The Public Perception of Modern Pilots

[Laker]

Some pretty shocking statements in this thread. The public ignorance of our profession is depressing. Sounds like the majority of the posters think modern airline pilots merely taxi out for takeoff and taxi back to the gate after landing. According to these guys everything else is entirely automated. We need to launch a PR campaign...lol


Are airline pilots obsolete? Yes. (http://www.volconvo.com/forums/science-technology/38778-airline-pilots-obsolete-yes.html)

[tubby linton]

Perhaps the author needs to ask every pilot who has landed on the standby runway at LGW this year about their use of automation.

[Torque Tonight]

This kind of drivel is barely worth responding to as those who write it are unlikely to listen to any counter arguments that oppose their own uninformed opinion. The public have a hugely inaccurate opinion of the job, (thinking it is glamorous, rich, easy and all done by computers), but when something goes wrong they like to know that there is a human pilot on board with a vested interest in staying alive. I barely trust automated tube trains - no way would I trust an unpiloted airliner.

[Gemini Twin]

Mike has already called his insurance carrier to see what coverage
he could get if he dumped the cockpit crew. Answer, None...ever!

[Cymmon]

As SLF I know that pilots just dress nice, press a few buttons and the aircraft flies itself to the destination.
All the pilot has to do is have a cup of tea, a meal, chat up the cabin attendant and read the paper.;)

No, they take highly sophisticated, technologically advanced machines into high altitude, are ready for any eventuality, good, bad and down right scary. They read charts, fly by hand, know TOD and all other abbrieviations that I wouldn't have a clue about. Sometimes they are even allowed outside the cockpit for a toilet break or a sleep on long range missions.

All praise to them, I love flying, I read alot of aircraft and airline (even technical books) books, but wouldn't have a clue. It is a very specialist occupation.

Thanks for all the pilots who have safely since 1981 got me to my destinations. Got 18 flights in this year, next April heading back to Manila on Qatar from Manchester. Again, If the pilot is happy to take his/her machine skyward, I'm happy to go with them and with FULL respect.

SLF signing out.

[PENKO]

I liked the proof of concept idea on that forum, where it was suggested to race a computerized formula 1 car against cars driven by humans. With of course the author of that thread sitting with his hands tide up in the computerized car :E

[mike-wsm]

I used to think that all pilots are upper-class, civilised, responsible, degree-educated, highly trained professionals.

Reading pprune may have altered my opinion.

[Basil]

I used to think that all pilots are upper-class, civilised, responsible, degree-educated, highly trained professionals.
Why would one think that pilots should be 'upper-class' or hold a degree?

[Ancient Mariner]

I suppose Joe Public's understanding of your profession equals the average Pilot's understanding of a Maritime Captain's or Chief Engineer's profession
Why are you so surprised?
Per

[Huck]

Why would one think that pilots should be 'upper-class' or hold a degree?

Because it's airplanes. Not cement trucks.

My aircraft cost my company 200 million U.S. It carries maybe 10 mil in cargo. We fly with negligible supervision to all corners of the earth. What's the market value to pay someone for that amount of responsibility?

[Perwazee]

Contrary to popular belief, being and airline pilot is a Blue Color job!

Besides, you do NOT need a college degree! Heck, you do not even need High School graduation. If you can drive a car, you can become an airline pilot. I even know someone who doesn’t even drive a car and she’s an airline pilot for a major airline in Europe.

Not that educated/smart people don’t make living as Commercial Pilots, but you truly do not need college education and degrees...like the ones required if you want to be a doctor, dentist, engineer, or a lawyer. Now, these are truly ‘White Color’ jobs!

[SR71]

They may not need a college degree, but I'd be surprised if many didn't have one.

Of the 16 letters I'm entitled to put after my name, PhD are 3 of them.

:ok:

[Perwazee]

Should be:
Ph.D.

[His dudeness]

Because it's airplanes. Not cement trucks.

I fly for a Cement company....

[mixture]

Laker,

Awwww diddums...

Wonder over to FlyerTalk and you'll find people on there who will gushingly congratulate you on achieving a decent landing in 00000KT CAVOK Q1012 NOSIG conditions.

[fmgc]

I Captain a 220 seat airliner all over Europe. I passed my ATPL exams and flights tests all first time. I pass all my sim checks with good marks.

I am middle class, failed all my A levels and have no degree.

I know of many Captains with similar backgrounds to me and I know many with very different backgrounds to me. It is impossible to to pigeon hole pilots in a way that a previous poster suggests.

The posters on the forum that this thread links to are ignorant. They have their facts wrong.

I do, however, think that we will have pilotless jetliners in the future, but it is a long way off for now, there is far too much regulation and technical issues to overcome first.

[ChocksAwayChaps]

SLF here.
I don't care whether the bloke / chapess at the business end has a degree or not or A levels but I do care that he/she is rigorously tested on the ability to fly the machine.
I also like to see some grey hair. Have been known to ask the bloke in the left hand seat if the bloke on the right is on work experience from school. That went down well.:}

BTW, it's blue collar and white collar not 'color'

[fmgc]

Have been known to ask the bloke in the left hand seat if the bloke on the right is on work experience from school.

We do love those smart arse questions from visiting pax!! :ugh:

[mixture]

I also like to see some grey hair. Have been known to ask the bloke in the left hand seat if the bloke on the right is on work experience from school. That went down well

Hmm ... that must have gone down particularly well with any P2F graduates. :ugh:

[tsgas]

Pilotless airplanes will begin with the military then move on to aerial surveillance then cargo planes and eventually pax airliners. The speed of change is all a matter of dollars and cents. Backward unions like that at IB just help speed up the rate of change.

[dwshimoda]

...So would YOU get on a pilotless aircraft?

I think we're here to stay for a while... DW.

(PS have you seen the attrition rate on drones?)

[Pipersupercub]

To Perwazee, yeah, you're right, it should be written " Ph.D" ...
And it's " white collar" job, not "white color".

I rest my case.

Rick

[mixture]

The speed of change is all a matter of dollars and cents. Backward unions like that at IB just help speed up the rate of change.

Its easy to forget that the reason the military deploy UAVs is because they have to overfly somewhat hostile territories. Therefore they need to have the ability to hit the self-destruct button (I assume some of the more hush-hush models have that feature) or not worry about one falling into enemy hands (sure the enemy has a nice new expensive toy plane to play with .... but at least they don't have a pilot to torture or kill).

Until Boeing and Airbus can guarantee that incidents such as BA38, AF447, QF32 etc. will never occur (i.e. no such guarantee will be forthcoming from any non-suicidal manufacturer), then the regulators will, in all likelyhood, never allow unmanned civil flight to occur..... it is afterall, always going to be cheaper to pay for a couple of people to sit in the pointy end than it is to deal with the repercussions of killing hundreds (whether those hundreds are onboard or on the ground) when CFIT - or, more likely UFIT - occurs because the electronics have decided they've had enough.

[tsgas]

Embraer is already working on a single pilot airliner design . The military are looking at pilotless fighter aircraft because of the ever increasing G loads. Cargo carriers like the concept since autopliots don't suffer from sleep deprivation.
No one in the 60's foresaw flying over the oceans with less then a crew of 3 pilots and a 4 engined airliner. "The only constant is constant change".

[Agaricus bisporus]

Public perception of pilots

Likely to be at a similar level as "public perception" itself isn't it? ie, an oxymoron.
No, on second thoughts that's over stating the case. Just a Moron.

So why is this thread so long? Nothing to see here. Move along please.

[OK465]

At least they're not claiming that pilots are 'overpaid, womanizing, hard partying, fast living, stick and rudder skygods'....

Those days are gone. :{

[PURPLE PITOT]

Speak for yourself!

[Yankee Whisky]

I am of the old flying school and find it inconceivable that we should agree to pilotless aircraft flying a load of passengers.

I, for one, would not feel safe in such an aircraft and ,mainly, for the simple reason that there is no-one up front who will use his/her brain to step in when the electronic gizmos pack it in or some other failure occurs !

I don't understand why anyone would question the public's ignorance of what exactly is the pilot's job and responsibility. The public is ignorant about a lot more including the law !

It is up to airlines and pilot associations to enlighten the public and, maybe, some of this knowledge will stick !!!!!:O:O

[Uncle Fred]

Well chaps I do not think we are quite there yet...

Drone crashes mount at civilian airports overseas - The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-crashes-mount-at-civilian-airports-overseas/2012/11/30/e75a13e4-3a39-11e2-83f9-fb7ac9b29fad_story.html)

I know that many have lives that for some odd reason are centered around the discussion of diminishing ours as pilots, but I don't think we have been sent off yet.

[Wunwing]

We can postulate forever onthe technical side but the moment an aircraft starts to cross multi countries the real long term issue is diplomatic and security with insurance implications for both.

Forget the 5 freedoms of the air, would your country (say UK) let an VH registered aircraft controlled from Sydney in its airspace. Maybe it would but how about from XYZ.Maybe we move on to 10th freedoms?

So we have a problem if each country takes controll of the aircraft as it enters their airspace as we mainly do now with ATC, how do we prevent a highjack or some kind of political argy bargy?

Is say Australia, happy to let a M.E. country controll its VH registered aircraft over their ME territory?

These are the real questions before pilotless aircraft are acceptable.
Wunwing

[blind pew]

Will never happen as the ability to blame pilots for poor construction and maintanence will have disappeared.
And who would sh@g the hosties?

[wiggy]

Wunwing - Interesting point.

Taking that back a step to a more "micro" level would a company be willing to temporarily hand over unfettered control of one of it's multi,multi million pounds assets to a controller working for another company sitting in another part of the world?

[bigdaviet]

Contrary to popular belief, being and airline pilot is a Blue Color job!

Besides, you do NOT need a college degree! Heck, you do not even need High School graduation. If you can drive a car, you can become an airline pilot. I even know someone who doesn’t even drive a car and she’s an airline pilot for a major airline in Europe.

Not that educated/smart people don’t make living as Commercial Pilots, but you truly do not need college education and degrees...like the ones required if you want to be a doctor, dentist, engineer, or a lawyer. Now, these are truly ‘White Color’ jobs!

Perwazee, I suspect you are on the wind up here!

But to answer your point seriously, I have a degree and many of my colleagues do.

Do I believe that my colleagues who don't have a degree would be capable of getting one if desired? Most Certainly Yes and imo your post insults them.

As for High School qualifications, I know a few people who tried to do their ATPL pilot exams with no A level (or equivalent,) in Maths/Physics etc and they struggled big time.

[bigdaviet]

If we ever reach a point where pilotless aircraft are a possibility for commercial airlines, the resultant debate will highlight to the public just how important it is to have a qualified pilot in the cockpit.

It will happen in the distant future perhaps but certainly not in our lifetimes.

[Jonty]

They are more likely to invent teleportation first.

[wheelie my boeing]

I can see it happening in the very distant future but agreed, not in our lifetimes. It would probably initially be a cruise relief type autopilot where the pilot can take his rest legally (I would assume in the cockpit) but would almost always be impossible until modern aircraft can fly higher than bad weather. An autopilot cannot visually determine how bad a cell is, it could do so based on a much more advanced weather radar than the one we currently have. Not to mention the weather radars that don't even paint bad weather (ref Air Transat 906 in 2001)...
Report: Air Transat L101 near Lyon on Jul 6th 2001, hail encounter (http://avherald.com/h?article=42fca893&opt=0)

[JammedStab]

They may not need a college degree, but I'd be surprised if many didn't have one.

Of the 16 letters I'm entitled to put after my name, PhD are 3 of them.

:ok:

No college degree....fly the queen of the skies. Flew for four years instead as extra education. Learned a lot.

I'm entitled to put Jr. after my name.

Suspect a major overhaul of many ATC units will be required as well before the inevitable happens.

[911slf]

AF447 is a good example of what happens if no (adequately functioning) humans are in the loop.

Anyone wish to speculate about how many more such events there would have been if standards of piloting were universally that low?

[bavarian-buddy]

At the end it all comes down to money. What is cheaper?
A completely new developed fully automatic airliner with completely new ATC infrastructure, new airspace strucutre, new global laws and regulations, new procedures, new airport infrastructure, ground guidance etc...
Ooooooor taking a good old 737 and put in 2 desperate pilots who paid for their typerating and linetraining and together earn less that 100k bucks a year. Well, the answer is quite simple :E
It's not only a new plane, you have to change the whole system, and thats just too expensive for airlines.

[Gordomac]

Midway across the pond, glory days of allowing pax visits, lovely old boy, train driver who insisted on being called 'Driver West', sat on the middle seat , said nothing for about ten minutes & then proclaimed; " Well, Captain, I don't think you deserve the money you get " ! His reasoning was that he drove a high speed train from somewhere north of the Thames to Euston with thousands of punters in the back. I, had only 228 pax & seemed to be doing nothing ! I replied, "Well, Driver West, at the moment, we are five miles above the planet earth, We are doing eight miles a minute and If anything goes wrong...............we can't stop ". He went a funny colour, grimaced, said; "F - - - K" & disappeared out of the Flight Deck.

Oh, can't resist one last before being entertained by a tribute band at the Corfu Tavern; As a lowly First Officer on Northeast Viscounts outa Leeds, I sat, blissfully unaware of FD visits. I did catch, out of one corner, a splendid Yorkshire biddie who cuddled up to the Captain, Timber Wood, & uttered "Ooooooh, you must be dead clever to do this job !". He motioned towards me & said" Oh I dunno, look at him !".

Now, did I tell any of you lot how I got into flying ?..Aaaaaaaah !

[Livesinafield]

err..Judging by the way it is written it appears to be a "bit of a laugh" and not very serious

[Hurkemmer]

pilotless aircraft with PAX?? Never.

Firstly, the chances of hijacking nav signals are all too real, despite major denial efforts:

Navy: No U.S. drones missing after Iran claim (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/12/04/iran-claims-capture-of-us-drone/1744783/)

Second, it would be inhumane to try and get certifications, approvals, legislation changes in multiple jurisdictions, treaties revised let alone figure out how to bloody wel get it done technically.

Third, many airlines have senior captains as members of management and even shareholders, they wouldn't vote for redundancy for sure..

But probably the most important aspect is that no airline will want to be the first to introduce the Boeingbus Aerodrone pilotless airliner simply because people will be wary of it and fly with the human-controlled competition.. I know I would...

we will be using star-trek teleportation before we fly pilotless airlines...

[HeadingSouth]

...from an up-to-date Job Offer for a Pilot:


Your challenge



Safe and economical piloting of a commercial airliner
Flight preparation and execution according to jurisdiction
Cooperation with ground personnel and tower personnel
Responsible for crew and passengers



Sorry but I just liked that job description :-)

[Wirbelsturm]

As usual we are the victims of our own success.

When the $hit hits the fan we, as professionals, pride ourselves with just getting on with it, dealing with the problem, however complex it may be, and getting the aircraft down safely.

If the passengers don't notice then we feel we have done our jobs correctly!

I have had malfunctions in aircraft which, if unchecked, would have resulted in departure from controlled flight. For those of us trained to deal with such scenarios it is 'hum drum' and a normal day at the office.

I'm sure none of the companies which employ us would appreciate us coming on to the tannoy and declaring:

'hello ladies and gentlemen, just to let you know we have suffered a hydraulics systems failure, the autopilot has dropped out and we are flying on standby spoilers and flight controls. There is no autoland facility any more and the stabaliser at the rear is no longer controllable. The flight control computers have degraded and will no longer give pitch feedback in the flare and are unable to compensate for the flap loading of the wing. Might be a bump on landing as only half of the systems in the cockpit are working correctly. Enjoy your flight.'

An actual failure in an Airbus that the passengers didn't even notice with a direct law landing at the end of it.

Automation? Ask anyone who's had to put up with the mess that is the Airbus fly by wire system what they think of automation. Yes it will probably come but not for many, many years in the public transport sector.

[funfly]

Of course it's interesting that 'piloting' is not a subject that is normally available to someone coming from school and seeking university training. Apart from RAF and some sponsored trainees, there are many commercial pilots who have had to fund their own training right from a GA start and it's not a cheap career option. It is possible that to become a commercial pilot might be the most expensive job training choice around.

[Huck]

I'm not so sure about single-pilot ops, even.

I've seen the Other Guy catch too many mistakes.

Autopilots have horrible CRM......

[SLFandProud]

Taking that back a step to a more "micro" level would a company be willing to temporarily hand over unfettered control of one of it's multi,multi million pounds assets to a controller working for another company sitting in another part of the world?
Funnily enough I was pondering this only yesterday.

It seems to me that companies already do, to a certain extent - ATC are a fairly vital part of the safety chain, so right now another company (NATS) in another part of the world is a large part of the control of many overseas airlines' assets.

It seems to me a logical way to organise pilotless aircraft would be simply to give Air Traffic Control even more Control. I.e. the ground-based pilots tasked with intervening in an emergency that the automatics can't handle would work for and alongside ATC for that airspace. (The question of who does the job in uncontrolled airspace is left as an exercise for the reader.)


Do I think it's likely, in my lifetime? Not really. But it's certainly possible. Precedent effectively exists in realms such as the railways, where the infrastructure/signalling/automatic train operation (where relevant) etc. are operated by different companies to the actual train operators - so I don't see organisational issues as insurmountable.

(Not advocating that approach incidentally, merely throwing it out there as one possible way things could be organised.)

[wiggy]

ATC are a fairly vital part of the safety chain, so right now another company (NATS) in another part of the world is a large part of the control of many overseas airlines assets.

Depends what you mean ultimately by control. At the moment the airline has two of their own employees on the Flight Deck of said asset and they in turn have the option of accepting any revised clearances ATC care to issue..or not ( even if the mighty data link is used by ATC to pass a reroute up to the FMC the "execute" button still needs a press..ooooh, the power!!!!!:ooh:). Given ATC's peformance in some parts of the world :eek: I rather suspect the airlines would be very reluctant to lose that power of veto.

I.e. the ground-based pilots tasked with intervening in an emergency that the automatics can't handle would work for and alongside ATC for that airspace.

IMHO that would rely on 100% comms reliability and if you move away from "flight following", with the "pilot" in company HQ simply available in case of a hopefully rare emergency or the need to liase with ATC, and move more into the realms of having the "pilot" in company HQ monitoring every clearance I suspect it would simply be cheaper to put the pilot, or even pilots, back on the aircraft.

[SLFandProud]

Depends what you mean ultimately by control. At the moment the airline has two of their own employees on the Flight Deck of said asset and they in turn have the option of accepting any revised clearances ATC care to issue..or not ( even if the mighty data link is used by ATC to pass a reroute up to the FMC the "execute" button still needs a press..ooooh, the power!!!!!). Given ATC's peformance in some parts of the world I rather suspect the airlines would be very reluctant to lose that power of veto.
I was careful not to use the word ultimate control ;-). Point very much taken on quality of ATC - but that's a reality of today, rather than something to necessarily rule out a hypothetical future.

Of course there is at least one large major economy with a single Aviation Authority controlling things, an extensive domestic aviation system, and a particularly rapacious devotion to capitalism and cost cutting: it's not beyond the bounds of reason to suspect full automation would apply to only domestic services in the first instance, say.
Relies on 100% comms reliability and if you move away from "flight following", with the "pilot" in company HQ simply available in case of a hopefully rare emergency and into the realms of having the "pilot" in company HQ monitoring every clearance I suspect it would simply be cheaper to put the pilot back on the aircraft.
My understanding of the BAE tests recently being conducted was that the aircraft would largely fly itself in all but the most extreme of emergency situations, rather than each plane having a pilot on the ground dedicated to it as per current drone operations.

If that is indeed the case, I would not expect a 1-to-1 mapping of pilots to planes; I would expect many more planes than pilots on the ground. The number of pilots required would depend on the density of aircraft in any particular sector of airspace and the probability of incidents requiring their involvement (which is another good reason why the pilot resources may be more cost effectively allocated to ATC regions rather than airlines.)

[wiggy]

If that is indeed the case, I would not expect a 1-to-1 mapping of pilots to planes;

Interesting idea - I can see that idea possibly working on, say, the North Atlantic Tracks on a good day with serviceable aircraft, passengers and cabin crew :rolleyes:, but I'd be interested to understand how a lack of 1 to 1 mapping would work out in the even of sudden closure of large chunks of airspace for weather reasons ( happens over the States in Summer on a regular basis most years putting a very high work load on all controllers and all crews) or the even more extreme, and hopefully never to be repeated, scenario - 9/11, where "our" airline had aircraft either being told to land somewhere suitable ASAP "your choice but don't come here", being forcibly told to go to airports they couldn't land for performance reasons (they didn't), or being simply told, regardless of fuel, to turn back as they were approaching an ATC Oceanic Boundary?? I know many people were very grateful for 2-on-1 mapping that day and personally I doubt less than 1-on-1 would cope for 100% of aircraft in the time and with the fuel available.

I'd be interested to see if the authorities would be prepared write that off as a less than a 10 to the 9 event, agree to reduced mapping and suck up the casualties if it or similar happened again, or would they demand at least 1-on-1?

[b263354]

as with all things, things change over time.

In the past a pilot was ahead of an aircraft, at this point it is becoming lagging the aircraft in general. Aircraft have become so sophisticated that to truly understand them, one does need in the equivalent of an additional engineers degree with an IT accompanying the 1! time ATPL exam. AF447 as a recent example, or Quantas Flight 32 where it DID go right, but probably WOULD have gone wrong without SO MUCH brain power on the flight deck plus auto calculation done by computers. (5 pilots, of who many seniors/ check ride officers etc)

It's just a fact that with todays complexity, an airline pilot needs to do an updated ATPL exam EVERY year just to stay on par with all that change, with ever rapid and new developments and technology. The flight envelope becoming ever more boxed in, and errors if they occur often times so complex that a human can now barely cope with them and with how fast things can escalate.

In the past Pilots had a very strong lobby, but that will change too as it is already. The pay WILL go down, workload WILL go up, until it is unsafe to the absurd level at which there will be so much economical pressure that indeed pilots will be made overredundant, and will be replaced by full fledged university graduates in the field of aerospace for instance. Nothing less will do. The term pilots will fade from history, and officers of a "high pedigree" will start to controle the aircraft. Be it if they will do it from the ground ("managing" more than one aircraft at a time, thus having profit for the company offsetting their higher pay) or on board the real aircraft, time will tell. But some trains are already doing so...

In reason, it will be a tight cooperation between these individuals and a very complex and robust automated flight system. So yes, in a way pilots will become extinct, but no they will be replaced by a different type of evolution officer, who MIGHT stay on the ground and controle more than 1 aircraft for "profit" purposses. We all know aviation safety is about profitability offsetting safety too often.

What one sees now is just an economical hollowing out of the flight deck in that any "highschool" kid can jump in the seat with 100.000 to spare? and cling on for his/her life hoping to make it big time a.s.a.p. with the interest rate looming over him/her of the loan, hoping NOT to get caught up in the future ways of after having to study VERY hard but for a relative short time (a year or two?), having to continue to study hard for the rest of his/her career and really having no free time at all unless they have an aptitude for studying and really nosocial life, their work being everything and all for them, if they wish it to be or not...

[beamender99]

Pilot job ad...
...from an up-to-date Job Offer for a Pilot:
Your challengeSafe and economical piloting of a commercial airliner

Flight preparation and execution according to jurisdiction
Cooperation with ground personnel and tower personnel
Responsible for crew and passengers

Sorry but I just liked that job description :-)Interesting.
Some years ago when my son showed an interest in joining the sharp end we attended a presentation by BA.
To an over subscribed meeting, it went something like this.
BA " Hands up who here is wanting to be a pilot?"
A forest of hands!!!
BA " Sorry to disappoint you but we are not looking for pilots."
" What we are looking for is a potentially good manager. To manage a multi million £/$ investment in equipment, a team, spending the companies £/$ and of course ensuring our guest are totally happy etc. We will of course teach such a recruit to fly."



Talking to a BA senior FO at about that time. He regretted getting a BA degree at a good university as it had not enhance this career because he had always wanted to fly. What it had done was to loose him three years of seniority!

[Basil]

BA " Sorry to disappoint you but we are not looking for pilots."
" What we are looking for is a potentially good manager. To manage a multi million £/$ investment in equipment, a team, spending the companies £/$ and of course ensuring our guest are totally happy etc. We will of course teach such a recruit to fly."
Bit of a typically personnel comment. Yeah, I know it's "HR" now.
I flew for BA and also for another outfit whose primary requirement was that their captains could be trusted not to crash. They had it right. Safely flying the aircraft is much more important and demanding than learning a bit about company ethos and inter-personal relationships. In any case, by the time a first officer comes up for command he should have absorbed all the hotel management functions required of a pilot.

We'd the same thing in the RAF: "you're an officer first and a pilot second!" If you say so :rolleyes:

[SLFandProud]

Interesting idea - I can see that idea possibly working on, say, the North Atlantic Tracks on a good day with serviceable aircraft, passengers and cabin crew , but I'd be interested to understand how a lack of 1 to 1 mapping would work out in the even of sudden closure of large chunks of airspace for weather reasons ( happens over the States in Summer on a regular basis most years putting a very high work load on all controllers and all crews) or the even more extreme, and hopefully never to be repeated, scenario - 9/11, where "our" airline had aircraft either being told to land somewhere suitable ASAP "your choice but don't come here", being forcibly told to go to airports they couldn't land for performance reasons (they didn't), or being simply told, regardless of fuel, to turn back as they were approaching an ATC Oceanic Boundary?? I know many people were very grateful for 2-on-1 mapping that day and personally I doubt less than 1-on-1 would cope for 100% of aircraft in the time and with the fuel available.
First, I'd like to reiterate I'm not necessarily supporting the idea - I just think it's an interesting thought experiment.

But... The situations you describe in fact sound like exactly the kind of thing automation would make much easier to manage.

Algorithms already exist to solve routing problems in much more difficult problem scenarios than airspace (by 'more difficult' read 'more constrained.') Computers have been solving that sort of problem for decades; for an example you use every day - note that the Internet seamlessly and automatically re-routes data packets via alternate paths even when there is a massive failure in the middle of the network - much much more quickly than a blink of your eye, let alone the time it takes you to contact ATC, and in far more constrained and congested 'airspace.'

Of course, planes aren't packets - but from a fundamental algorithms point of view these are solved problems.

From an ATC point of view, having half your airspace do exactly what it's told simultaneously at the click of a button to route round the closed airport/weather system/whatever, gives them more time to manage the remaining planes with their unpredictable meat-based computers.

[slf4life]

In a world where cell calls drop from one room to another can you imagine convincing people that a remotely operated commercial aircraft is safe? The very ignorance that makes some believe that pilots do very little is the very ignorance that will make us wary of NO pilot on board.

Tech is one thing, public paradigm shift is generations away imho - probably will start on the ground with other modes of remotely/computer guided transport.

[Basil]

Quote:
Why would one think that pilots should be 'upper-class' or hold a degree?
Because it's airplanes. Not cement trucks.

Ah yes, there are 'degrees' and 'degrees'; perhaps that's why they're called 'degrees'.
Once upon a time, most British degrees comprised three to five year courses intended to qualify the holder to practise a particular profession. Other countries referred to less substantial studies as a 'degree'.
It therefore appeared that we, in the UK, were producing fewer graduates than other similar industrial nations so someone in government decided that we should also refer to lesser qualifications as 'degrees'.

Personally, I left school at the age of fifteen. When I joined the RAF, the educational requirement was 5 O-levels so I had to wait for the exam to come around to sit those; wasn't at all mind-bending. So, without a degree one could be a Royal Air Force officer and pilot and then transfer to airline flying for international majors.

Oh, yes, and I was a working class boy too - you could be in charge of a steam turbine engine room without a degree.

[SLFandProud]

The Victoria Line in London has been computer operated, without drivers, since the 1970s. (That bloke at the front who pretends to drive is only responsible for opening the doors on the correct side. Depressingly, they don't even get that right sometimes (see Rail Accident Investigation Branch reports passim.)

When the DLR opened without drivers at all, many were 'cautious' shall we say. Now nobody bats an eyelid.



Actually, the DLR is an interesting example of how airlines could go. There are in fact driving positions under the locked covers at the end of the train; in the event of catastrophic failure the passenger-service agent (conductor) can use these to drive the train.


There's no reason planes couldn't be the same. They could all have a qualified pilot on board for emergencies - it's just that most of the time they'd be occupied with serving the snacks.

[Alex757]

There will never be pilotless aircraft. Despite what public may think of pilots, them, and myself, would never step onboard without them!

[SLFandProud]

I would.

I offer this as proof that your statement is false.


In other news, the public would once have never stepped on board a vehicle moving faster than a horse, would once have never stepped on a driverless train, would once have never stepped on an aeroplane, would once have never submitted to surgeons opening them up with a knife...

It's difficult to judge what The Public will or will not accept based on one's own prejudices. The Public will accept an awful lot of risk on the whole, if it gives them a short term benefit (eg. cheaper, more frequent flights.) The tobacco industry depends on it.

[Huck]

They could all have a qualified pilot on board for emergencies

Except you can't just don a cape and land an aircraft.

You practice on the good days, to prepare for the bad days.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Many suburban railways are automatic, and not slow and clunky like the DLR, either. Try the system in Toulouse, for example.

[SLFandProud]

Do you?

Or do you practice in the sim, for the bad days?

My assumption is sims will still be available...

[wheelie my boeing]

Age old comparison of train drivers and aircraft pilots, and in my opinion (biased of course I know) there is no comparison. The general public have absolutely no idea about the decisions involved on a day to day basis of flying an aircraft from A to B. From fuel to appropriate diversions to overriding of the automatics (selected speed on approach for example instead of the aircraft requested speed) happens on a day to day basis. Not only that but on regular occasions aircraft have severe issues from hydraulic failures to low fuel states to thunderstorms at both arrival airfield and diversion airfield etc etc. The complexity of the job is generally played down by pilots as we all have it driven in to us to always make everyone feel safe about flying. In my humble opinion if the general public knew what goes on worldwide on a day to day basis then they would think pilots are extremely important. All the talk of technology being 100% reliable if it's advanced enough is false. The complexity required to design such a piece of equipment would be so immense that it would be impossible (at least for several lifetimes to come). Big picture stuff, a train goes from A to B on a fixed line. It can be controlled very simply with a main computer system that ensures two trains don't collide and the train stops at the appropriate points. Aircraft do not and never will go from A to B on a fixed route, they simply cannot (take weather for example).

We also have a lot of people who will comment on how it wouldn't be too difficult to do so given advances in technology. Having recently had an emergency and diverted due to reasons I won't discuss here, not one single passenger (OR cabin crew member I'll add) had any idea that we were potentially in very serious trouble. In fact at the diversion airfield they were banging on about how they could get their bags back - they were totally oblivious to the potential danger we faced. I will also add that they were oblivious to the potential danger we faced because we as pilots felt it was not appropriate to tell them what was going on......

Luckily I have found from experience that the vast majority of passengers don't think we are "computer monitors" although I have shocked a few passengers visiting the flight deck when showing them that we have a sidestick (one passengers jaw dropped when I told her we land the aircraft manually on basically every single flight).

[parabellum]

I don't think the Great, Great Great Grandfather of the first insurance underwriter to agree to insure a pilotless passenger aircraft has even been born yet! No insurance = No Fly. Any pilotless system would also have to be totally immune, at all times, from terrorist action, world wide.

[wiggy]

They could all have a qualified pilot on board for emergencies - it's just that most of the time they'd be occupied with serving the snacks.

My assumption is sims will still be available...

I'm sure they would be.... :{

At the moment we do 2 X recurrent sims every six months, very much practicing for, as Huck rightly says, "the bad days". The rest of the time the flying we do on the routine sectors helps maintains the skill base we might have to call on for the bad day when we have to don the cape :cool:

If you are suggesting your proposed combined cabin crew member/safety pilot only retains competency in the simulator then how many times a month do you think our potential hero/heroine would need to be "in the box" (and away from the drinks trolley!) in order for them to maintain the required standard of flying they might need for the "just in case"?

Have you any idea how much a modern simulator costs (because more simulator sessions means more simulators), and do you know how much they cost to run (I'm sure someone here knows)?

Frankly whilst I'd "never say never" I still don't see the cost vs. benefits adding up in favour of the pilotless or emergency only pilot concept any time soon.

[Mr Optimistic]

Perhaps get over yourselves ? The 'public' have other things to do rather than form a perception about pilots ! I am sure if you did a random survey outside Boots the Chemist they would generally think you are much cleverer, and much better paid, than you actually are.

[KBPsen]

Yes, the tall poppy syndrome is not easy to get rid off, so you are probably right.

[fireflybob]

Frankly I find it highly amusing when people tell us that flying will be fully automatic in the near future.

I am sure future aircraft will have more sophisticated automation but in my opinion we are decades away from full automation requiring no intervention from a qualified crew member.

There have been other threads on this subject before with the software techie guys saying how easy it is to fully automate flying and then pilots asking "what would you do when XXX happens?" followed by a deafening silence.

In my opinion there are too many variables for this to become a viable option for a long time.

Also when the first fully automated airliner spears into the middle of a suburban area who will be liable?

[Linktrained]

" Who will be responsible ?"

Surely " whosoever allowed this means of transport to operate without the ultimate ability to stop what it is doing."

Think of the "Dead-man's hand" or a car's hand brakes. Supertankers require a few miles to stop, they say. (An aeroplane can go into a Holding Pattern, for a limited period but has to keep flying.)

" Robert E. Lee " a C54 flew from Stephenville (west of Gander) to Brize Norton fully automatically in September 1947, but with a full crew on board (observing). I believe that the movements on the ground required to use HUMANS !
LT

[Uncle Fred]

One question that I would add to the discussion that i am sure someone working in optical or satellite communications might be able to weigh in on.

What are the lag or latency time limits for piloting an aircraft that is over the mid-Pacific for example? I use this for the distances from a ground station. Should the aircraft need to make an emergency landing in, for example, American Samoa, would there not need to be a local signal station giving the commands? Just as a drone can be flown from around the world but needs local control for the takeoff and landing--after all, anything travelling to/from a satellite still requires some time and that time cannot be too great in the flare.

It seems that a rather severe PIO could be induced if there are significant time lags in addition to the precise and timely guidance needed for the critical phases of flight.

How would one ensure this could be covered along the entire route of flight?

[Flytiger]

Doctor: Responsible for the health or in extreme cases, the life of one patient.

747 Captain: Responsible for several hundred million dollars worth of machinery, several billion dollars worth of buildings/property (if flying over built up cities), 300+ people on board, and tens of thousands of people on the ground.

But somehow doctors are more important? :ugh:

Not to any thinking person.

[DaveReidUK]

Not to any thinking person.

On the other hand, a thinking person might consider that a pointless and irrelevant comparison.

[gcal]

Personally I think it has all gone to rat**** since captains stopped wearing white gloves for landing.. ;)

[Ushuaia]

Wunwing said:

Is say Australia, happy to let a M.E. country controll its VH registered aircraft over their ME territory?

Yes, it is! Look at the EK-QF tie-up. QF is giving itself to EK. EK is going to be more than simply controlling QF over ME territory; it's going to be controlling it world-wide.... :sad:

(sorry for thread drift but I couldn't pass up on the irony of that statement by Wunwing)

[fireflybob]

Personally I think it has all gone to rat**** since captains stopped wearing white gloves for landing..

Not to mention many airlines that have dispensed with the wearing of hats as part of crew uniform - I think that's when it started going downhill

[merch]

"747 Captain: Responsible for several hundred million dollars worth of machinery, several billion dollars worth of buildings/property (if flying over built up cities), 300+ people on board, and tens of thousands of people on the ground"

VLCC (Supertanker) Captain: Responsible for $140 million worth of machinery, $210 million worth of cargo, 25 lives onboard, Billions of dollars worth of clean up costs for the cargo, 1000's of lives if you hit a Passenger ship.

But Pilots are thought much more highly of.

[Agaricus bisporus]

I think the fundamental misunderstanding amongst non-pilots - should I say non airline pilots because I've heard this from PPLs too, is that the main part of the job is physically flying the aeroplane - hence the surprise at the amount we use the automatics and "So what do you do for the rest of the time then?"

Its hard to convince people that flying is only a tiny part of it and the world is so full of armchair experts who know better anyway...

We already have computers that fly aeroplanes, we've had them for well over half a century. What we don't yet have is one to operate an aeroplane in an acceptable manner, and when there are pax on board instead of bombs that's going to be quite a trick. It won't happen in the foreseeable future.

[aergid]

Now I know alot of 'modern pilots' and they are good guys, but there is still an element of the profession who honestly think they are above everyone in the aviation industry.
I worked in the industry for over 22yrs and would say i have a broad spectrum of experience and knowledge, then I get asked by some snotty nosed Captain - "Do you know what you are doing?", which bugs me slightly and makes me understand the comments like "Glorified Bus Drivers" and "Premadonna Pilots" and "PIC = Pr##k in Command"....

Maybe if the minority were told by the majority to get their trim actuators out of their pants the public and industry perceptions would change for the good....

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

aergid, I think things are different now. My mate is a retired BA captain (started on BEA Vanguards, then via 1-11s to long haul 747 and 76 / 77). He tells some terrible tales of stuck-up 'Nigels'.

My mate is from Newcastle and calls a spade a spade. When he was being checked out on the 747 his instructor was snotty short bloke who thought he was god but was actually a cr@p instructor. One morning my mate (who'd been a teacher before joining BEA so knew a bit about imparting knowledge) collared this guy by the steps:

"Listen matey, your job is to f*cking teach me to fly this f*cking aeroplane, and you haven't a f*cking clue! I'm learning f*ck all from you! You had better F*ucking change your attitude or I'm going straight back into that f*cking crew room to report you for incompetance".

After that all was well!

I think there are more guys like my mate in the job now that there are thos self-important 'Nigels'!

[Mr Optimistic]

I can't understand why you guys are so negative. The public may have a poor understanding of what being a line pilot actually entails they know they couldn't fly the thing so the underlying feeling is one of respect. This forum doesn't represent the general public.

[stator vane]

i always thought the key was 'self respect'

and then next factor was the respect of one's co-workers; the only ones who can truly understand.

and were not the very first pilots borderline insane in the estimation of others?

[green granite]

What comes over on this thread, contrary to what I know to be true for the majority of pilots, is that there are quite a few arrogant ones on here that have greatly over-inflated egos.

[SLFandProud]

I'm sure they would be....

At the moment we do 2 X recurrent sims every six months, very much practicing for, as Huck rightly says, "the bad days". The rest of the time the flying we do on the routine sectors helps maintains the skill base we might have to call on for the bad day when we have to don the cape

If you are suggesting your proposed combined cabin crew member/safety pilot only retains competency in the simulator then how many times a month do you think our potential hero/heroine would need to be "in the box" (and away from the drinks trolley!) in order for them to maintain the required standard of flying they might need for the "just in case"?
On reflection, I'm sure you're right :-). The pilot-steward idea probably isn't practical - the pilot on the ground option is much more feasible. The idea of having someone on board trained for ground operations might fly (or rather not, of course) if you'll forgive the pun, but otherwise no.

You do make more excellent arguments for why the ground-based crew should be ATC/airspace based rather than airline based. An airline's ground pilot may never actually have to do anything in the real world, provided these mooted automatics that BEA are testing are up to the job. Airlines maintaining their own fleet of pilots to sit twiddling their thumbs is going to be expensive and wasteful, much more cost effective to centralise them.

Centralising them of course will also neatly sidestep the existing pilots union agreements with the airlines of course - new employer, new role, new contracts.
Have you any idea how much a modern simulator costs (because more simulator sessions means more simulators), and do you know how much they cost to run (I'm sure someone here knows)?
No idea, other than 'incredibly expensive'. Since variously over time this place is full of people moaning about how basic flying skills are what is lacking in modern pilots, I've often wondered if throwing 'em up in a light aircraft once in a while might not be cheaper than doing everything in the sim. Type training needs to be in the sim of course, but a Cessna would seem equally effective at teaching basic airmanship. That's another discussion of course.

[SLFandProud]

...what are you smoking?

I've been to Lloyds of London, and have had the pleasure of dealing with insurance underwriters, and in my experience they tend to be a decidedly unromantic bunch. If they think there is money to be made, they will insure it.

What tends to make insurers suck the air through their teeth and say "it'll cost you" is as soon as you say "well, that bit depends on skilled professionals doing their job properly."

Your average insurer loves automatics. They don't need to work 100% of the time to be insurable - they just need to work a relatively predictable amount of the time to be insurable.


Anyone who does think that insurers will refuse to be a part of this needs to answer the following simple question first: How does Air France maintain its insurance coverage?

[Flytiger]

On the other hand, a thinking person might consider that a pointless and irrelevant comparison.Well Dave, that is the point isn't it. It is wrong to say that someone is better than another based upon any of these factors. A mechanic or ground crew or engineer designing a wing is just as important in the chain of people getting things right as much as the pilot is. But it is relevant and worth pointing out that a pilot, if not competent, could very easily, cause the immediate deaths of a large number of people, whereas a doctor usually only has only one patient at a time under his care. Both roles are complex 'undertakings', but one is certainly more dramatic than the other in terms of scale of responsibility when you consider just what could happen in an instant if a pilot is not careful.

It is a huge responsibility. Most people would acknowledge that.

[slf4life]

In terms of public paradigm shift I meant 'I Robot' type intelligent cars, busses etc capable of being driven by Siri or Otto whatever, stuff John and Jane Q either currently handle themselves or can see their operator at the controls.

I see that kind of thing happening much in advance of 300 people being remotely flown across the Atlantic (just the thought gives me :uhoh: )

And ditto on public perception. Like everything else, the loudest squeekers are often the most ignorant and don't represent the majority. Check those same squeekers when turbulence hits - they look to the cockpit door.

Idea: gather all those folks who think pilots do very little and let THEM be the guinea pigs :E

[parabellum]

I've been to Lloyd's of London, and have had the pleasure of dealing
with insurance underwriters, and in my experience they tend to be a
decidedly unromantic bunch. If they think there is money to be made, they will
insure it.


Which suggests you are either a Lloyd's broker or the insured, since you won't get near a Lloyd's underwriter in the Lloyd's building otherwise. It is true that there is a saying in the market that,"There is no such thing as a bad risk, only a bad rate" but even the biggest underwriters will run out of reinsurance layers on this one. The actual insurance rate would be uneconomically high.
I had nearly three years with the largest aviation broker there is during a lay-off from flying and still keep in touch so not smoking anything, the market simply aren't interested.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Personally I think it has all gone to rat**** since captains stopped wearing white gloves for landing..

Not to mention many airlines that have dispensed with the wearing of hats as part of crew uniform - I think that's when it started going downhill

Airline Pilots -v- Train Drivers

As a young co-pilot ( many years ago ) I remember a Captain talking along similiar lines, and suggested that we not only wore a uniform to be identified, but also to instil confidence in our passengers. He rightly reckoned that he could actually fly the aircraft naked, it didn't take a uniform to be able to fly a Cat III approach on a crummy night, but if he wore any old gear a passenger might think that the pilot looked like himself on a day off, and he - the pax. - couldn't fly the aircraft so could the guy up front who looked like any average Joe ? Bull**** Baffles Brains.

The same Captain went on to remind me that during the 20's and 30's the London to Glasgow ( or similar ) express train drivers were regarded as the elite of the elite amongst the travelling public, crowds parted, women swooned, schoolboys ached to be a train driver etc. etc. but now they were just a bunch of scruffy workers in greasy overalls carrying their lunch to work in a tin box, and he reckoned that we were embarking on the same downward slope as we let our standards slip.

My generation vowed not to act like the many martinets from the Second World War that we encountered in the left hand seat - I was once chastised for addressing the co-pilot by his christian name " We DON'T Use Christian Names On The Flight Deck - MR XXXXXXXX " I was told, maybe we needed to lighten up a bit, but did we take it too far ?

[T-21]

Since 9/11 banning flight deck visits and if you were lucky sitting on the jump seat has done the industry more harm than good. The locked cabin door has isolated the crew even more from the passengers.
I learn't much from my father sitting on the jump seat and it instilled good airmanship in me which I was able to use in my gliding instructing days.
Everybody now takes the crew for granted and they are not really praised enough in testing conditions. I gave a thumbs up to the Ryanair captain at Luton this week as I was walking to the terminal. I'am sure he appreciated it as it was a good landing.

[jet_737ng]

T-21 has a valid point . To the level cabin crew feel a disconnect from the cockpit crew . Every time we interact with the cabin crew we are usually in non critical phase of flight asking for papers and coffee. So if their perception is pilots are jockstraps pushing button the general public has even a more myopic view . Most airlines no longer allow cabin crew to be in the flight deck for take offs or landings :ugh:
This is probably last generation of commercial pilots who will be considered as professionals. LCC carrier growth has meant cut in the authority ,respect and perks for captains.

I am pretty sure in another ten years I will be telling new first officers the lavish lifestyles and perks we had today :rolleyes: compared to what they will be experiencing :hmm: