Originally Posted by
sleeper
With the commercial fleet as it is now, impossible.
Pilots still have to make several manipulations to make autoland possible. It is not just switching it on. Furthermore, all gear and flapsselections are still manual in todays aircraft. It would take a major refurbishment of all existing aircraft to make it possible.
Now for future aircraft? Who knows.
For O'Leary's ideas to be accepted, by definition the aircraft would need to be capable of totally autonomous operations should the single pilot become incapacitated. This is effectively what he is saying; the aircraft is acting as a second pilot. So it has to be accepted that the second pilot would take over should anything happen to the captain.
Of course that is the wedge where the next question from the beancounters is: why do we need a captain as the automation can do everything?
