Jeremy Vine Show - Pilotless Airliners

[Arfur Dent]

Not sure if anyone else felt the same but the Vine Show spot at 1300 today was just total nonsense. Ill-informed rubbish about clearing out pilots (replacing them with a retired DJ to do the "announcements") and fitting seats to sell in the cockpit space etc We don't 'do anything' anyway and should be replaced by computers……. Discuss.:mad:

[blue up]

When big electronics companies are able to produce a toaster that can toast a piece of bread the same colour on 2 sides, when Toyota etc. cease having to recall their cars for serious faults, when Windows no longer freezes, when my radio doesn't go fuzzy as a train passes.... and so on.... then I'd be willing to think about a pilotless aircraft.

[Tourist]

Who'd have thought it?!

Pilotless aircraft unpopular on Pprune....

[golfbananajam]

tee hee

seems to be an extension of drone technology which has been in use for how long?

[Just a spotter]

Perhaps he'd been reading the August edition of The Economist.

Flight fantastic | The Economist (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21705295-instead-rewiring-planes-fly-themselves-why-not-give-them-android)

JAS

[Fire and brimstone]

The JV radio show is the Daily Mail for listeners.

We will have pilotless passenger aircraft, when the general public will get on the aircraft.

Excluding those who will get on Satan's back to fly to Ibiza for £19.99; this will be at a time approximately 50 years after the oil runs out.

In one respect, pilotless aircraft would be the best thing ever to happen, as it would force the industry to start blaming something other than 'pilot error' for, essentially, every crash in history.

When you have to blame either: the operator; or the manufacturer for every crash, lets see what the public make of it ...........

F&B

[Planet Basher]

I understand Google hire students to sit in their cars, not to drive or act as a safety fall back but to stop others being phased by an empty car driving past.

Some would say the same is happening in the airline industry judging by the performances in manual landing in a bit of a cross wind.

[RVF750]

It's what I've always said. The technology is there but they need us for that vital thing.

When a plane crashes, it's the pilots' fault but different pilots are on the jet Joe Public is about to get on.

So that's all right then.

When a pilotless airliner goes down, what excuse will they have? The identical ones on the ramp are on version 9.0.2 and the crash one was on 9.0.1? That's a massive lawsuit for allowing people to fly on defective software... If it's 9.0.2. That's the whole fleet grounded.

While they can blame us, we'll all have a job. Simple.

[The Ancient Geek]

It might happen eventually, but only 20 years after they allow single pilot operation with remote backup.

[ShyTorque]

The technology has been around for a long time.

Problem comes when the plan changes, or for example, ATC want to change the plan at short notice. ....go around, I say again...GO AROUND!

[Mr Angry from Purley]

I'd have thought Vine had more sense, one of the callers mentioned pilots pulling leavers.

[HamishMcBush]

Bring back Jimmy Young !

Anyone know what became of him and if he's still around?

[kcockayne]

This program , & the contributions from the listening public contained within it, was a complete load of bullsh*t. They didn't have anyone on it who knew anything about the subject, & no one who could explain where we stand technically today & how this would all work out. All it consisted of were one or two people who had connections with victims of air crashes & a few meaningless anecdotes to share. It was all pointless nonsense !

[Lonewolf_50]

How will these pilotless airliners know where to position themselves on the conveyor belt? One little hiccup with a conveyor belt (http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=I+love+lucy+conveyer+belt+chocolate+factory&view=detail&mid=D1467389AC16D152219FD1467389AC16D152219F&FORM=VIRE)and it ends in tears.

[KiloB]

I'll fly on a pilotless aircraft when, and only when, the Systems can pass the 'Hudson' test. Sudden loss of all power, huge metro area below: interesting bit of programming!

[anson harris]

I think there was the former Secretary General of BALPA and at least one airline pilot, so not quite accurate.

This program , & the contributions from the listening public contained within it, was a complete load of bullsh*t. They didn't have anyone on it who knew anything about the subject, & no one who could explain where we stand technically today & how this would all work out. All it consisted of were one or two people who had connections with victims of air crashes & a few meaningless anecdotes to share. It was all pointless nonsense !

[parabellum]

Talking to a friend recently who is heavily involved in the (military) development of drones of all sizes, it is true that pilotless technology has been around for quite a while but it is still in its infancy. What we don't get told, because the manufacturers don't want the information made public, are the amount of uncontrolled crashes that occur regularly.


Before the first pilotless commercial flight takes off there will have to be thousands of hours of faultless trial flights in a variety of environments and with a faultless control system that cannot be hacked, hijacked or interfered with by terrorists. Right now and for the foreseeable future there simply are not the R&D funds available, nor any incentive to produce a commercial pilotless pax carrying aircraft, it is cheaper to employ pilots.

[edmundronald]

Are you people sure that small pilotless aircraft are that far off - eg. a fleet for drones for mail transport to a provincial city from a mailhub, replacing one biggish plane a night?

Edmund

[Ian W]

Talking to a friend recently who is heavily involved in the (military) development of drones of all sizes, it is true that pilotless technology has been around for quite a while but it is still in its infancy. What we don't get told, because the manufacturers don't want the information made public, are the amount of uncontrolled crashes that occur regularly.


Before the first pilotless commercial flight takes off there will have to be thousands of hours of faultless trial flights in a variety of environments and with a faultless control system that cannot be hacked, hijacked or interfered with by terrorists. Right now and for the foreseeable future there simply are not the R&D funds available, nor any incentive to produce a commercial pilotless pax carrying aircraft, it is cheaper to employ pilots.
The military accept an attrition rate far higher than for civil systems. The important issues are mission accomplishment, followed by cost. It is a completely different market but it exercises the systems and software informing the civil development.

From research I am seeing now I expect commercial drone systems inside 10 years for package delivery, reduced flight deck crews around the same time. By 2035 expect autonomous UAS in all airspaces.

[parabellum]

Be interested to know how you plan to overcome the worldwide terrorist threat by 2035.

[Cognoscenti]

Artificial Intelligence, narrow or weak AI, is here, and will get exponentially smarter, strong or general AGI. It’s already operating the financial markets, it knows what you browse, it’s watching you at almost all times. You probably had interaction with some sort of intelligent machine today that made your life easier. It is said AGI would outperform humans at nearly every cognitive task. Without delving into the dangers of AGI, such systems could potentially undergo recursive self-improvement, triggering an intelligence explosion leaving human intellect far behind. The implications of such revolutionary technologies, such as super-intelligence, if aligned with our goals, could feasibly replace pilots, controllers, etc. A super-intelligent AI network of controllers and aircraft doesn't seem far fetched after all, not in this century.

[neville_nobody]

The reality is all that pilotless airliners will do is introduce new problems to aviation. Not to mention the numerous other systems that will have to be invented to help AI aircraft work.

If you have a read of the Tech Log Forum there is a thread that demonstrates how complex building AI aircraft is going to be.

[SFI145]

You can see why Jeremy Vine earns 800,000 pounds a year.

[Super VC-10]

Jeremy Vine Show - Pointless Radio Presenters

Vine, Evans...

[Steve6443]

Before the paying public will get onto a pilotless aircraft, why don't they get rid of the underground drivers in London? Every few months they pop up, blackmail people in order to increase their already extortionate wages. If they can't introduce a system which will safely control a system of trains which only move in one dimension relative to each other, on tracks, what chance have they got of ever introducing pilotless aircraft moving in all 3 dimensions in space, some of which contain rocks????

But the topic reminds me of the old adage:

In future, an airline crew will consist of a pilot and a dog.

Job of the pilot: Feed the dog.

Job of the dog: Bite the pilot in case he tries to touch anything..... ;)

[sitigeltfel]

You can see why Jeremy Vine earns 800,000 pounds a year.

I'm not sure if "earn" is the correct word here, and if that figure is correct, then 5,500 BBC licence fee payers have the pleasure of contributing to it.

[kcockayne]

Artificial Intelligence, narrow or weak AI, is here, and will get exponentially smarter, strong or general AGI. It’s already operating the financial markets, it knows what you browse, it’s watching you at almost all times. You probably had interaction with some sort of intelligent machine today that made your life easier. It is said AGI would outperform humans at nearly every cognitive task. Without delving into the dangers of AGI, such systems could potentially undergo recursive self-improvement, triggering an intelligence explosion leaving human intellect far behind. The implications of such revolutionary technologies, such as super-intelligence, if aligned with our goals, could feasibly replace pilots, controllers, etc. A super-intelligent AI network of controllers and aircraft doesn't seem far fetched after all, not in this century.
You may well be right. But, what is the human population going to do to earn its keep & pay for its travel on these computerized travel systems ? Strikes me that we'll have a wonderful social & industrial system with no one able to afford to use them because we are all out of work !

[DirtyProp]

You can see why Jeremy Vine earns 800,000 pounds a year.
For that amount of money I'll start spouting nonsense and rubbish on tv/radio/whatever every day as well.
Heck, I do it even now and nobody pays me squat....:{

[emeritus]

Ahh, but has the salesperson been born yet who can sell a ticket on a pilotless aircraft.

It will come one of these days but suspect at first it will only be freighters until the public get used to the idea.

Nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong..:E

Emeritus

[rcsa]

Parabellum, remind me again which aviation terrorist incidents have been foiled by the flight crew, in the past fifteen years?

[oxenos]

Ships operate in two dimensions, aircraft in three.
Ships can stop, aircraft can not.
Once we see ships operating safely without crews, it might be worth thinking about trying it with aircraft. Not before.

[sudden twang]

Jeremy Vine also stated that the Hudson incident was caused by "running out of fuel".

[Herod]

By the time pilot-less aircraft become viable, virtual reality and holograms will make both business and leisure travel unnecessary.

[Ian W]

The reality is all that pilotless airliners will do is introduce new problems to aviation. Not to mention the numerous other systems that will have to be invented to help AI aircraft work.

If you have a read of the Tech Log Forum there is a thread that demonstrates how complex building AI aircraft is going to be.

You are using the wrong tense. AI aircraft are being built now.

"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

Arthur C. Clarke

[Tourist]

The majority on Pprune will deny their existence even when they are flying passengers....

[The Ancient Geek]

"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."Any sufficiently advanced tchnology is indistinguishable from magic.

[clareprop]

I'll take a bet on pilot-less passenger aircraft in 100 years time.

[ShotOne]

Most of the current drones are remotely piloted rather than "pilotless". It's worth noting that they have a much worse crash rate than any manned type.

[InSoMnIaC]

It is possible but it won't happen in our life time.

it will be extremely expensive to implement, overly complicated and less safe.

[Tourist]

It is also worth noting that they are single engine, have no backups of any sort and operate in war zones.

All these things tend to hurt survival statistics.

[ttodd]

"When big electronics companies are able to produce a toaster that can toast a piece of bread the same colour on 2 sides,"

Couldn't they do this first, thus proving competence, then move onto the easy stuff of pilotless aircraft; it'll be a doddle after the toast hurdle.

[Tourist]

It is possible but it won't happen in our life time.

it will be extremely expensive to implement, overly complicated and less safe.
Cars are technically far trickier. All the major manufacturers are currently spending billions on autonomous cars and the y will be normal within 5 years.

They are also blazing the trail on the legal and insurance ramifications

[Huck]

I've been trolling these hallowed threads for fifteen years or more. Pilotless airliners have been the Next Big Thing here for that entire period.

Didn't Missy Cummings predict they were about five years away... about seven years ago?

Let me tell you one fact that I do know - my airline is purchasing brand new 777F's at the factory... current rumor is that we will end up with near a hundred of them.... All staffed (usually) by four highly-paid, unionized pilots. New 767F's too....

As I've preached for years: Yes, it can be done. No, it can't be done cheaper.

[GGR155]

It could happen one day, after all, we have brainless radio presenters, Vine is a tabloid twerp!

[ShyTorque]

This program , & the contributions from the listening public contained within it, was a complete load of bullsh*t. They didn't have anyone on it who knew anything about the subject, & no one who could explain where we stand technically today & how this would all work out. All it consisted of were one or two people who had connections with victims of air crashes & a few meaningless anecdotes to share. It was all pointless nonsense !

It lived up to its usual standard.

[evansb]

Indeed. Only about 1 percent of airliner landings are full autoland.

[MG23]

All the major manufacturers are currently spending billions on autonomous cars and the y will be normal within 5 years.

Uh, no, they won't.

Even Google have said that widespread use of driverless cars could still be thirty years away (which, in tech terms, means 'forever'). By then, telepresense will have made them obsolete, anyway.

[Sevarg]

I remember when autoland "would NEVER work".

[RoyHudd]

Jeremy Vine is a hopeless person intellectually, yet an able media guy in the best traditions of " The Sun". This radio programme proved it. He didn't research his subject but pontificated like a fool.

Heard him perform to the same low standard about the motor industry, Israel, and contemporary UK politics.

[RexBanner]

Sevarg, as regards to your autoland comment I've been in the flightdeck when we've had to throw away an autoland because it was about to put us in a very dangerous position. Not to mention the fact that the wind limitations on an autoland are somewhat restrictive if you plan to do any flying in a Northern European winter.

What is one of the first things to happen in very turbulent conditions or when you get multiple failures? Yep that's right, autopilot gives up and hands control back to you. That's where we are right now. We are light years away from a fully autonomous AI flightdeck. You can bleat that "it's the future" and yes it almost certainly is, just as the Sun will inevitably swallow up the earth one day. But that doesn't mean it needs to concern us at the moment.

[keith williams]

I sometimes hear the Jeremy Vine Show as background noise when I am driving about. (Notice that I say “hear” and not “listen to”) There was a time when I made the mistake of taking his attitudes and statements as genuine reflections of what he actually thought and believed. That often made me very angry indeed. But over time I have come to realize that his job is to generate lively debate by inciting listeners to contribute their comments. He achieves this very effectively by spouting the most outlandish comments that he can think up. If you keep this fact in mind you will remain much calmer.

Personally I believe that we will have pilotless passenger aircraft at some time in the future. We already have pilotless vehicles flying to other planets and driving around on the surface of Mars, so pilotless passenger aircraft are not beyond the future bounds of possibility. Their introduction will provide a number of benefits and a number of new risks. Some people will be killed and some will be saved.


You may well be right. But, what is the human population going to do to earn its keep & pay for its travel on these computerized travel systems ?


You are making the mistake of assuming that we have been put on this planet to earn a living. Although people have needed to earn a living in the past, this will not necessarily be the case in the future. (we already have an increasingly large section of the population who get by quite happily without ever doing a days work). If we were to reach the stage at which automated machines could provide for all of our material needs, then there would be no need for anyone to work to earn a living. Given the option of getting everything you need for free, or flying passenger aircraft around the world, most people would go for the free option (and fly just for fun).

[RB27]

Years ago, they thought Commercial Saturation Divers could be "done away with" and ROV's could take their place to do anything underwater from fixing oil pipelines to welding etc.----20 years later, Sat. Divers are still working world-wide doing the same jobs and no way will they be replaced----Similarly Pilots !

[Tourist]

Uh, no, they won't.

Even Google have said that widespread use of driverless cars could still be thirty years away (which, in tech terms, means 'forever'). By then, telepresense will have made them obsolete, anyway.

Factually untrue.
Google are saying 2018

Forecasts | Driverless car market watch (http://www.driverless-future.com/?page_id=384)

Beyond Uber, Volvo and Ford: Other automakers' plans for self-driving vehicles - LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-automakers-self-driving-20160819-snap-htmlstory.html)

Uber?s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on)

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2016/01/05/ford-tripling-autonomous-vehicle-development-fleet--accelerating.html

[kcockayne]

Keith Williams
What makes you think that in your scenario the State is going to provide for all our needs. True, it does so for some selfish, anti -social spongers ( & some unfortunate individuals) at the moment; but, it will never be able to meet all our needs - for everyone. In any case, what is the attraction of such a lifestyle. Do you really believe that we will be cosseted from the cradle to the grave ?
I have to question the point of taking everything challenging & enjoyable out of life (by way of computers taking over) & replacing those joys (& reasons for living ) by making us one homogenous group of robots all doing the same thing ie. nothing meaningful; & totally reliant on what "Big Brother" decides is good for us.
I have no great understanding of the science involved in your technical scenario - but I don't want to be any part of the " Brave New World" that you describe !
In any event, I can see incredible social unrest on the , very distant, horizon ; if you prove to be correct.

[Loose rivets]

I'll fly on a pilotless aircraft when, and only when, the Systems can pass the 'Hudson' test. Sudden loss of all power, huge metro area below: interesting bit of programming!


Ah, but by then our autopilots will have every crash, every incident, every technical anomaly, stored to call upon - in less than a second.

Most of the current drones are remotely piloted rather than "pilotless". It's worth noting that they have a much worse crash rate than any manned type.

While on my walks on Walton's Naze, I came across a display showing a radio controlled rocket being tested during the war. There was it seems, a spinning pit.

The radio valves/tubes were spun up in a centrifuge and those that survived were used in the trials. Not many survived the launch.

N.B. I worked with one of the electronics guys in the 50's and despite telling me numerous tales about that era, he never once mentioned that research. I can only guess he was still under orders to keep quiet about it.

Oh, and he made an electric car which was licensed to be tested on the roads.

[Tourist]

Keith Williams
What makes you think that in your scenario the State is going to provide for all our needs. True, it does so for some selfish, anti -social spongers ( & some unfortunate individuals) at the moment; but, it will never be able to meet all our needs - for everyone. In any case, what is the attraction of such a lifestyle. Do you really believe that we will be cosseted from the cradle to the grave ?
I have to question the point of taking everything challenging & enjoyable out of life (by way of computers taking over) & replacing those joys (& reasons for living ) by making us one homogenous group of robots all doing the same thing ie. nothing meaningful; & totally reliant on what "Big Brother" decides is good for us.
I have no great understanding of the science involved in your technical scenario - but I don't want to be any part of the " Brave New World" that you describe !
In any event, I can see incredible social unrest on the , very distant, horizon ; if you prove to be correct.


Those very words could have been written by those facing the loss of their jobs in the "satanic mills"

Those arguments have been put forward before and found wanting.

With the benefit of hindsight, would you go back to those pre-industrial times?

[ZOOKER]

I'm with kcockayne.
T've seen this 'computers and technology will solve everything' malarky at close quarters, there are some crazy ideas out there.
You have to provide folks with gainful employment, otherwise they can't afford to be tourists and travel on these marvellous 'it's the future folks' pilotless aircraft.
Doubtless one day, they will sell seats on a pilotless airliner, but they won't sell one to me.

[kcockayne]

Those very words could have been written by those facing the loss of their jobs in the "satanic mills"

Those arguments have been put forward before and found wanting.

With the benefit of hindsight, would you go back to those pre-industrial times?

I take your point, & there is much truth in what you say. It was a positive step to move on from the "Satanic Mills" etc. , but , we can go too far. Conditions today are very far from "the mills". The total population is far better off than in those times. Pilots on the flight deck are not the equivalent of children going up chimneys. We can use technology for the real benefits that it brings; but taking away the availability of the many enjoyable professions that are available is not, in my view, a beneficial development. And also begs the question, "why ?" The point still remains; how are we enriched by "machines taking over" ; & , how are we going to provide for ourselves when there are no jobs & no income available because of this ?

[FlyingStone]

The reality is that it will definitely come, but the technology is nowhere near that required for the number of aircraft in the skies.

Sure, many airliners can do an autoland today and have been able to do so, but imagine having LVPs in Heathrow 365 days a year to ensure safe operations. You wouldn't need 3, more like 6 runways.

The operational envelope would definitely have to reduce drastically to facilitate fully automatic flight. Just look at your aircraft's limitations for autoland. Only 20 kts crosswind, max. 3.15° approach angle, etc. Sure, you could run a Frankfurt to Heathrow flight in a summer without pilots even now with slight modifications (taxi and takeoff mode), but who will get the punters to their summer holiday destination which has an letdown VOR approach to a narrow runway less than 2000m long, preferrably with some CBs and crosswind?

[Tourist]

Flyingstone

You are making the assumption that an autonomous airliner would use 1950s tech autoland.

Why on earth would a future aircraft even consider such archaic tech as ILS/MLS/VOR/NDB? We only use it today because it is certified despite the fact that VOR and NDB approaches have awful safety statistics.

There are 1000's of better options if you are already making the jump to entirely new certifications.

[Tourist]

I take your point, & there is much truth in what you say. It was a positive step to move on from the "Satanic Mills" etc. , but , we can go too far. Conditions today are very far from "the mills". The total population is far better off than in those times. Pilots on the flight deck are not the equivalent of children going up chimneys. We can use technology for the real benefits that it brings; but taking away the availability of the many enjoyable professions that are available is not, in my view, a beneficial development. And also begs the question, "why ?" The point still remains; how are we enriched by "machines taking over" ; & , how are we going to provide for ourselves when there are no jobs & no income available because of this ?

I's an interesting point, but the simple fact is that the change is the reason why we are now better off despite the people at the time not enjoying the change much.

Perhaps in the future they will look back and consider this time equally satanic...

[dr dre]

For even a single pilot airline system to work will require a full pilotless backup system in case of the relatively common incidence of incapacitation. It will require the technology to ensure uninterrupted communications, near faultless infrastructure and basically error proof automated aircraft. It will cost trillions and trillions of dollars. There isn't a single government in the world that's going to outlay that cost. They can barely afford basic infrastructure at the moment.

And for what benefit? Out of an average 40 million scheduled flights a year last year and currently into this one we've got only one fatal jet crash that was due pilot error (flydubai) and less than a half dozen turboprop fatalities in some very remote regions of the world where automation probably wouldn't have helped. So with no benefit to safety there isn't any private company that would be willing to outlay the trillions required as well.

The only reason why some "experts" perpetuate this myth is to get their names in the media, or to get funding for their drone research programs. Don't feed the trolls

[Tourist]

The money is being spent right now, as usual, by the military.

There are autonomous aircraft currently operational delivering cargo.
Autonomous.
Not remotely controlled.

They will do the heavy lifting on this one, and as time progresses and the safety benefits become apparent the civil world will follow.

The reason they will want to follow is not the safety aspect, that will merely justify it.

The benefit from their perspective is the extra passenger space, reduced weight and the drop in wages.

How many pilots per aircraft does your airline have?

Do away with all those wages. All those pensions. All those uniforms. All those medicals. All those hotel rooms. All those crew meals. All that training.

That's worth a few billions.

[dr dre]

The money is being spent right now, as usual, by the military.

They will do the heavy lifting on this one, and as time progresses and the safety benefits become apparent the civil world will follow.

The reason they will want to follow is not the safety aspect, that will merely justify it.

The benefit from their perspective is the extra passenger space, reduced weight and the drop in wages.

How many pilots per aircraft does your airline have?

Do away with all those wages. All those pensions. All those uniforms. All those medicals. All those hotel rooms. All those crew meals. All that training.

That's worth a few billions.

Think of all those increased insurance premiums for pilotless aircraft, think of the infrastructure, communication costs and hardware equipment that will be required.
Think of all the salaries for the researchers, developers, engineers, maintainers, controllers etc. think of what happens the first time a control signal is hacked or lost. Worth more than a few billion I think

And I doubt whether the military could transform the entire global airline system. Militaries are notorious for cost overruns, delays, inefficiencies, and the governments of the world are tightening their belts.

[keith williams]

Kcockayne

Truth is what you believe and normality is what you see every day.

Or to be more precise.

Your truth is what(ever) you believe and your normality is what(ever) you see every day.

The only reason you believe that people will always need to work to live, is because that is the way things have always been. But that does not mean that it must always be so.

The only reason people belive that aircraft will always need pilots, is because that is the way things have always been. But again that does not mean that it must be so in the future.

I am not suggesting that a future with no need to work, and no need for pilots is a good future. I am simply stating that it is entirely possible (and probably inevitable).


(And yes I am doing a bit of a Jeremy Vine job here.)

[FlyingStone]

Flyingstone

You are making the assumption that an autonomous airliner would use 1950s tech autoland.

Why on earth would a future aircraft even consider such archaic tech as ILS/MLS/VOR/NDB? We only use it today because it is certified despite the fact that VOR and NDB approaches have awful safety statistics.

There are 1000's of better options if you are already making the jump to entirely new certifications.

Cat 3-capable GBAS is the way to go - I agree, but it's still not certified today and likely will not be quite some time.

What you have to remember that at least for small airports, you are likely to see a transition to RNAV (GNSS)-only operations first, which require absolutely no infrastructure on the ground, so no servicing of the navaids, while providing relatively good approach capability (system minima for RNAV is 250ft I think). While this provides a significant reduction in costs (all new aircraft can do a basic RNAV approach), the next step would provide significant cost increase, as it's very unlikely to see SBAS-only autoland, so again you need some increase in equipment on the ground. And while this might make sense in LHR, FRA, JFK or somewhere in major hubs (i.e. replace multiple ILS systems with a single GBAS station), it makes much less financial sense on some remote airport with seasonal traffic where the weather is CAVOK most of the time anyway.

It all comes down to the basic bean counting technique - cost vs. benefit. Technology might be here or close, but at what cost and how much benefit does it actually bring you? Save (if at all) couple of dollars to limit your operating capability significantly?

[Tourist]

Think of all those increased insurance premiums for pilotless aircraft,

I think it will be the exact opposite. I think that insurance companies will demand unmanned.


Think of all the salaries for the researchers, developers, engineers, maintainers, controllers


The researchers are researching anyway. That money is being spent as we argue.


think of what happens the first time a control signal is hacked or lost. Worth more than a few billion I think


You have a basic misunderstanding of the word autonomous.

Have you noticed, incidentally, that pretty much all modern airliners are essentially software driven.
Can you name a single event where an airliner has been hacked?


And I doubt whether the military could transform the entire global airline system. Militaries are notorious for cost overruns, delays, inefficiencies, and the governments of the world are tightening their belts.

Doubting that the military has the ability to transform the entire global airline system is to doubt history.

The entire civil aviation industry follows pretty much every single innovation that military aviation has pioneered.

Monoplanes
Monocoque
Wooden
Metal
Jets
Fly by wire
HUD

The list covers pretty much everything.


Yes militaries have cost overruns. That is unlikely to stop any time in the next 1000yrs.
Your point?

The last major manned fighter program in the west is just becoming operational.

There is not even a plan for anything other than unmanned/autonomous fighters of the future.

You should think about that.

[Tourist]

Cat 3-capable GBAS is the way to go - I agree, but it's still not certified today and likely will not be quite some time.

What you have to remember that at least for small airports, you are likely to see a transition to RNAV (GNSS)-only operations first, which require absolutely no infrastructure on the ground, so no servicing of the navaids, while providing relatively good approach capability (system minima for RNAV is 250ft I think). While this provides a significant reduction in costs (all new aircraft can do a basic RNAV approach), the next step would provide significant cost increase, as it's very unlikely to see SBAS-only autoland, so again you need some increase in equipment on the ground. And while this might make sense in LHR, FRA, JFK or somewhere in major hubs (i.e. replace multiple ILS systems with a single GBAS station), it makes much less financial sense on some remote airport with seasonal traffic where the weather is CAVOK most of the time anyway.

It all comes down to the basic bean counting technique - cost vs. benefit. Technology might be here or close, but at what cost and how much benefit does it actually bring you? Save (if at all) couple of dollars to limit your operating capability significantly?

Personally I would skip the lot of that ground based stuff. Why bother? Why not just have a combined INS/GPS/LIDAR/RADAR/LADAR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmSK_cWZpOc

Black Hawk Empty: Unmanned Helicopter Passes Key Test - Defense One (http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/10/army-testing-robotic-black-hawk-helicopters/123260/)

Autonomous Ground Vehicles and Aircraft Demonstrate New Collaborative Capabilities for Keeping Warfighters Safe-CMU News - Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2016/january/autonomous-ground-air-mission.html)

The task of making a tactical helicopter autonomous is a significantly more difficult challenge than an airliner due to the unpredictability.

[Alan Baker]

Railways are a far simpler environment for driverless technology but there is not a single high speed railway in the world that does not have a driver up front. As for driverless cars, I remain to be convinced that all the sensors required will receive the aircraft standards of maintenance that they will require or that they will operate when caked with the muck thrown up on typical northern European winter roads. A few months ago there was a piece on the BBC 6 o'clock news from their transport correspondent reporting on Volvo driverless development. He said they were running on a test track as they could not go on the road as it had been snowing and the sensors needed to see the white lines!

[Tourist]

I notice that you say "high speed" railway.

What is the difference between high speed and low speed when it comes to railways?

There are a huge number of slower railways that are automatic, and an even greater number that would be if unions were weaker including sections of the London underground.

Name a single function on a railway that cannot be given to a computer.

A huge number of the richest and cleverest people in the world think you are wrong about autonomous cars and are betting their house on it.

One of them has done what NASA never did and lands the first stage of his rockets on a barge.

Watch All 5 SpaceX Rocket Landings in This Epic Video (http://www.space.com/33461-spacex-rocket-landings-video-supercut.html)

You care to bet against him making a car?!

[John Farley]

dr dre

If you are serious about this topic please read this. All of it.

In the mid 60s I was a safety pilot for the Blind Landing Experimental Unit at RAE Bedford on their Comet 3B doing cross wind autoland trials with a component of over 30kt. To watch that system flare, smoothly remove the drift angle and squeak the wheels onto the numbers over and over again, convinced me that automatics could achieve standards of ‘flying’ that I could not match.

I have put quotes round flying because I believe the word means different things to different people. To avoid ambiguity I suggest we separate out the tasks of flying into ‘steering' the aircraft and ‘operating' the aircraft.

By steering, I mean controlling any flight parameter. By operating, I mean every other aspect of a flight from pre-flight preparation to selecting the appropriate flight parameters and filling in the Tech Log afterwards. I believe automatic systems are better at steering tasks while humans are better at operating tasks.

In reply to “What are you going to do when the autopilot fails?” my answer is that future automatic steering systems will not fail in a critical way. Unlike today’s autopilots which disconnect themselves in the event of a problem, future automatics will be designed to fail safe and carry on performing their functions. Just like today’s wing structures. Autoland, thanks to special certification standards, has not caused a landing accident since it was first used with passengers in the 70s. Sadly there have been quite a few steering errors by aircrew over the same period.

I am a future Captain climbing out of La Guardia when both engines fail. As the operator I decide the crisis needs a landing on the Hudson. I lift the guard protecting the Glide Landing button and press it telling the steering systems to set up the best glide. With my knowledge of the aircraft’s gliding performance I estimate the touchdown zone on the local area map that appears, draw the final approach track I want with my stylus, press the Glide Landing button again and thank my lucky stars that I did not have to use skill so save my aeroplane. Just knowledge.

As a future passenger I will always want my flight operated by a senior Captain and First Officer who have the knowledge to get us to our destination safely but without the need for them to use skill.

[Tourist]

As a future passenger I will always want my flight operated by a senior Captain and First Officer who have the knowledge to get us to our destination safely but without the need for them to use skill.

John.

Will you insist on them being on board, and if so, why?

[Alan Baker]

I notice that you say "high speed" railway.

What is the difference between high speed and low speed when it comes to railways?

There are a huge number of slower railways that are automatic, and an even greater number that would be if unions were weaker including sections of the London underground.

Name a single function on a railway that cannot be given to a computer.

A huge number of the richest and cleverest people in the world think you are wrong about autonomous cars and are betting their house on it.

One of them has done what NASA never did and lands the first stage of his rockets on a barge.

Watch All 5 SpaceX Rocket Landings in This Epic Video (http://www.space.com/33461-spacex-rocket-landings-video-supercut.html)

You care to bet against him making a car?!

Yes, there are metro systems that run without drivers. The fact remains that railway operators across the world have decided that high speed mainline railways operate better with drivers. I am not in that business so don't ask me why.
As for betting your house on driverless cars, what good are they in northern climes if they can't go on a snow covered road?

[BEagle]

An interesting piece in this month's Mercedes Enthusiast concerning the latest E-Class's near autonomous systems:

I'll come right out with it - I don't like it. Impressive as it may be, the technology still feels like a halfway house, and ultimately, in my view, creates more problems than it actually solves. I'm not convinced it's in any way relaxing, as I spent my entire drive scanning the road ahead looking to see that the car was spotting everything I was. There was a moment when it inexplicably decided to drop down to 50mph in the middle lane, and accelerated up to speed alarmingly when exiting on a slip road.

The steering feels weird too, the wheel writhing about in your hands, and not always picking the best line between the lanes. A work in progress then, and for now I'll stick to using my feet, hands, eyes and ears; the best controls and sensors in the E-Class, however clever the electronic ones appear to be. If you think that's a damning of the E-Class, it's not - it's true of all such semi autonomous systems (and Mercedes' is among the very best).

Volvo have had issues too - one of their threat detecting braking systems suddenly slammed on the brakes when the idiot robot was fooled by a bird taking off from the road ahead. A Tesla fatal accident occurred after, it was reported, the 'autopilot' couldn't tell the difference between a white truck and a bright sky....

As for unmanned passenger commercial air transport, I cannot imagine any passengers trusting it. However, a ground-triggered 'divert to nearest aerodrome' override in the event of crew incapacitation or terrorist action might be worth researching.

[John Farley]

Tourist

Yes I would want them on board because that removes a comms link from the aircraft to the ground being essential. And for dealing with engine out issues where looking out of the window helps and so on. If they were on the ground wot about all the other jobs the 'pilots' do on every trip? We have to separate steering from operating. We (experienced aviators) need to operate and the autos need to steer at the operators command.

[Tourist]

As for betting your house on driverless cars, what good are they in northern climes if they can't go on a snow covered road?

You need to be slightly more discriminating when you read articles in the paper.

[Tourist]

If they were on the ground wot about all the other jobs the 'pilots' do on every trip?

I flew for an airline for a couple of years. Can't readily think of anything I did on board that cabin crew could not have done..

.....to be honest that includes the flying too:(

[Tourist]

And for dealing with engine out issues where looking out of the window helps and so on.

I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that one.

Neural nets that have been around for decades in aviation will do the flying bit better than any human, and the sheer number of telemetry inputs a computer can cope with make it far more likely that a computer will correctly diagnose correct engine/nature of problem etc.

Linked to this is the other advantage that an autonomous aircraft will have. The ability to bin V1 and have greater performance.
V1 is a construct entirely created to cope with poor human data recognition and decision-making. Computers don't need it.


The other advantage of computers is that you do know how they will cope. Humans are difficult to second guess. For every Sully there are ten who get over excited, particularly in todays benign environment where nothing ever happens.
Till it does.

[olster]

That's odd because I have actually been an airline pilot for the last (nearly) 40 years and I don't think that cabin crew can do my job, and I mean no disrespect in that statement. Tourist: I don't know what 'flying' you did with that unnamed airline but it does not seem that you were intellectually engaged at any level. It is easy to 'downplay' the pilot role but sometimes this is overdone. Automation is a great tool but as the correspondent says with reference to cars; often the automation is more complex and increases workload, quite the reverse of the intention. Even my wife (former cabin crew!) was outraged at the drivel spouted on this particular edition of the 'Jeremy Vine show.' Populism and controversy are obviously the aim rather than technical accuracy. If a respected test pilot such as John F can't convince you that pilotless airliners are a long way from fruition I doubt whether I can. However, my day job is generally fending off curved balls and dealing with situations / threats that computers without the (yet) benefit of my experience cannot. As John says, the computers can fly much better than I can even after all these years. However, they do not have the capability of rational human - like thought.

[haughtney1]

Tourist, I have no interest in the technical arguments, I can however comment on the insurance side of things with specific reference to risk.
The basic arithmetic of autonomous or pilotless heavier than air-vehicles relating to risk is far more emotive than a nameless faceless risk assessor crunching numbers.
We live in an increasingly connected and risk averse world with some notable exceptions to observed norms.
One of those is the driverless car, a concept in itself that has the potential to save far more lives than any pilotless machine will ever be able too, and yet even with the technology on the verge of being mainstream there has been a noticeable scaling back on the commercial (rather than research) element thanks in no small part to the first attributable deaths as a result of the systems currently available, it has also meant that the insurance industry has had to redefine the risk, making the cost of insurance excessive.
The redefining of this risk is in part an emotive response to what an insurer is prepared to accept, it begs the question..how many do we sacrifice in the normalisation of this new technology? If I was a shareholder of a large insurer and I saw an increase in their exposure due to risk in certain areas and technologies I may be inclined to invest elsewhere or even remove my exposure completely.
All of this ultimately means that far from the insurance companies driving change, it will be the legal industry allied with technological firms, but heres the rub, who or whom will be prepared to absorb the risk? Answer that...and then we can move onto the issue of public perception, particularly after an accident or incident involving automation.

[MG23]

The problem with 'driverless cars' is that they've been massively overhyped. Fanboys have been yelling that they'll eliminate all road deaths next month, but the reality is they're a long way from being able to cope with anything much less than ideal conditions, and will be for many years yet. If insurers are backing away from insuring them, it's only because fantasy has been replaced by reality as more and more of them crash.

[MG23]

The other advantage of computers is that you do know how they will cope.

One second you're talking about the glories of neural networks, the next you're talking about how you can predict what a computer will do.

That alone tells me you don't know what you're talking about. The big downside of neural networks is that you really can't tell what they're going to do. You just train them to react in ways you want them to react, and hope that slightly changing the inputs won't cause them to react in a completely different way.

[MG23]

Factually untrue.
Google are saying 2018Maybe you should stop listening to media fanboys and actually look at what Google are actually saying themselves:

Google Self-Driving Car Will Be Ready Soon for Some, in Decades for Others - IEEE Spectrum (http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/google-selfdriving-car-will-be-ready-soon-for-some-in-decades-for-others)

Yes, you can build a car today that will drive itself around a contained track in good weather. But one that can drive through a city during a snowstorm that dumped six inches of snow in the road won't be here before cars are obsolete.

[Tourist]

One second you're talking about the glories of neural networks, the next you're talking about how you can predict what a computer will do.


No, I said you know how they will cope.
What I should have said more clearly is that they won't get scared/excited/nervy.

[Tourist]

Maybe you should stop listening to media fanboys and actually look at what Google are actually saying themselves:

Google Self-Driving Car Will Be Ready Soon for Some, in Decades for Others - IEEE Spectrum (http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/google-selfdriving-car-will-be-ready-soon-for-some-in-decades-for-others)

Yes, you can build a car today that will drive itself around a contained track in good weather. But one that can drive through a city during a snowstorm that dumped six inches of snow in the road won't be here before cars are obsolete.

1. This is Google. They are one of many, and not previously a car manufacturer.
As previously linked, there are a very large number of serious car manufacturers who think otherwise. Most of which have actual cars (with monitor drivers for safety) on actual roads racking up actual miles.

2. You are misrepresenting his speech. He is quite reasonably saying that some environments are trickier than others. Just because autonomous cars cannot instantly go everywhere does not mean they are going nowhere soon.

[Tourist]

there has been a noticeable scaling back on the commercial (rather than research) element thanks in no small part to the first attributable deaths as a result of the systems currently available, it has also meant that the insurance industry has had to redefine the risk, making the cost of insurance excessive.


The car that hit the truck is not an autonomous car and is not advertised as such. It is specifically advertised as not autonomous and requiring monitoring.

1million people die every year on the roads. It is only natural that the autonomous cars will have fatalities. It is worthy of note that they have even now got a lower accident rate than manned cars.

[RexBanner]

Tourist have you heard of the edit function? Saves you having to write post after post..

[evansb]

I think unmanned cargo jets will be a routine thing by the year 2027. Unfortunately for human pilots..

[Arfur Dent]

As the originator of this thread, may I say how honoured I am to have Mr John Farley involved.
Basically, his "Steerers" will never - in my opinion - replace the "Operators".
Therefore - we could never have "pilotless passenger aircraft".

[FlyingStone]

I think unmanned cargo jets will be a routine thing by the year 2027. Unfortunately for human pilots..

Hardly possible. I don't know what is this hype about cargo planes that they would be the first to be pilotless.

One only needs to have a look at average cargo fleet age (especially short/medium range) and the reason why is that so (old aircraft = cheap aircraft = makes at least some profit).

I can't see DHL or Fedex retiring their old fleet and replacing them with VERY expensive (if you want to have it first, you have to pay big bucks) pilotless aircraft. I was wrong before, though.

[Willy Miller]

Apart from the flying, who deals with all the other cr@p during and average turn round?!

[Ian W]

The money is being spent right now, as usual, by the military.

There are autonomous aircraft currently operational delivering cargo.
Autonomous.
Not remotely controlled.

They will do the heavy lifting on this one, and as time progresses and the safety benefits become apparent the civil world will follow.

The reason they will want to follow is not the safety aspect, that will merely justify it.

The benefit from their perspective is the extra passenger space, reduced weight and the drop in wages.

How many pilots per aircraft does your airline have?

Do away with all those wages. All those pensions. All those uniforms. All those medicals. All those hotel rooms. All those crew meals. All that training.

That's worth a few billions.
The autonomous aircraft will also do casevac. There are also many 'optionally piloted vehicles'.

The capabilities for fully autonomous aircraft exist now and many of the issues seen as 'stoppers' on this forum have been addressed already in standards work and demonstrated by test flights as soluble.

[HPSOV L]

I agree with JF.
The next generation may see the pilot replaced by an operator (we are still far from being just that). Without having to maintain flying skills training would be simpler and cheaper. The qualification would be easier to aquire and salaries would reduce as supply increased. The improved costs and safety would push back the case for true autonomous flight with all its complexities and infrastructure costs.

After that future developements depend on economics and statistics.

[neville_nobody]

Anyone who thinks the 'Next Gen' aircraft are going to be pilotless need to take a cold shower and go have a look at the 737Max. That will still be a 'new' aircraft in 2030!!

To go from that to semi-autonomous I think is unachievable and certainly unpalatable by the regulators.

I also find the attitude that regulators will just move heaven and earth to accomodate pilotless aircraft also a little optimistic.

[Huck]

I also find the attitude that regulators will just move heaven and earth to accomodate pilotless aircraft also a little optimistic.

Not to mention the international cooperation required.

Imagine a flight from Paris to Dubai to HKG. All those nationalities would have to agree....

[airman1900]

Before pilotless planes and driverless cars, I would like a robot that can get me a beer and take out the trash.


An ant has more intelligence than a computer/machine will ever have.


Unfortunately, in today's world, too many people are drinking too much Kool Aid.

[Tourist]

An ant has more intelligence than a computer/machine will ever have.


You are not really helping your credibility with statements like that.

[Ian W]

I think that the term 'operator' will not be taken to by the pilot community; 'cruise pilots' seems to be the accepted term and some say they are already in cockpits at this moment. Their advance into the cockpits today is the source of many of the comments on the PPRUNE threads.

For twenty years the following scale has been used for levels of automation. These are often referred to as
Human IN the loop,
Human ON the loop and
Human OUT OF the loop.

Low
1 The computer offers no assistance, human must take all decisions and
actions
2 The computer offers a complete set of decision/action alternatives, or
3 Narrows the selection down to a few, or
4 Suggests one alternative, and
5 Executes that suggestion if the human approves, or
6 Allows the human a restricted veto time before automatic execution
7 Executes automatically, then necessarily informs the human, and
8 Informs the human only if asked, or
9 Informs the human only if it, the computer, decides to
10 The computer decides everything, acts autonomously, ignores the
human
High
(from Designing Human-Automation Interaction: a new level of Automation Taxonomy, a paper for Single European Sky ATM Research. http://www.hfes-europe.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Save.pdf )

Note that for much of the flight and for many if not all systems many modern aircraft are already operating at Level 9.

Ask which one you feel you are operating at in your current aircraft. Remember all the back and forth about whether your company 'allows' manual flying (Human in the loop) or insists on the automated system flying (human on the loop).

It is all down to costs. Even risk/hazard analysis is monetized as is pax acceptance. As a proportion of operating costs, reliable automation is rapidly dropping; the cost of human pilots is increasing and as many have already stated here their reliability is dropping. Fully automating aircraft is many times easier than full automation of cars.

[neville_nobody]

I think you will find that most airlines are not far past point 2. Most have a failure then hand over to the pilot to sort out. Old Gen aircraft 737NG, 767, 757, 747, won't be giving you any direction as to solving it and the pilot has to figure out if the warning is actually real and which checklist to use.

777 and airbus type aircraft have electronic checklist which do some work for you but it is still the pilot doing the problem solving.

[Tourist]

Neville

TCAS

Does an Airbus refuse to let you over-speed/overbank/under-speed/stall etc?

Will your Emirates Boeing let you add power after a bounce?!?!?

Do your engines tell you about all their readings or do some just go back to HQ?

During the take-off run, are some warnings inhibited?

Are some error messages downloaded at the end of the day?

Does your pressurisation require input?

Does your aircraft suggest the cruising levels?

Does your aircraft suggest the speed to fly?

[wiggy]

Does your aircraft suggest the cruising levels?

Does your aircraft suggest the speed to fly?


( my emphasis added)

Mine does, but it sure as heck can't make a reasoned decision as whether it is safe or sensible to fly those levels or speeds.

[Tourist]

No, because it is not designed to work beyond simple parameters.

It can easily be given wider parameters.

Can you suggest a parameter that a human can use that the machine could not?

I think that we can both agree that modern aircraft are well beyond a 2, even if I would not suggest we are quite as far down the list as others.

Certainly autopilot and autothrust alone are a well up the list, at least a 5 and they are ubiquitous since the 60s

[Uplinker]

I thought Jeremy Vine was quite good when he first started on Radio 2. However he has steadily got worse and now he behaves like a total idiot. Worse even than The Daily Mail for sensationalism and innacuracies. And the other day he ran a piece about why people use those ski pole walking stick things on hikes. Groundbreaking journalism at its best ???

When Ken Bruce finishes, I now switch over to Mark Radcliff and Stu Maconie on BBC 6 music until Steve Wright comes on R2.

Thank goodness for DAB radio !

[Herod]

Can you suggest a parameter that a human can use that the machine could not?

Not a parameter, but a scenario. "Bumbly" cloud ahead. Not a nasty cb, but one that will throw the aircraft around a bit. Two options:

1. fly through it - good for the bean-counter's economics, since minimum flight time.

2. Fly around it - good for not scaring passengers, spilling drinks etc. What is the cost to the company of "I wouldn't fly with x airline again. We had a terrible time; my wife (husband?) was terrified."

Program a computer for that one.

[Deep and fast]

Just another attempt to make pilots feel worthless. Stops us from asking for more money.

[parabellum]

Can you suggest a parameter that a human can use that the machine could not?


As mentioned earlier, by John Farley and others, a computer is not capable of thought nor anything better than simple analysis. A computer can't think outside the box.

[neville_nobody]

Tourist

You are looking at systems in isolation not as a whole. Sure TCAS would be up the scale in isolation but the pilot can still ignore it. And yes it has to be done sometimes.

Now a 737NG or a 767 has a TCAS unit but that doesn't mean it is anywhere close to being a automated aircraft. I think you're making the assumption that just because modern aircraft already have some sort of computer monitoring that we are only a small step to full automation. The problem is that to go from where we are to full blown autonomous is a massive massive technological, logistical, legal and operational leap.

Airbus operate on a different philosophy however they are discovering that this also has its drawbacks and could be argued is not necessarily the safest option.

For the record I'm not saying it can't be done I'm saying that the staus quo with some better techonology is probably the safest and most cost effective for now. I don't think full autonomy in pax aircraft will be happening anytime before 2090

[Derfred]

Curious why people are always speculating about aircraft automation and never about ATC automation.

[wiggy]

. I don't think full autonomy in pax aircraft will be happening anytime before 2090


No doubt a better bet than the next couple of decades.

As an aside looking back at the thread I noticed a few quotes from sci-if visionaries thrown into the mix. Now the likes of Clarke, Asimov et. al. may at times have been remarkably prescient but they were often horribly wrong when it came to timescales.

We will go to Jupiter ( or Saturn if you prefer the book in question) one day....but it won't be in 2001. We will have fully automated airliners one day.

[Tourist]

Tourist

You are looking at systems in isolation not as a whole. Sure TCAS would be up the scale in isolation but the pilot can still ignore it. And yes it has to be done sometimes.


To be fair yes I am looking at the systems in isolation as that was the context of this discussion from Ian W's post.

Nothing further was implied from his post or mine.

[Tourist]

As mentioned earlier, by John Farley and others, a computer is not capable of thought nor anything better than simple analysis. A computer can't think outside the box.

What does that even mean?

Give me a valid example of a scenario.

[Tourist]

Not a parameter, but a scenario. "Bumbly" cloud ahead. Not a nasty cb, but one that will throw the aircraft around a bit. Two options:

1. fly through it - good for the bean-counter's economics, since minimum flight time.

2. Fly around it - good for not scaring passengers, spilling drinks etc. What is the cost to the company of "I wouldn't fly with x airline again. We had a terrible time; my wife (husband?) was terrified."

Program a computer for that one.

Very simple, in fact an area where a computer can be consistent rather than random.

Human captains will all produce different results with this scenario. Everybody has their own triggers.

The computer could just be given a sliding scale, the equivalent of a commercial index for the day which decides exactly how much chop is acceptable vs the time delay.

[Tourist]

Curious why people are always speculating about aircraft automation and never about ATC automation.
I have in the past.

I think it would have to be a part of any fully automated system, and will have obvious huge benefits.

I don't think there is any technological reason why it couldn't be done immediately.

Any such fully integrated autonomous ATC system would obviously require huge backup independent systems

[Uplinker]

I think the biggest hurdle confronting computers ever having executive control will be their perception, by which I mean how the computer sees and analyses the world around it. The human vision system consists of the eyes and the brain. The eyes produce a rough upside-down image which the brain then processes by removing faults, flipping it over and combining views to give a stereo picture. The brain then uses short term memory to further enhance the scene by combining views of different focus and exposure to create an overall scene. It then uses long term memory to recognise what it is seeing.

An autonomous aircraft computer would need to be able to realise for example that the storm cell which wasn't painting very much on its radar was nevertheless there because it could see either the lightning or the large mass of the cloud by looking out of the window.

We are decades away from this ability in a computer - if indeed it could ever happen. For it to work safely we would have to build a complete human vision system.

There was an autonomous car that crashed recently, killing a person, because it couldn't tell the difference between a patch of bright sky and a white truck?

I saw Asimo, a humanoid robot a few years ago at the Science Museum. He was very impressive; he could walk up stairs by 'himself' and run unaided without a tether. However, to walk up 5 stairs he had to stand at the bottom for about 2 minutes, calculating what he had to do, and taking positional information from strategically placed marker dots on the stairs. It was nevertheless most impressive. However, at the end of the demonstration, as he walked out of the auditorium, he walked smack into a door that he was expecting to have been left open but had swung shut - such were his limitations of vision.

So this is the challenge. The human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe. It takes a human brain about 20 years to learn and program itself to fly an airliner: Given that when born it first has to make sense of the upside down sight from its eyes and the sounds from its ears; then learn language and to speak, to walk, to use its fingers etc etc, you get the point, I am sure.

There is no computer in the world that can take everything into account as we pilots do in order to fly an airliner, adapting to all the changes in conditions we meet on a daily basis. Yet there already are lots of fully programmed 'human brains' who are willing and able to fly airliners. There have indeed been some terrible crashes caused by humans, but all we need is to go back a step and restore proper selection standards for pilots; non fatiguing rosters; proper training; decent recurrent practice; etc, etc.

We don't need to reinvent the 'wheel' we simply need to make sure it is given a proper chance to work.


.

[Parson]

I listened to the Jeremy Vine show and JV was just doing what he is paid to do - provoke debate. The chap defending the role of pilots (ex BALPA, sorry can't remember his name) didn't put forward a very convincing argument. All I can recall him saying was that humans were better at 'detecting thunderstorms'...err, I'm not sure about that.

It is a pity that someone like John Farley wasn't asked to contribute.

[Tourist]

There was an autonomous car that crashed recently, killing a person, because it couldn't tell the difference between a patch of bright sky and a white truck?
.

Factually incorrect.

A specifically not autonomous car with a basic autopilot which has never ever claimed to be autonomous and is sold as "beta testing" hit a truck because despite warnings that it definitely was not autonomous and required constant supervision the driver did not pay attention.

Elon Musk: Tesla's Autopilot is twice as safe as humans (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/04/25/elon-musk-teslas-autopilot-makes-accidents-50pc-less-likely/)

It is worth noting that with millions of miles on real roads already driven by these various prototypes and halfway-house cars, that despite the over-excitement by such as Uplinker, they have a better safety record than manned vehicles.

1 million per year die on the roads in cars driven by our perfect little brains. They don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better or equal.

[Tourist]

I think the biggest hurdle confronting computers ever having executive control will be their perception, by which I mean how the computer sees and analyses the world around it. The human vision system consists of the eyes and the brain. The eyes produce a rough upside-down image which the brain then processes by removing faults, flipping it over and combining views to give a stereo picture. The brain then uses short term memory to further enhance the scene by combining views of different focus and exposure to create an overall scene. It then uses long term memory to recognise what it is seeing.
.

That is extremely simplistic and is an attempt to sell an extraordinarily flawed vision system as ideal.
Our vision system is notoriously quirky and easy to confuse. This is why there are millions of optical illusions. Computers don't suffer from them.


http://www.simplypsychology.org/perception-theories.html

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028122-100-the-grand-delusion-what-you-see-is-not-what-you-get/


https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23030681-300-do-our-dynamic-brains-predict-the-world/

[wiggy]

Parson

All I can recall him saying was that humans were better at 'detecting thunderstorms'...err, I'm not sure about that.

Maybe, but OTOH I most certainly wouldn't want to rely on the autopilot blindly following the guidance provided by some of the more advanced digital weather radars for CB avoidance.

Tourist

.........there are millions of optical illusions. Computers don't suffer from them.

Computers learn to fall for optical illusions - Futurity (http://www.futurity.org/computer-vision-images-security-882272/)

"“The field of image recognition has been revolutionized in the last few years,” Yosinski says. “[Machine learning researchers] now have a lot of stuff that works, but what we don’t have, what we still need, is a better understanding of what’s really going on inside these neural networks.”

[Basil]

Who's Jeremy Vine?

[Tourist]

Parson



Maybe, but OTOH I most certainly wouldn't want to rely on the autopilot blindly following the guidance provided by some of the more advanced digital weather radars for CB avoidance.

Tourist



Computers learn to fall for optical illusions - Futurity (http://www.futurity.org/computer-vision-images-security-882272/)

"“The field of image recognition has been revolutionized in the last few years,” Yosinski says. “[Machine learning researchers] now have a lot of stuff that works, but what we don’t have, what we still need, is a better understanding of what’s really going on inside these neural networks.”
Worth mentioning that current digital weather avoidance systems are entirely radar based and are designed to be used in conjunction with human pilots. You would design them differently if that was not the case, for example adding visual detection.


That article you link to is very interesting, but I don't think it has relevance to this discussion. They are deliberately trying to find ways to confuse cameras to aid understanding of neural nets. Not really the same thing as humans having inbuilt flaws.

Of course they are not really flaws, we are merely optimised to be on land at slow speed so all our senses are adapted to that environment.

Some of these many optimisations in vision, balance etc are a hinderance in the air.

[keith williams]

Who's Jeremy Vine?

He is a guy who makes a living by provoking debate.

And as this thread illustrates, he is very good at it!

[wiggy]

Tourist

That article you link to is very interesting, but I don't think it has relevance to this discussion.

Sorry but that's called "moving the goalposts" - some parts of the article may not be strictly relevant to this discussion but very relevant to your quite strongly stated assertion that "there are millions of optical illusions. Computers don't suffer from them"..

I'd think much more important is the researcher's comments that "what we don’t have, what we still need, is a better understanding of what’s really going on inside these neural networks.” That would suggest to me at least we are nowhere near the level of confidence required if we're planning on neural networks being used in fully autonomous airliner ops.

Ultimately I understand where you're coming from, and one day you'll be right, but I do think you're being unrealistically optimistic if you think that day is less than 30-40 years away.

[Tourist]

Tourist
Sorry but that's called "moving the goalposts" - some parts of the article may not be strictly relevant to this discussion but very relevant to your quite strongly stated assertion that "there are millions of optical illusions. Computers don't suffer from them"..


The guys in that article are deliberately finding arrangements of pixels that can be misinterpreted by neural nets so as to learn about the learning process

A glance at the pictures they are showing suggests that the title of the article is eye catching but not very accurate.

That is rather different than finding actual images of the real world that cause optical illusions to a computer.


Ultimately I understand where you're coming from, and one day you'll be right, but I do think you're being unrealistically optimistic if you think that day is less than 30-40 years away.

We can disagree on the timescale, but you are labouring under a misapprehension.

Optimism is exactly the opposite of what I have.

I would deeply love for automation in all it's forms to be banned from aviation for eternity.
If that were to happen, I would be guaranteed a job in perpetuity and a massive payrise since I am old school enough to fly without clever computers
I left airline flying to fly a totally archaic aircraft with no computer anywhere, because aircraft like that need me and as such I can still charge a premium.

Despite this, I recognise that computers will be better than me in every way soon, as autopilots already are at handling.

I think it is important to not be deluded that computers are not coming.

Know your enemy.......

[Uplinker]

........over-excitement by such as Uplinker.........

Ha ha ! You're funny Tourist. As for me; no I am not very excited by autonomous vehicles, sorry.

I stand corrected about the one I mentioned - I wasn't sure, hence the question mark at the end of my sentence :ok: I don't have a reference to it, but as I understand it (and I might be wrong), a vehicle with supposedly computerised control of some sort ultimately crashed and did so owing to a confusion of its vision system. Can you give me a link to it if you have one?

Judging by your impressive total of 3,419 posts so far, you seem to be the one who gets excited about things and cannot resist telling the rest of us about it.:ok:

That is extremely simplistic and is an attempt to sell an extraordinarily flawed vision system as ideal.

I am not selling anything. I agree, our vision system is certainly not perfect, (did I say it was?). The point I was making was that it uses the most advanced and complex thing in the known universe - the human brain. Our vision system has taken millions of years to evolve. The brain has approximately 100 billion neurons and each neuron has about 10,000 connections to other neurons. That sounds like quite a tricky task to simulate to me.

.......... This is why there are millions of optical illusions.

Millions of optical illusions? Are there really?

Computers don't suffer from them.

Why did Asimo walk into the door?



Despite this, I recognise that computers will be better than me in every way soon, as autopilots already are at handling.

The ones I use (Airbus FBW) are very good indeed, but when the autopilots meet something that is beyond them, they drop out and hand control to us. If we weren't there in the cockpit, what would happen then?


.

[Tourist]

I stand corrected about the one I mentioned - I wasn't sure, hence the question mark at the end of my sentence :ok: I don't have a reference to it, but as I understand it (and I might be wrong), a vehicle with supposedly computerised control ultimately crashed and did so owing to a confusion of its vision system. Can you give me a link to it if you have one?


I'm assuming that this is the one you are referring to?


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/30/tesla-autopilot-death-self-driving-car-elon-musk

Tesla driver killed in crash with Autopilot active, NHTSA investigating | The Verge (http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/30/12072408/tesla-autopilot-car-crash-death-autonomous-model-s)

You will note that this car was never advertised as autonomous. It is just posh cruise control.



Why did Asimo walk into the door?

Because it didn't see it? Because it didn't have the required technology for walking through doors?

You are confusing robotics with computers.
Asimo was a cleverly designed robot when it was built in 2000. Now, not so much. It was never a clever computer with clever senses.

Incidentally, have you ever seen a human walk into something? If so, does it completely invalidate the entire human sensory system?

[Tourist]

The ones I use (Airbus FBW) are very good indeed, but when the autopilots meet something that is beyond them, they drop out and hand control to us. If we weren't there in the cockpit, what would happen then?


.

I'm sorry, but you are being ridiculous.

The Airbus system reacts as designed.

It is designed to operate with a human pilot, and is specifically designed to drop out and hand over under certain circumstances.

If it were designed to operate without you, it would operate differently!

I also find it astonishing that you are using Airbus tech as if it is somehow relevant or a benchmark.

The tech in an Airbus is prehistoric!
When the airbus systems were designed, mobile phones looked like this

http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/pp121/Tourist_photos/untitled.png (http://s404.photobucket.com/user/Tourist_photos/media/untitled.png.html)

You might as well say "if I fall asleep in my VW beetle it crashes therefor all autonomous cars are never going to work"

[Uplinker]

Ha ha ha ha!

Stop it, please. My sides are going to split. Do you do stand up?


.

[Parson]

The technology exists to fly a large passenger aircraft from A to B without a pilot on board.

There would most likely need to be a pilot/operator on the ground monitoring the flight. That person would also probably have to deal with the various documents/certification required to legally operate the flight.

The real issue is would the travelling public get on board? I suspect some would, some wouldn't and the balance is likely to change over time as society gets used to more automation in general. For it to become 'the norm' would, I imagine, take decades - it may never reach that stage.

[Tourist]

Ha ha ha ha!

Stop it, please. My sides are going to split. Do you do stand up?


.

You asked for a link.

I posted two.

This is where you could have said "thanks for that, turns out you were right."

[gatbusdriver]

Tourist, whether we like it or not, puts forward some strong arguements for pilotless aircraft being a reality.......so I say why waste your breath denying it, the end of our world as we know it will also happen one day as our sun turns into a red giant......I don't think we will give two hoots about who is flying our planes then!

We will all be long gone before we have to worry about pilotless aircraft putting us out of work, and the good news is my children have no interest in this God forsaken industry!! Maybe their interest in iPads will help them in the future?

GBD

[27/09]

ATC will be automated before pilots disappear from cockpits

[neville_nobody]

The technology exists to fly a large passenger aircraft from A to B without a pilot on board.

Not sure how correct that statement is.

How does autonomous aircraft fly through thunderstorms?

How do autonomous is aircraft fly to non ILS aerodromes or better still a no instrument approach aerodrome?

How do autonomous aircraft land in gusty 40knot crosswinds?

How do autonomous aircraft land with shifting winds?

How do autonomous aircraft handle data input failures or data corruption?
(ie airspeed indications are no longer reliable or false sensory inputs ie stall warning goes off incorrectly)

This small list of problems will just be the beginning of what needs to be solved before we have the technology for autonomy.

[Tourist]

How does autonomous aircraft fly through thunderstorms?


Current weather radar pictures are synthetic in most modern airliners. This means that the computer has already looked at the raw data, analysed the information and presented what it believes to be useful info about it to the human pilot.

Now, we may well have opinions about how well it does this, but either way, the computer is already in the loop.


How do autonomous is aircraft fly to non ILS aerodromes or better still a no instrument approach aerodrome?


There are already autonomous aircraft doing this as previously mentioned.
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/583192-jeremy-vine-show-pilotless-airliners-4.html#post9481044



How do autonomous aircraft land in gusty 40knot crosswinds?

How do autonomous aircraft land with shifting winds?



As previously discussed and agreed by John Farley, the answer is better than humans since the Comet.


How do autonomous aircraft handle data input failures or data corruption?
(ie airspeed indications are no longer reliable or false sensory inputs ie stall warning goes off incorrectly)



Modern airliners are already totally dependent on software to fly. The computers are between the pilot and the controls whether they are autonomous or not. If data being corrupted is a problem, then the problem is already with us.

Added to this, it has unfortunately been shown that human pilots don't necessarily deal with such a scenario anyway.


This small list of problems will just be the beginning of what needs to be solved before we have the technology for autonomy.

Actually, whilst there are many hurdles to overcome, I think your list is entirely exclusive of any of them.

[wiggy]

Current weather radar pictures are synthetic in most modern airliners. This means that the computer has already looked at the raw data, analysed the information and presented what it believes to be useful info about it to the human pilot.


TBH that that like something from New Scientist or a sales brochure.


In your (I think two years) on the flight deck what did you think of such radars, and did you use them in the tropics?

Certainly the modern radars on our type still needs a healthy dose of operator input to produce consistent results - FWIW we operate one side in auto and one in manual- if you rely solely on the auto system you're often given missreading or late info or even no info at all.

[Basil]

How do autonomous aircraft land in gusty 40knot crosswinds?

How do autonomous aircraft land with shifting winds?
You should have seen the TriStar autoland :ok:

[Tourist]

wiggy

Read what I wrote.

The picture you are looking at is a synthetic creation of computer cleverness whether in manual or auto mode.
Raw data pictures are long gone, and on the whole it is an improvement.
I am not saying that weather radar pictures are great, because often they are not, but whether you like it or not, the computer is between you and the raw data anyway already.

No need to be snide about my airline time. Yes it was two years. I am fortunate however to have been paid to spend rather longer using airborne radars of many sorts since 1989. Some were better than modern airline ones at finding weather, some were truly awful.

[Tourist]

You should have seen the TriStar autoland :ok:
Helps if you actually set it up properly.:ok:

(I assume you are referring to the RAF "arrival"?)

[Basil]

(I assume you are referring to the RAF "arrival"?)
Nope, referring to autolands ;)

[Tourist]

Ah, thought you meant this famous one...

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/104860-hkg-md-11-crash-video-released-2.html#post1024703

[Basil]

I was in HK when that happened. Story went around that the hold of the now inverted aircraft held a quantity of (no longer) live frogs, the putrefaction of which was producing methane. I understand they were removed before the hull was cut up.

[wiggy]

Tourist

I don't want to get into a spat but I did read what you wrote.

The question posed by Neville was:

"How does autonomous aircraft fly through thunderstorms?"

The passengers (and possibly Neville) probably don't want to know that the picture is synthetic, that it is clever, or that computers are already in the loop. What would be more relevant is how the left/right/through/turn back decision is going to be made, bearing in mind that there may be non-meteorological restrictions to your course of action.


No need to be snide about my airline time.

OK, Badly worded, mea culpa, I was merely trying to ask/confirm how much weather avoidance experience you have had using modern weather radars in commercial ops, and if you thought they were up for the job of "advising" automated system downstream.


I'll reiterate what I have said before, I think you're right in claiming fully autonomous ops will happen, but from what I have heard (for the likes of my eldest who is working on an aspect of AI at a post grad level and others who have worked in the field for years) the various technologies involved are nowhere near enough mature or robust enough to support it in routine commercial ops for the foreseeable future, i.e. several decades.

[Ian W]

Neville-Nobody
For the record I'm not saying it can't be done I'm saying that the staus quo with some better techonology is probably the safest and most cost effective for now. I don't think full autonomy in pax aircraft will be happening anytime before 2090

Glad you are not saying it cannot be done - because it has been done. There are multitudes of autonomous aircraft, indeed almost all UAS are _required_ to be autonomous so that they can safely recover in case of a command link failure. Even the little octocopter toys will go back whence they came when they sense low battery.

Automating ATC?
Yes that is being done too - there are many simulators that will 'control' multiple simulated aircraft. Indeed they will happily run the entire FABEC or New York Metroplex at a few hundred times normal speed with 50% more traffic.

But you should always use the adage: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

The easiest to automate is the aircraft, mainly because much is already automated. The adherence to SOP to the extent that what used to be finely judged decisions are now 'no brainer' SOP box ticking makes automation even easier.

Air Traffic Management is a larger problem and while flying aircraft around a scripted pattern can work well, each 'sector' interfaces with other sectors, the multiple sectors form groups with centres/centers and interface with multiple airports. The Air Navigation Service Providers or Functional Airspace Blocks interface with others and decisions made in one area can rapidly impact others. So while in small areas ATC can be run by simulators it rapidly grows into an Np problem as more areas are added and the cross impact of multiple trajectories are taken into account. That does not prevent several areas of ATM being given 'Decision Support' tools especially in conflict detection and resolution.
Importantly, the new ATM systems use the aircraft intelligence so that the aircraft now provides earliest time/latest time of crossing of waypoints or arrival, and the trajectory description used by the ATM systems will in the future be the one generated by the FMC not one generated on the ground. As more airspace becomes 'free route' that is everyone flying their business or mission trajectory the airspace will become more efficient for the aircraft and the airspace utilization will increase.
So there will be a lot of automation, I expect UAS to be just other aircraft in the airspace and from the system point of view there will be no difference in handling between piloted, remotely piloted and autonomous. It is a commercial/safety decision not a technical decision whether the Airbus 390 or the Boeing 797 will be optionally manned or not. But there will be unmanned autonomous aircraft flying in normal class A airspace. There already are to some extent.

[neville_nobody]

How does autonomous aircraft fly through thunderstorms?
Current weather radar pictures are synthetic in most modern airliners. This means that the computer has already looked at the raw data, analysed the information and presented what it believes to be useful info about it to the human pilot.

Now, we may well have opinions about how well it does this, but either way, the computer is already in the loop.

That is correct it generates a composite synthetic of what it thinks is ahead. However this is not always accurate. We can look out the window and experience will tell us what is dangerous and what isn't. Or alternatively a small light green return with a bolt of lightening coming out of it is probably best avoided even though radar says its fine. How does a autonomous aircraft know what it doesn't know?



How do autonomous aircraft land in gusty 40knot crosswinds?

How do autonomous aircraft land with shifting winds?
As previously discussed and agreed by John Farley, the answer is better than humans since the Comet.

Well from my experience this isn't true. I can always beat the autothrottle/autopilot in these type of conditions as it cannot anticipate. Similarly why is the manual landing crosswind so much higher than the autoland one? And will this be the same in autno mous land.

Shifting winds on final is something else that current aircraft don't do well. Especially tailwind to landing in headwind scenario.


How do autonomous aircraft handle data input failures or data corruption?
(ie airspeed indications are no longer reliable or false sensory inputs ie stall warning goes off incorrectly)

Modern airliners are already totally dependent on software to fly. The computers are between the pilot and the controls whether they are autonomous or not. If data being corrupted is a problem, then the problem is already with us.

Added to this, it has unfortunately been shown that human pilots don't necessarily deal with such a scenario anyway.

Once again not true. I know off the top of head 5 data corruption failures where humans hand flew aircraft with all sorts of incorrect data being presented realised it was false data and ignored all the computers and landed the aircraft safely, non eventfully. Blocked Pitots, False Stall Warnings, False information, Total computer shutdown, etc etc.

So how will an autonomous aircraft figure out what is erroneous input and what is real? Computers are ultimately only able to compute what infomation they are given. No matter how advanced the old GIGO analogy still applies.

I guess similarly how will a computer know when another goes rogue? My assumption here is that two independant computers will be running the show but how will they know what is real and what isn't?

This doesn't even consider the extreme failures over the past 30 yeas where humans have really saved the day.

I would imagine most of the above problems could be solved however the data corruption issue could be a bit of a achilles heal.

[FlyingApe]

Automation is fine....as an assistance; fantastic for work load reduction from mundane tasks, and for freeing mental capacity.

Unfortunately..... no mechanical /software systems can achive the sort of reliability figures required .

The best software had an error rate of approx 1-2 per million lines of code, and as for the systems integrated into aircraft,... well on the aircraft I fly, when the weather gets too rough, the autopilot disconnects itself. ("AUTOPILOT, AUTOPILOT...)

[Tourist]

FlyingApe

Does the fact that there are autonomous aircraft currently flying that achieve vastly more tricky tasks than that required of an airliner not cause you to doubt your opinion even slightly?

No, they are not carrying passengers, but that is not a technical difficulty.

Out of interest, the aircraft you fly, what decade of last century was it designed in?

I only ask, because I used to have a car that the ABS never worked on. This was because it was designed before ABS was invented.

Perhaps something similar with your aircraft and autonomous flight?

[wiggy]

There are autonomous aircraft currently flying that achieve vastly more tricky tasks than that required of an airliner not cause you to doubt your opinion even slightly?

No, they are not carrying passengers, but that is not a technical difficulty.

Dare I ask - are you claiming/asserting that the technology to allow autonomous passenger ops working to the required level of safety expected by the traveling public and regulators is here right now? Today?

[Tourist]

Dare I ask - are you claiming/asserting that the technology to allow autonomous passenger ops working to the required level of safety expected by the traveling public and regulators is here right now? Today?

That's a very disingenuous question wiggy, since as you are well aware there is no such regulatory standard for autonomous aircraft.

How can you prove a level of safety except with hindsight?


The US navy currently has an autonomous aircraft which all by itself does carrier launches and landings and in-flight refuelling amongst other things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B

It currently has 100% safety record.....


Now, this was never designed to be passenger carrying. If it was, I would guess they would add an extra engine and probably just as many redundant systems as an airliner.

The point is, that the tech is there, and redundancy can be added in as required.

[wiggy]

I have no wish to continually argue but "disengenous" is a bit rich IMHO...

You did state "there are autonomous aircraft currently flying that achieve vastly more tricky tasks than that required of an airliner", and then went on to state "they are not carrying passengers, but that is not a technical difficulty."

Now maybe it's just me but TBH I'd say the question I asked was a fair one in the context of a thread about pilotless airliners.

[Tourist]

You asked a question which as you well knew had no answer since there are no regulatory standards yet.

In terms of technological rather than regulatory challenges, there are autonomous aircraft flying today that are achieving vastly more tricky aspects of flight than airliner ops.

If you can successfully and consistently land on an aircraft carrier, then a runway is zero challenge.

If you can air-to-air refuel, then most other challenges pale into relative insignificance.

As I see it the tricky part will be the handover to an automated ATC, but it is not beyond the wit of man.


If you rephrase the question to exclude the unachievable bit re non-existent regulations, then yes I absolutely claim that the tech required already exists. There are no new technologies required, merely the will to place them all in a suitable airframe.

[wiggy]

Look, I think I get your POV, I really do.

You seem to think airliner ops are trivial. Many here would disagree with you.

You seem to think the technology for fully automated/autonomous ops is pretty much here, but perhaps not quite ready for pax ops just yet, though all it needs is some unspecified technical advance.

If anyone fields an an objection as to why autonomous ops might not be a player at the moment you come up with a vague or trivial fix ( add another engine - really? , redundancy - yes but what/where/at what level), or failing that throw in comments about peoples mobile phones or ABS..which doesn't move the argument anywhere.

I can promise you many others (some working in AI) think we're decades away from autonomous ops.

Anyhow this is just a debate, the answer is at least 20-30 years down the road..I'm out.

[Huck]

Don't forget the relevant issue.

It is not, Can it be done?

It is, "Can it be done cheaper...."

[16024]

What Huck said. And back on track.
What has to be asked, and what I said last time this appeared as a thread:

A: How long will development and certification take?
B: How many years of cost saving will it take to recoup (A)?
C: How long will the oil last?

If A + B > C it's a dead duck.

If it helps let's remember that even BP (surely the definition of fossil fuel optimists) are saying just over 40 years

[keith williams]

16024

Your post appears to be based upon the premise that running out of oil will cause commercial aviation to stop. This is not a realistic idea, we will be running aircraft on "vegieburger oil" or some such substance by then.

[RoyHudd]

Plenty of people on this thread are in favour of pilotless flight now or in the future. Not a single one of them is a qualified and experienced and current Airline Transport Pilot, I strongly suspect. Their views are therefore worthless, IMHO.

Until you've gone around late due to windshear/squall for example, and then made an immediate low level turn to avoid a Cb, and then decided upon a practical level-out and a quick required course of action/navigation based upon fuel status, alternate weather, other diverting air traffic volume, and the unforecast weather, at destination, then you know squat. (I was part of a 2-crew op that faced this precise scenario at CUN last year, fortunately in a serviceable highly automated aircraft. What followed successfully was in no way a series of automatic reflexes, way off what could ever be programmed in the next hundred years)

Ignorance is bliss for so many of you armchair pilots. Enjoy.

[rideforever]

The big change will be when not only the pilots but the passengers too are robots.

[Arfur Dent]

Exactly what Roy Hudd said.
And John Farley - ie there is a huge difference between "steering" and "operating".

[keith williams]

RoyHudd

I have not read all of the posts in this thread, and with 8 pages I do not intend to do so. But from what I have read, it is not so much a case of people being in favour of pilotless aircraft or against them. One side appears to be arguing that they will eventually happen, and the other side is arguing that they will not. A number of posters also appear be accept that they will happen one day, but not for several decades.

Sadly like most pprune threads, it will achieve nothing much. Each side will never convince the other, and debate will end only when the two sides become exhausted. None of this will have influence on what the future will actually bring.

[Canute]

The big change will be when not only the pilots but the passengers too are robots.


Flight fantastic | The Economist (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21705295-instead-rewiring-planes-fly-themselves-why-not-give-them-android)

[alwayzinit]

The idea that there can be a sensible coloration between current UAVs and future Pilotless airliners is a little weak.
UAVs are not pilotless per se, they are remotely piloted. In addition carrying only hardware rather than "software" people, the loss of a UAV is only monetary.
At the moment there is no such thing as 100% safe software, indeed all our FBW aircraft have redundancy in spades but still need the Mk1 eyeball and Human interface in some situations.
When the Military go pilotless for combat aircraft the civil world will follow probably a decade later. IMHO.

[olster]

Well done Roy Hudd - could not agree more.

Cheers

[evansb]

There is no such thing as a 100% safe manned aircraft either. Otherwise, actuary tables would reflect a significantly reduced risk..

I predict unmanned jet freighters between major terminals by 2027. Unmanned semi-trucks (lorries) are ready to roll in temperate climates on undemanding routes. Unmanned 1-mile long freight trains without cabooses already exist.. Yes, the trains and lorries will operate in a protected, somewhat predictive and controlled environment, but the precedent has been set..unfortunately.

Unmanned passenger airliners? Probably never. Public perception, public relations, liability issues and corporate images just might outweigh the slickness and efficiency of automation.
Surely we all want a "Captain", even on the highly computerized (pre floppy disk era) Starship NCC-1701 Enterprise...don't we?

[Ian W]

There is no such thing as a 100% safe manned aircraft either. Otherwise, actuary tables would reflect a significantly reduced risk..

I predict unmanned jet freighters between major terminals by 2027. Unmanned semi-trucks (lorries) are ready to roll in temperate climates on undemanding routes. Unmanned 1-mile long freight trains without cabooses already exist.. Yes, the trains and lorries will operate in a protected, somewhat predictive and controlled environment, but the precedent has been set..unfortunately.

Unmanned passenger airliners? Probably never. Public perception, public relations, liability issues and corporate images just might outweigh the slickness and efficiency of automation.
Surely we all want a "Captain", even on the highly computerized (pre floppy disk era) Starship NCC-1701 Enterprise...don't we?
This is more of an emotional argument, that the SLF require the comfort blanket of a crew at the front, or they will be unwilling to fly. This despite the fact that the crew only perhaps control the lift off and then don't touch the controls until after the aircraft is slowing from its CAT IIIb autoland (used as crews are not capable of sufficient safe accuracy).

The human-on-the-loop systems of today are close to autonomous. The crew are there to take over in the 'otherwise' cases that are expensive to design and certify. But the cost of the crew is increasing and the otherwise cases are being solved in military systems - yes at the cost of attrition in the learning environment - but now solved. All UAS are required to be autonomous for the occasions when the control link fails. In Lost Link operations by definition the recoveries are autonomous.

There is no extra technology or problem with changing normal freight for SLF, just a psychological boundary and for the regulators more certification testing. Validation and verification testing will already have been carried out for the military operations so the extra certification testing should not prove too challenging just long.

It is the psychological boundary that is difficult, especially for those with a vested interest in retaining their front row seat.

[Arfur Dent]

Ian W - what do you mean by "CAT 111B used as crews are not capable of sufficient safe accuracy"??
With your use of half truths and semi facts, you are obviously not a pilot. Do you know how often pilots carry out CAT 3 autolands? Do you know what happens to flow rates at, say LHR, when LVPs are in force? Do you know what facilities are required regarding airborne and ground equipment to carry out LVPs?
When LVPs are not in force and sensitive areas are not required to be protected, almost every pilot will carry out a manual landing flying large parts of the final approach manually as well.
Yes, we have a vested interest as pilots but we do as passengers too. How can you possibly know how many millions of people have been saved by expeditious and timely pilot intervention? After you on the first pilotless aircraft - I won't join you - ever.

[Ian W]

Ian W - what do you mean by "CAT 111B used as crews are not capable of sufficient safe accuracy"??
With your use of half truths and semi facts, you are obviously not a pilot. Do you know how often pilots carry out CAT 3 autolands? Do you know what happens to flow rates at, say LHR, when LVPs are in force? Do you know what facilities are required regarding airborne and ground equipment to carry out LVPs?
When LVPs are not in force and sensitive areas are not required to be protected, almost every pilot will carry out a manual landing flying large parts of the final approach manually as well.
Yes, we have a vested interest as pilots but we do as passengers too. How can you possibly know how many millions of people have been saved by expeditious and timely pilot intervention? After you on the first pilotless aircraft - I won't join you - ever.

Actually, I do know all the limitations of ILS, which is rather too slowly being replaced by GLS and GBAS which is just as accurate (if not more accurate) and does not have issues with multi-path reflections requiring protected zones and extra in-trail separation. Perhaps you should read up about those, as GLS will be fitted to more advanced aircraft and they will not need to have extra separation. Perhaps you will then think about the number of days at Heathrow and other major hubs where the runway acceptance rate is severely reduced by aircraft using ILS when those aircraft using GLS could maintain the acceptance rates. An entire GLS/GBAS system can be installed at an airport for the cost of one annual ILS calibration and does not have the ILS limitations and will provide CAT IIIb accuracy for GLS approaches to all the runway ends within 20KM. GLS aircraft will save both the aircraft operators and airport operators significant amounts of money and disruption recovery exercises.

Not only that but as has been shown in developments in Seattle/Tacoma (SEA), curved instrument approaches can be carried out allowing reductions in flight time and noise nuisance while maintaining runway acceptance rates.

Autonomous operations are already being carried out in military developments and as said in this thread that includes carrier landings and air to air refueling both of which are far more complex than a simple IMC landing on a fixed runway. The potential financial benefits are not lost on the aircraft operators. As is always the case it is the regulators that cannot keep up with the capabilities of new aircraft. Although there are already UAS that are Part 23 certified.

Expect significant changes in the next decade and by 2035 the aviation world will have changed more than it did with the introduction of jet engines.

Addition>
I would have no problem being flown in a UAS. Enjoy your life in the aerospace museums saying "You won't get me up in one of those things."

[Basil]

the crew only perhaps control the lift off and then don't touch the controls until after the aircraft is slowing from its CAT IIIb autoland
In-flight decisions are an ongoing process.
For instance, I have twice been told by ATC to turn around and go back, on one occasion as we penetrated a dense line of Cb when the shortest exposure to hazard was to continue (the pros will understand reduced margins in the turn and degraded Wx radar coverage). The other would have been expensive, hazardous and inconvenient and was clearly due to a misunderstanding about baksheesh. On both occasions we continued.
What would a computer have done?
How will a computer handle a military interception? Climb, descend, turn? Good way to get yourself shot down.

I could go on but really, unless you are a professional aviator, stick to asking questions instead of making statements.

[OldLurker]

In-flight decisions are an ongoing process.
For instance, I have twice been told by ATC to turn around and go back ... What would a computer have done?
How will a computer handle a military interception? Climb, descend, turn? As is frequently pointed out in this forum, an aircraft's commander is responsible for its safe operation and not only is entitled, but has a duty, not to do what ATC says if the situation merits. An artificial-intelligence 'captain' of an autonomous aircraft would surely have the same authority. An aircraft that can be controlled by ATC wouldn't be an autonomous pilotless aircraft but a piloted UAV with ATC having the command responsibility.
A military interception is a bit different. Then the AI 'captain' would have to be able to understand that it's being intercepted, understand commands from the interceptor and do what it's told. Alternatively the interceptor could be equipped to take control, so that the aircraft again becomes a piloted UAV with the interceptor having command responsibility.

[Ian W]

OldLurker and Basil,
You are both aware that UAS are flying in combat situations continually where dealing with intercepts is a little more common than your experience? Global Hawk's don't get shipped out they fly out to the remote areas they work in and yes through the ITCZ and in bad weather. Just because you don't understand how all these 'continuous decisions' are being made in the UAS world doesn't mean that they are not.

[OldLurker]

Ian W, a bit of knee-jerk there. If you read what I said, and what I replied to, you might have understood that I was talking about autonomous pilotless aircraft rather than remotely-piloted UAS such as the Global Hawk, and about interception of civilian aircraft by military aircraft in normal airspace not war-zone (e.g. in the case of a security concern, or cases like Helios 522), which is never done by UAS!

[Arfur Dent]

Ian W
Still no answer to "What did you mean by CAT 3B used as crew are not capable of sufficient safe accuracy?". What did you mean and what is "sufficient safe accuracy"?
I am aware that the ILS will eventually be replaced but I think most aircraft will have pilots for the next generation or 2 - at least.

[Basil]

You are both aware that UAS are flying in combat situations continually where dealing with intercepts is a little more common than your experience?
Really? With 400 pax on board? In a situation where an ATC handover has failed and a fighter appears in one's 10 o'clock rocking her wings?
Nope, I don't think we are close to having computers handle the sort of situations I've mentioned.

[dr dre]

Expect significant changes in the next decade and by 2035 the aviation world will have changed more than it did with the introduction of jet engines.

Be careful about future predictions of the advance of technology. I bet on the day of the Concordes first flight had I told you that less than 20 would be built and in 30 years time we'd be in subsonic aircraft crossing the Atlantic at the same speed as a 707 with no plans to go any faster I would have been laughed out of the room.