then descends the aircraft back to the cleared flight level 360. The automation was reconnected and the flight continued to destination without further incident and landed safely in Paris. However, a passenger and a flight attendant had received minor injuries in the turbulence encounter.
The tricky bit in my opinion, for the pilotless aircraft is that the weather radar struggles to pick up returns from ice crystals.