Rethinking the role of Human Pilots.

[unmanned transport]

Technology is great, but oddly enough, technical innovations designed to make life easier for pilots WILL ultimately render them obselete. But, when is the question?

Remember when aircraft carried radio operators and navigators?
Or more recently, flight engineers? Boxes have replaced these people and while it's easy to rationalize that none of this group actually flew the aircraft, new technology will send pilots down the same path to obsolescence. Pilots have nobody to blame but themselves, since they are the ones who, in an apparent misguided desire to make flying safer and easier, pushed the research forward. Flight instruments, navaids, autopilots, GPS, integrated avionics, enhanced vision, synthetic vision, autolandings, all of these innovations are pushing pilots from their traditional functions into the role of Systems Monitors.

As such, it should be no surprise that these Systems Monitors will one day evolve into remote observers. That day is now. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) such as Global Hawk, have shown that, for many applications, it is unnecessary to have a human 'up front' while an aircraft is flying. Armed with precision-guided weapons, these deadly drones will one day do our fighting for us. Fifty years ago, who would have believed that aircraft weighing almost a million pounds would be landed without pilots touching the controls? Such landings happen now in the form of Cat 111/autothrottle operations at various airports throughout the world.

It's all about economics. As pilot's pay rises there will be continuing pressure to achieve greater productivity.

Technology has got us this far and will no doubt continue to provide both steady progress and giant leaps into aviation's future.

[Yarpy]

I would defy any computer to solve some of the complex operational problems airline crews face.

Sort this one out:

Your aircraft has a bomb on board. You divert to the nearest suitable airport. This happens to be in a country which does not welcome your problem at any cost. You try negotiating with the diversion airport for landing rights. These are refused. However, having no other option, you declare an emergency and continue for a landing. On short finals the airport authority (at night) switch off all the landing aids.

What do you do next?

I would defy any computer to resolve this type of problem. Equally, it would be highly innapropriate to give this kind of responsibility to one individual particularly if they were office based thousands of miles away.

As regards pay, in comparison to inflation, my wages have departed in a downward trend.

The single pilot 'thing' is a fanciful idea given to people who have no actual experience of operating airliners.

[LGS6753]

Trains run on fixed tracks; there is little discretion allowed to the driver, except perhaps speed. But still there's a little feller in a hat up front on most trains.
So, pilots aren't dead yet.

[unmanned transport]

Trains are operating throughout some of our world's cities now without drivers on board.

Planning is currently underway in the USA to allow UAVs to operate in controlled airspace.

Please check out Global Hawk on the net.
It's similar in external dimensions (wingspan) to a B737 and succesfully flew from California to Australia and returned with it's flight profile fully automated and also without crew on board.

The 'Soviet Union' successfully flew the Buran Shuttle for several orbits without crew. At one time the USA were thinking of flying the Shuttle without crew. It's highly probable that the next generation of reusable launch vehicles will be unmanned.

The elimination of pilots (human factors) from the front of the craft will increase safety. Also a great weight savings as cockpits weigh quite a lot.

Unmanned transport aircraft will be in the future of aviation.

[redsnail]

Can't see unmanned craft flying passengers around in my generation. The public's perception of computers is what they see at home. That isn't very reliable is it? So it will be a long time before people will happily get into an aircraft that has no humans up the front.

I believe that craft that visited Australia had crew in it. "Just in case"...
What statistics don't sure is how often humans, whether they be aircraft engineers, ATCO's or pilots actually save the day. Reason why there's not as many stats compared to human failure is because there hasn't been an accident/incident.

I am sure it will happen. Just not for a loooooooong time.

[unmanned transport]

That craft (GlobalHawk) that visited Australia is unmanned and without a cockpit.

Take a look at it on the net.

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/global/

[redsnail]

Fair enough, I heard incorrectly.

[spud]

I suspect that pax will always find some comfort in the fact that the person controlling the aircraft will be in the crash with them rather than playing a computer game on the ground.

[unmanned transport]

What will the next 100 years bring in aviation?

Oh how I wish we could all come back and take a peek.

[Pirate]

Back in the 1970s I was talking to one of the design team working on what was to become the Tornado ground-attack aeroplane. He told me that the aircraft would be very special because, for the first time, the science of aerodynamics was fully understood. Twenty years later I attended a seminar on aerodynamics, the thrust of which was that turbulent flow, an essential factor in this field, had been found to be non-linear. In other words it could not be mathematically modelled.

To me, this means that a computer cannot be programmed to cope with every possible variation of the air in which we fly. The unexpected still needs the intuitive capacity of the human mind occasionally.

It may be technically possible to certify a pilotless airliner in my lifetime but I, for one, will not be getting on board. I suspect that I will not be alone in this prejudice.

In military terms, have any of the robotics boffins considered how much fun a fighter pilot would have in a sky full of UAVs?

confundemus

[unmanned transport]

>It may be technically possible to certify a pilotless airliner in my lifetime but I, for one, will not be getting on board. I suspect that I will not be alone in this prejudice<.

I would say that we are not many years away in being able to certify an unmanned craft capable of carrying freight or people. Technology will keep moving on.

There are naysayers among us that live in the past or dwell in the present who will be reluctant to step on board, but our great industry needs futuristic thinking people to make things happen.
(I bet Wilbur and Orville had many naysayers around when they were trying to venture aloft).

>In military terms, have any of the robotics boffins considered how much fun a fighter pilot would have in a sky full of UAVs?<

Manned fighters will not be mixing with UAVs as 'G' loading will limit them as well as other variables.

The more that human factors can be removed both in the manufacturing and operation of the machine, then safety will increase. Planetary travel in the next 50 years is bound to change.

[Jerricho]

The day the following phrases are no longer part of society will be the end of pilots and ATC

"What the hell is that?"

"What's it doing know?"

and

"WHAT THE F*CK IS IT DOING NOW?"

[Pirate]

Unmanned Transport

There is a lot of truth in what you say, but I suggest that you are discounting the downside because it does not support your argument. An earlier post quoted unmanned trains as an indicator, which is not a valid comparison since trains have very limited freedom of movement and effective control in only one plane. A more realistic comparator would be a ship. The technology exists to have a crewless freighter or tanker but I have yet to see one. If and when the technology can be proved on the sea we may have to take a look at aircraft, but not before.

I suspect that the major aeroplane manufacturers will have projects somewhere for unmanned freighters, the obvious first sector for unmanned transport flight but the litigation aspects of the first crash will prevent them from moving off the drawing board.

With regard to fighter versus UAV, I have to presume that you have never been a fighter pilot. A competent jock in an agile fighter would be like a fox in a chicken run in these circumstances.

confundemus

[unmanned transport]

>I suspect that the major aeroplane manufacturers will have >projects somewhere for unmanned freighters, the obvious first >sector for unmanned transport flight but the litigation aspects of >the first crash will prevent them from moving off the drawing >board.

>With regard to fighter versus UAV, I have to presume that you >have never been a fighter pilot. A competent jock in an agile >fighter would be like a fox in a chicken run in these circumstances.<

Correct my friend, I'm not a fighter jock, just a jock enjoying my Cessna when I feel like it which is usually every week.

What a hoot that would be, a manned F22 dodging a swarm of UAVs:).

Technology keeps moving on and I suppose one could call it progress for mankind. It will be mighty interesting over the next 50 years. All the best to you guys over there.

[unwiseowl]

"Technology keeps moving on"

Well somebody should tell Cessna that :)

[unmanned transport]

Cessna are slowly waking up and are adopting some of Cirrus's ideas with regards to the dash. It's about time they did so.

[Yarpy]

unmanned transport, How could you programme an unmanned airliner to use intuition, flexibility, judgement and tactical thinking in a procedural air traffic environment?

[Divergent Phugoid!]

U T

Couple of questions for you...

What happens when you have a medical emergency on board requiring diversion to the nearest airfield? Who do the Flight crew talk to to arrange this??

How long will it take to get a decision to divert??

Who is in a better position to assess the situation? The captain or F/O onboard who can see and assess the casualty or a Civillian empoloyee of Ambitious Arilines sitting at his desk in his nice warm cosy office who may not appreciate the level of the emergency?

In the case of a dire emergency where control is lost or severely restricted/limited, or engine, Hyd, airframe failure, severe loss of fuel, etc who would be in a better position to try and get the Aircraft, passengers and crew on the ground safely with minimal injury or loss of life being paramount in their actions. The qualified flight crew whose butts are on the line and are experiencing the danger first hand or the spotty youth who may be flying a big airliner, full of little pink bodies, via remote control, as if he were on a MS Flight Sim game? After all if he gets it wrong he wont lose his life will he...

If ATC goes down or you have a stray vehicle on the active or in the event of a host of other everyday situations, who will be in a better position to make a decision at that instant as to what action to take to avoid a potential disaster??

I can not see that the un-piloted Aircraft you describe could be adopted until positive credible answers have been given to my questions to you.

There are a lot of ifs here in my post. After all, there are a lot more butts at risk!!

I think some of what you say does make sence, but I am afraid I will opt to stay in the present day and not fly in one of these unpiloted Aircraft.


:ok: :ok:

[Blackshift]

It's all about facts and values.

Insofar as aviation provides an objectively regulated and fact-based means of transporting or being transported from A to B, one might consider such procedures ripe for encapsulation in algorithms designed to automate air crew/ATC responsibilities.

However, just as a chess computer cannot experience the joy of trouncing a foe, or the heart-sinking knowledge of defeat, and can therefore only ever replicate the appearance of understanding chess, such human responsibilities cannot be fully understood by any concievable system of Artificial Intelligence.

When such a system were to come up against a problem which exceeded its design limitations, as surely it would (unless the programmers were omniscient!), human intervention would be paramount. The physical presence of a skilled human operator - armed not only with reason, but also human experience, imagination and empathy - might then save an aircraft from what might otherwise be its impending mindless doom.

Even in a no-win situation, we are all aware of the tabloid cliche of the pilot of a stricken aircraft struggling to avoid a village school during his final moments. However, such things do happen.

I am not a religious man, but with such ludicrous idolatry of Artificial Intelligence we diminish ourselves and tempt fate.

[Standard Noise]

If it does happen, you can guarantee that some joker in the IT dept will install the phrases "Radar, what number are we in the sequence?" , "Can we route direct to....?" and "If we keep high speed, can we be number one?" into the computer.

:D :D

[unmanned transport]

Thankfully we did not have some of you people working for us on our NASA Mars program. We would have never left the ground!!

START DREAMING BIG IDEAS, GUYS.

[redsnail]

Unmanned Transport,
I am a bit puzzled with your atitude. On this thread you are saying that pilots are going to be redundant and get used to it. However, on this thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113888) you are saying that pilots who can fly with the least amount of restriction and interference are the lucky ones. Just which side do you want to be on? The pilots or the IT engineers trying to eliminate us?
A shot to Mars is one thing, just how many passengers were they carrying? If seeing images on tv was the be all and end all, why do we bother going on holidays?

[Blackshift]

"START DREAMING BIG IDEAS, GUYS."

unmanned transport,

The point is that we CAN, whereas any given box of IT tricks most definitely CAN'T.

This is even sometimes refered to as "thinking outside of the box" precisely because it involves our ability to transcend the limitations of any governing set of principles we may be operating within.

"Where there is uncertainty there is opportunity" - Confucious.

Given the opportunity we CAN override such a system when it no longer achieves our desired objectives - a question of value to which only humans can appropriately respond in the face of a potential infinity of contingencies which system designers cannot reasonably have been expected to anticipate.

As I have previously argued, in aviation the value of having this opportunity within the operational environment (i.e. not simply remote supervision) is inestimable. As for the cheap shot about not having "you people" involved in the NASA Mars program, well that is simply facile and insulting - remember Apollo 13?

To be honest, the innapropriate tone and content of your previous post leads me to suspect that this is little more than a wind-up and/or you have a lamentably low attention threshold.

I will be making no further responses to your posts unless you are prepared make some reasonable attempt to deal with the objections that I and others have made to your proposition.

[Blackshift]

C'mon, Deep Blue would be ashamed of you!

[Pirate]

The Mars analogy is quite useful. A robot probe can be programmed to do any number of tasks envisioned by its constructors. However, what happens if, whilst it is trundling around the red planet, it comes across something totally out of human perception? An astronaut could probably handle the situation with intuitive or counter-intuitive thinking. The machine could not.

Not sure how rostering will handle the Mars mission - two six months long sectors with a 500+ day layover for the next departure window. Crew food could be a problem too.

confundemus

[Divergent Phugoid!]

UT...

Can you give us all an update as to what is happening with the Beagle space craft??

Didnt think so... it seems the computer couldn't work out something was wrong and then try to rectify the problem, like the basics of timing the radio signals... I suspect a manned craft would have had the pilot doing everything in his power to make contact. After all it would have meant that human lives were at risk at the controls...

Think thats what's called a check mate!!



:ok: :ok: :ok:

[Blackshift]

Like the spirit rover on Mars, it looks like ut has reverted to "safe mode" for the time being.

Although it is sensible to automate such initial exploratory missions - primarily due to the to the risk and cost involved - they nevertheless illustrate how terrestial unmanned transport would be burdened with the unnecessary additional risk of "impending mindless doom".

...of course Deep Blue can't be ashamed of anything, that's part of the problem.