And then there was only one

[FalseGS]

It's getting there (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-airshow-single-pilot/two-become-one-planemakers-work-on-tech-to-cut-pilot-numbers-idUSKBN1K829N)

[Rated De]

Just in time to save beleaguered Airline management who in the last decades have presided over a continued reduction of terms and conditions.

Nice of the cabal to pump out the effluent now! Must be contract season!

Put far more faith in outcome and substantially less in words.

[etudiant]

Surely this is only a stalking horse for the longer term goal of fully autonomous operation.
A single pilot concept has to have provisions for the potential incapacitation of that person. Logically that means a pilotless design with a pilot extension. Just doubt that either the systems designs or the ATC infrastructure will be be ready by the 2023 date suggested.

[RUMBEAR]

One topic I have not seen address in this discussion of single pilot air transport operations is how to train new "captains". Lets face it, the technology has been here for some time to design a cockpit around a single pilot. The current design is required by regulatory authorities. It didn't take long to redesign cockpits to remove the flight engineer station.

So one of the most important roles of the FO is to learn the technical / non technical skills and decision making which can take many years to develop. I can see single pilot operations being the saviour of the bean counters for about 15-20 year. Then they will wake up one day and say we have to go pilotless otherwise we have to shut down!! (maybe thats the plan??).

[jack11111]

Quote: "Then they will wake up one day and say we have to go pilotless otherwise we have to shut down!! (maybe that's the plan??)."

Of course that's the plan.

Then the head FA becomes "Captain"! At half the salary.

[superflanker]

My god, and all of this mess in order to save the money of paying a FO? Couldn't they just focus on saving money with other methods (or perhaps 1 or 2 less cabin crew instead of jeopardizing flight safety)?

[Timmy Tomkins]

My god, and all of this mess in order to save the money of paying a FO? Couldn't they just focus on saving money with other methods (or perhaps 1 or 2 less cabin crew instead of jeopardizing flight safety)?
Or just charge what the flight is really worth instead of being slaves to the cut, cut, cut mantra. The lack of imagination indicates that it is management that should be automated in my view.

[Hotel Tango]

The lack of imagination indicates that it is management that should be automated in my view.

I've been thinking along those lines for a long time ;)

[iggy]

My god, and all of this mess in order to save the money of paying a FO?

I thought the bussiness was in charging them heaps of money to take that seat.

[framer]

Are there any stats floating around about pilot incapacitation? I would have thought it would be fairly regular globally ( like every second week) because I’ve known 4 guys that have become incapacitated while flying a jet and I don’t know that many people.

[er340790]

I suspect that one day, once FedEx, UPS et al prove to the world that unmanned freighters can fly safely around the world, airline pilots will go the same way as Flight Engineers, Navigators, Wireless Operators, Observers etc etc etc.

Air Gunners may stage a come-back ironically. One day I might be persuaded to get on a plane without pilots, but definitely not one without an Air Marshall!!! :eek:

[AerocatS2A]

Are FedEx in the habit of using brand new, latest tech, for their freighters?

[Daysleeper]

Are there any stats floating around about pilot incapacitation? I would have thought it would be fairly regular globally ( like every second week) because I’ve known 4 guys that have become incapacitated while flying a jet and I don’t know that many people.

As far as I can remember the regulatory objective is 1% per year for pilots on multi-pilot ops and 0.1% for single-pilot commercial air transport.

[Journey Man]

My god, and all of this mess in order to save the money of paying a FO? Couldn't they just focus on saving money with other methods (or perhaps 1 or 2 less cabin crew instead of jeopardizing flight safety)?

There in lies the rub. It is easier to chase constant cost cutting than to draw a line where we treat people with respect and instead try to sell the airline or service on its merits.

On a separate note to address the article, the Germanwings incident is not a good reason to maintain two crew. That wasn't sufficient to overcome the threat. It also is not beneficial to look at a person model of fallibility, rather to consider the system model. The copilot was recruited with a known history of psychotic depressive episodes and prevented from taking medication to retain his medical certificate. Recruitment and continued oversight failed - a failure of the system. The system relies on self reporting, in this case by an individual who had impaired judgement and everything to lose - a failure of the system. Finally the medical practitioner consulted by the copilot prior to the accident had significant guidance on how they would breach a patients confidentiality rights, but very little guidance as to when it would be permissible to do so in the interest of public safety - again, a system failing.

System designers are human and will make errors and systems inherently contain error traps and latent errors. Human fallibility can cause errors also, but human variability can prevent incidents. I believe a combination of systems supporting humans, and humans backing up systems still presents the best layers of defence against threats.

[Heathrow Harry]

It .Really pains me to write this but the last 30 years have proved conclusively that airlines can't sell the product "on it's merits".

The SLF always go on price... SQ were /are the last people to be able to genuinely charge extra because of their service and standards. They can still manage maybe 5% over but more than that... no

People would board a plane piloted by a monkey if they got 50% off I'm afraid

It's v v depressing.'..

[Sallyann1234]

Air Gunners may stage a come-back ironically. One day I might be persuaded to get on a plane without pilots, but definitely not one without an Air Marshall!!! :eek:
With an automated aircraft having no flight deck door and control only from the ground, won't that actually improve security?

[Icanseeclearly]

With regards pilotless aircraft, won’t happen until they are completely unhackable and unjammable, GPS is easily jammed or downgraded as anyone flying near Syria at the moment will know and computers are easily hacked, I just don’t see it happening the risks are just too high.

With regards single pilot operations, what training will the pilot need? Straight out of L3 with 300 hours onto a passenger jet? Or will they require let’s say 3-5 years of On The Job training sitting in a second seat in the flightdeck being called.. I don’t know a First Officer???

[old,not bold]

“You can see the drivers from both angles,” said Graham Braithwaite, Director of Transport Systems at Britain’s Cranfield University.

Or not, as the case may be.

[JumpJumpJump]

With an automated aircraft having no flight deck door and control only from the ground, won't that actually improve security?

until the building is stormed and the terrorists suddenly have access to an entire airborne fleet.....

[Lookleft]

Until the manufacturers actually commit to building, and the airlines commit to buying a single pilot aircraft then it is still some tech-nerds fantasy.

[CargoOne]

Don’t be consused - A & B are not interested in single pilot airplane. What they doing now is in essence building a pilotless aircraft which for transition/interim period of about 10 years will be MONITORED by pilot, who not will be called “system panel operator” just to avoid upsetting the unions. It also answers your question regarding the training - no more Captains and expensive process of gathering experience. There will be more and less experienced pilots monitoring the systems, max paygrade shall be around current year-5 FO. And then in 10 years after that finally we go into into a fully pilotless aircraft with elements of ground based monitoring functions.

[CargoOne]

Are FedEx in the habit of using brand new, latest tech, for their freighters?

If you only knew the level of frustation FedEx management has regarding pilots & unions, you would know they will fork out any money tomorrow to go pilotless.

[LeadSled]

If you only knew the level of frustation FedEx management has regarding pilots & unions, you would know they will fork out any money tomorrow to go pilotless.
Folks,
I won't be around to see it, but I forecast that the regulatory framework, and the cost of compliance will be so great that it will make the cost and flexibility of a human crew the winner in a cost/benefit contest.
If you know anything about the restrictions (the law) around space launches, you will understand what I am getting at.
Tootle pip!!

[Rated De]

Or just charge what the flight is really worth instead of being slaves to the cut, cut, cut mantra. The lack of imagination indicates that it is management that should be automated in my view.

As a species we are stupid. We chase our own obsolescence, claiming it 'efficient'. Rather amusing really, if it weren't so existentially stupid.
Pilots are trusted for a reason. Airline management is not.
So rather than investing, growing and generating a return on investment of many millions of passengers, many millions of dollars of operating revenue over a 30 or more year career, let the industry instead work towards eliminating it all together. Brilliant!

[Airbubba]

As we were assured with the elimination of flight engineers and age 60 retirement, 'don't worry son, the union will never let it happen...' ;)

Airline pilots protest a study on allowing cargo planes to be operated by only one pilot with remote helpBy Hugo Martin (http://www.latimes.com/la-bio-hugo-martin-staff.html#nt=byline) Aug 04, 2018 6:00 AMUnions representing nearly 50 commercial airlines have launched a protest against federal legislation to study the idea of putting cargo planes in the hands of only one pilot with the help of remote-control pilots on the ground.

But this dispute includes a big mystery: Officials of pilots unions don’t know who put the language in the Federal Aviation Administration funding bill to study the idea of one pilot per cargo plane or for what reason. The FAA bill sets aside $128.5 million to research the concept, along with other topics of research.

The pilots unions, representing more than 100,000 pilots, say they are opposed to the idea of eliminating a co-pilot from a commercial cargo plane because the task of flying a jet, communicating with air traffic controllers and monitoring weather changes requires two trained pilots.

The unions also say remote-control flying is vulnerable to glitches and computer hackers.

“Anything less than two pilots physically in the cockpit will significantly increase risk, especially during emergency operations, when timely actions are coordinated and implemented by each crewmember based on real-time information,” said Robert Travis, president of the Independent Pilots Assn., the collective bargaining unit for UPS.

The FAA funding package for 2017-2018, adopted by Congress in April, includes a line that says, “The FAA, in consultation with NASA and other relevant agencies, shall establish a research and development program in support of single-piloted cargo aircraft assisted with remote piloting and computer piloting.”

The legislation does not explain the motivation for the study.

Kara Deniz, a spokeswoman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents pilots that fly for Aloha Air Cargo and Southern Air Cargo, among other carriers, said the union doesn’t know who put the language in the FAA bill but suspects that the study is the first step in a move to propose requiring only one pilot on commercial passenger airlines.

“It’s possible that this is the way to get the camel’s nose under the tent,” she said.

Representatives for FedEx Corp. and Atlas Air, two of the nation’s biggest cargo airlines, declined to comment on the matter.


Airline pilots protest a study on allowing cargo planes to be operated by only one pilot with remote help (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-remote-pilots-20180804-story.html)

[parabellum]

Folks,
I won't be around to see it, but I forecast that the regulatory framework, and the cost of compliance will be so great that it will make the cost and flexibility of a human crew the winner in a cost/benefit contest.
If you know anything about the restrictions (the law) around space launches, you will understand what I am getting at.
Tootle pip!!
There is another elephant in the room but, given that pilots have very little to do with aviation insurance matters, it is only natural that dialogue centres around the technical aspects of single or no crew operations.
From a previous life I still maintain contact with a few underwriters as well as their up coming juniors and the mere mention of single crew long haul and more particularly pilotless aircraft generates expressions of disbelief and horror. The actual hull insurance won't be such a problem, increased somewhat to allow for additional risk, as they see it, but the liabilities insurances for passengers and particularly third party will increase to billions and the premiums increasing by several fold, possibly enough to render the whole idea of a pilotless operation futile. Legal liability and professional indemnity premiums for the manufacturers of the equipment, both airborne and ground could run to telephone numbers.
When all those problems have been resolved, if ever, there remains the question of the travelling public, will they accept a pilotless aircraft at a cheaper price or will they be prepared to pay a few dollars more for a human piloted one? We are talking about the premium fares here, First and Business, not the LCC ones.

[megan]

As SLF, not for this little black duck. If you don't need two pilots for redundancy, why two engines? Next idea off the cab rank will be to have only one, that must save mega bucks in managements cost cutting scrounge.

[stilton]

I believe that a young pilot starting out today will see total autonomy take his job away before he or she retires


The appearance of huge savings to operators are irresistible


Sad but inevitable

[parabellum]

The actual hull insurance won't be such a problem, increased somewhat to allow for additional risk, as they see it, but the liabilities insurances for passengers and particularly third party will increase to billions and the premiums increasing by several fold, possibly enough to render the whole idea of a pilotless operation futile. Legal liability and professional indemnity premiums for the manufacturers of the equipment, both airborne and ground could run to telephone numbers.

Substantially higher premiums versus cost of pilots. So what is your answer to the insurance issue stilton?

[172510]

t the liabilities insurances for passengers and particularly third party will increase to billions and the premiums increasing by several fold, possibly enough to render the whole idea of a pilotless operation futile. Legal liability and professional indemnity premiums for the manufacturers of the equipment, both airborne and ground could run to telephone numbers..
Huge corporations such as Amazon have so much money that they can setup their own insurance business.
(Are they not rich enough to set up their own country, or purchase a used one, so they can have their own regulator?)

[LeadSled]

Folks,
I suppose I could point out that FedEx already has a large fleet of single pilot aeroplane, its Cessna 208 Caravan fleet.
Tootle pip!!

[meleagertoo]

Then the head FA becomes "Captain"! At half the salary.

The forward bulkhead vending machine in charge of the aeroplane? I wonder?

[WingNut60]

Insurance is all about risk, not perceptions.
And risk is about probability and consequence.

While the consequences (cost) of loss of a single pilot aircraft may increase sharply, at least in the short term, provided the probability does not increase then there is little that I can see to support sky-rocketing insurance rates.
If experience showed that, with time, the overall risk was to decline then, in a perfect world, the insurance rates should reduce also.
Though I wouldn't bank on that happening.

If the probability was to increase then they'd have more to worry about than just paying their insurance premiums.

[compressor stall]

Interestingly I was in conversation with some fairly senior folk from one of the major manufacturers who were saying how they need to improve the role of the PM in the cockpit to achieve fewer safety related events, even with the increase in automation function they are designing. Single pilot was certainly not an option for them in the near future.

[alf5071h]

Monitoring, the role of the non flying pilot, or the role of a single pilot, are an interesting and debatable issues.
The role and effectiveness of a human monitor will depend on how ‘monitoring’ is defined and what safety expectations exist.

Many people in the industry expect high quality monitoring from pilots; safety evidence suggest otherwise with accident and incident reports citing human error, blame and train. Why should we expect one pilot to understand a situation which the other might appear to have misjudged. Both are human who may have different situational understandings; however, where each is sufficiently close forming a shared ‘mental model’, then there is no need for intervention. Yet where awareness differs to the extent of requiring intervention, which view is correct; who judges, on what basis. This suggest that the concept of monitoring flawed.

Compare this with dual tech systems requiring a ‘comparator’ alert, and need for an alternative third system for judgement, yet even that has weaknesses when considering multiple failures.
What happens when both pilots awareness is incorrect, good shared mental model, but wrong; typical of illusionary situations, both visual, and mental constructs.

Does the industry assume that the PM is always correct, yet they may be the less experienced in forming awareness. So should the more experienced be the PM monitoring, which might imply that the less experienced will fly the aircraft.

The design of a modern high-tech aircraft should not consider pilot monitoring of automation (a warning or caution for critical failures), systems alone are less error prone than the human, yet the human is a very valuable monitor for the overall situation, the resultant of human-system interaction and the operating environment (do we think or train for that view). The autos a working correctly but the output is not what the PF intended.

Some aspects of these may be suitable for automatic monitoring; system inputs can be bounded avoiding unsound inputs (flight path protection, FMS data entry), and at a lesser level, cautions questioning intent (selecting low autobrake on a contaminated runway), but even this requires knowledge of the situation which only the pilot may have.

There is not a win-win situation, only a balance; and perhaps that balance is moving more towards automation partly because of mistaken beliefs that early automation reduces training and experience for understanding systems, greater efficiency, lower cost. However recent developments in automation are closing this gap; safer automatic flight with less training, but IF and only IF the operating environment does not expect even more savings and efficiency.

Many of today’s safety issues are within this ‘IF’ proviso (complexity, workload, fatigue), thus without reappraisal of these goals, then single pilot - automatic operations might be no safer than today (but is that good enough). Also in changing to a single pilot the industry risks introducing some other, unforeseen safety issue.
Who monitors the regulators or operators; what is the basis of their risk management training with respect to actual operations.

[Nemrytter]

As SLF, not for this little black duck. If you don't need two pilots for redundancy, why two engines?I'm sure someone said the same regarding two engines during the four-engine era.

[Sorry Dog]

Insurance is all about risk, not perceptions.
And risk is about probability and consequence.

While the consequences (cost) of loss of a single pilot aircraft may increase sharply, at least in the short term, provided the probability does not increase then there is little that I can see to support sky-rocketing insurance rates.
If experience showed that, with time, the overall risk was to decline then, in a perfect world, the insurance rates should reduce also.
Though I wouldn't bank on that happening.

If the probability was to increase then they'd have more to worry about than just paying their insurance premiums.

Even if the actual risk isn't that much greater, there is little history to support that. Less history means higher risk from the unknown.

But that concept not withstanding, at least when talking about the the U.S. legal system there is another factor. With a fully automated system I suspect the number of people and companies that can be sued to be much greater as well as what they can be sued for. Just ask Uber's legal department about that one. They have probably dealt with hundreds of fatalities caused by their human drivers, but on their first computer driver fatality the settlement happened so quickly there's little doubt it dwarfed all before it.

[tdracer]

Computing power is expanding exponentially as predicted by Moore's Law (which is really Moore's observation, but I quibble), and while there are signs it may start slowing it's still clear that the growth of computing power will continue to outpace "human intelligence" by a huge margin. The shortcoming is programing - it's already incredibly difficult (and expensive) to design and certify flight critical software (Design Assurance Level A - DAL A in the lingo). But even today, most of the coding is done by computer - someone draws a flow chart and that's turned directly into 'machine language' by computer software.
Given sufficient information, a computer can evaluate hundreds or even thousands of possible actions, and determine which one has the best probability of a successful outcome. The weakness is a computer can quickly get stuck when it has 'insufficient information' - something humans are somewhat better at (but still far from perfect). But electronics and the associated sensors are improving so fast that before long, there will simply be more information available than a human can ever hope to process - only a computer would be able to make sense of it.
I was in the industry for 40 years. I listened to people who swore they'd never get on an aircraft with FADEC engines. Same thing with FBW, glass flight decks, and less than 3 engines for long overwater flights. Yet all these things became commonplace during my career. Forty years ago, the idea of fully autonomous cars was wild science fiction - yet it's predicted that within 10 years we'll have exactly that. In fact, I foresee a future where automotive 'human drivers' will be discouraged if not outright banned - and it may happen far sooner than most of us would like...
Autonomous commercial aircraft will come. Aviation is understandably slow to adopt unproven technology (the FAA is on-record as stating 'artificial intelligence' is banned from flight critical software). But when CFIT and other forms of pilot error (and sadly, pilot suicide) make flying more dangerous than driving to the airport into your fully autonomous car - the industry will have no option but adapt.
BTW, many cargo operators are buying brand new, modern freighter aircraft. They'd be delighted if they didn't need pilots...

[AerocatS2A]

My prediction is that it will be self driving cars that desensitise the public to having fully automatic transport. IF fully self driving cars are successful then I think that aviation might end up down the same path. I also think that fully self driving cars will not be here as soon as some are predicting.

[Kerosene Kraut]

Technically it might be possible, like with military aircraft, but not at high commercial airline safety levels unless you have fully qualified pilots monitoring from the ground at any time. If you do all the cost of the failproof datalink comes on top. So manned cockpits must be cheaper and the flying public is more fearsome than the industry. Let just one crash happen and all your remote controlled aircraft can be converted to freighters. Two pilots "at work" in the cockpit are a minimum that will stay for quite some time.

[stilton]

Substantially higher premiums versus cost of pilots. So what is your answer to the insurance issue stilton?



Statistics will be rolled out to ‘prove’ how safe
single pilot or autonomous pilotless aircraft will be



Not my answer, the thought is abhorrent but
I have no doubt it will happen



Single pilot airliners within 30 years and pilotless within 50

[AerocatS2A]

Single pilot won’t happen. If you need one then you need two in case of incapacitation. If pilotless happens it will be two pilot -> pilotless.

[megan]

Going to be a very long, long time before pax hop on a pilotless aircraft IMHO, or even cargo ops.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/3532398/ao2008070.pdf

5.6 Final comments and lessons for new systemsThe investigation into the in-flight upset occurrence involving QPA on 7 October 2008 was difficult and took an extensive amount of time. It covered a range of complicated issues, including some that had rarely been considered in depth by previous aircraft accident investigations (such as system safety assessments and single event effects).
Ultimately, the occurrence involved a design limitation in the flight control system that had not been previously identified by the aircraft manufacturer, and a failure mode with the ADIRU that had not been previously identified by the ADIRU manufacturer. Given the increasing complexity of such systems, this investigation has offered an insight into the types of issues that will become relevant for future investigations. It also identified a number of specific lessons or reminders for the manufacturers of new complex, safety-critical systems to consider. These include:
• System safety assessments (SSAs) and other design evaluation activities should recognise that ADIRUs and similar types of equipment can generate a wide range of patterns of incorrect data, including patterns not previously experienced.
• Failure mode effects analyses (FMEAs) have a limited ability to identify all equipment failure modes, particularly for complex, highly-integrated systems.
• Where practicable for safety-critical functions, SSA and other design evaluation activities should consider the effects of different values of system inputs in each mode of operation, particularly during transitions between modes.
• The BITE for ADIRUs and similar types of equipment should check the results of each key stage in the processing of output data.
• SEEs are a potential hazard to aircraft systems that contain high-density integrated circuits. Designers should consider the risk of SEE and include specific features in the system design to mitigate the effects of such events, especially in systems with a potentially significant influence on flight safety.
• The in-service performance records for safety-critical line-replaceable units should include all reported performance problems, not just those that result in the removal of the unit from the aircraft.
• The records for the key components within safety-critical systems should include details such as production or batch codes as well as the part number where practicable.
A broader lesson concerns the safety assessment activities needed for complex systems. In recent years there have been developments in the guidance material for system development processes and research into new approaches for SSA. However, design engineers and safety analysts also perform a safety-critical function, yet the investigation found little published research that has examined the human factors issues affecting such personnel. In other words, there has been limited research that has systematically evaluated how these personnel conduct their evaluations of systems, and how the design of their tasks, tools, training and guidance material can be improved so that the likelihood of design errors is minimised. The need for further research and development in this area will become more important as system complexity increases over time.What is worse is para 6.3 (bolding mine),• It is very likely that the air data inertial reference unit (ADIRU) data-spike failure mode involved a problem with the data packaging and queuing within the ADIRU’s central processing unit module. This fault resulted in numerous data anomalies, including air data reference parameters being intermittently transmitted with the data or label of another parameter. Despite extensive testing and analysis, the exact origins of the failure mode could not be determined.• Tests and analyses showed that the air data inertial reference unit data-spike failure mode was probably not triggered by a software bug, software corruption, hardware fault, physical environment factors (such as temperature of vibration), or from electromagnetic interference.
• The three known occurrences of the air data inertial reference unit data-spike failure mode occurred on two A330 aircraft operated by the same operator; however, no factors related to the operator’s aircraft configuration, operating practices, or maintenance practices were identified that were associated with the failure mode.
• The flight crew’s responses to the warnings and cautions, the pitch-down events, and the consequences of the pitch-down events, demonstrated sound judgement and a professional approach.Also,
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/24550/aair200503722_001.pdfWhen the upset event occurred and the primary flight display indicated an underspeed, then an overspeed condition, as well as the slip/skid indicator showing full right deflection, the crew experienced a situation that had previously been considered not possible.Things went downhill for the PIC, Captain Sullivan, post event, PTSD.

https://www.pprune.org/australia-new-zealand-pacific/610203-qf-72-a.html

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/24550/aair200503722_001.pdfErroneous acceleration values sourced from the Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) and flagged as valid to the aircraft precipitated an in-flight upset as the aircraft climbed through FL365.......The software anomaly was not detected in the original testing and certification of the ADIRU.

Then there was,

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20010207-0 Following a nighttime flight from Barcelona to Bilbao, the crew positioned the plane for a runway 30 approach and landing. During their final ILS approach, the aircraft encountered heavy turbulence at about 200 feet agl. with gusts up to 65 mph. The aircraft encountered windshear with 1.25G updraft, downdraft and a tailwind gust at just 70 feet agl. When the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) sounded, the captain called for a go-around while pulling on the sidestick, reportedly without pressing his priority control button. The combination of dynamic winds and the crew actions created a situation that triggered the airplane's alpha protection system. As the crew applied TOGA power for a go-around, with both pilots pulling back on their sidesticks, the alpha protection law reduced the elevator nose-up command. Instead of a go- around, the aircraft struck the runway with a vertical speed of approx. 1,200 fpm. The nosegear collapsed and the aircraft skidded 3,280 feet (about 1000 m) down the runway before coming to a stop.

Probable Cause:
"The cause of the accident was the activation of the angle of attack protection system which, under a particular combination of vertical gusts and windshear and the simultaneous actions of both crew members on the sidesticks, not considered in the design, prevented the aeroplane from pitching up and flaring during the landing." The difficulty in testing software, I understand, is determining ALL the possible failure modes. Pilots are here to stay.

[Mark in CA]

You can bet the planes carrying presidents and prime ministers and other politicians will continue to have two (or more) pilots.

[parabellum]

Statistics will be rolled out to ‘prove’ how safe
single pilot or autonomous pilotless aircraft will be


I believe underwriters would be highly suspicious of such statistics and unlikely to be persuaded by them. :)

[Heathrow Harry]

Statistics will be rolled out to ‘prove’ how safe
single pilot or autonomous pilotless aircraft will be

Not my answer, the thought is abhorrent but
I have no doubt it will happen

Single pilot airliners within 30 years and pilotless within 50

I think you're right.......................

[jbsharpe]

Who's looking out for weather and making the decision to put the seatbelt sign on?

Pax with an admittedly irrational but very real dislike of turbulence won't like this one bit!

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by stilton https://www.pprune.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/611244-then-there-only-one-post10217854.html#post10217854)



Statistics will be rolled out to ‘prove’ how safe
single pilot or autonomous pilotless aircraft will be

Not my answer, the thought is abhorrent but
I have no doubt it will happen

Single pilot airliners within 30 years and pilotless within 50

I think you're right.......................

I think that the times will be shorter: Uber Elevate is pushing for pilotless air taxis in 10 years. Several airlines check FOQA to make sure that the pilots didn't take over manually at any time, some insist that landings are automatic. Statistics are already being put forward with the argument that self-driving cars are so much safer that they should be mandatory.
The world is changing rapidly

[Sorry Dog]

My prediction is that it will be self driving cars that desensitise the public to having fully automatic transport. IF fully self driving cars are successful then I think that aviation might end up down the same path. I also think that fully self driving cars will not be here as soon as some are predicting.

I tend to agree here. As long as cars are not fully automated, there are too many luddites that will point to that as proof that automated piloting is not capable enough.

As for when the robo cars get here, too much effort is being thrown at this for it not eventually work out in some form. The hold up is going to making machines capable enough to understand human communication. This has to happen since mixed computer and human traffic is bound to happen, or at least the programming needs to be able to understand human traffic controllers (i.e. police or school crossing guards). When computers get to the point that they can understand humans that they well, then many other professions besides pilots, cabbies, and truckers will have their prospects greatly altered.

[BAengineer]

I believe underwriters would be highly suspicious of such statistics and unlikely to be persuaded by them. :)

The Insurance company actuaries will just do what they have been doing for decades, adjust insurance premiums to death rates. They will insure anything for a price. It will then be up to the finance managers at the airlines to decide whether the increased insurance premiums are paid for by the savings in pilots salaries.

It will be a decision by the beancounters (as usual)..

[MG23]

I believe that a young pilot starting out today will see total autonomy take his job away before he or she retires

But that's true of most jobs these days. Mine didn't exist thirty years ago and won't exist in anything like its current form in another twenty years.

Personally, I doubt automated aircraft will be in operation in significant numbers before VR makes travel obsolete for most of us. I won't be making many more business trips once we have VR drones installed at our customer sites so we can move things around and install new hardware from here, without having to physically ship a body to do it.

Combine drones with things like Google Earth VR for sightseeing, and I'd say that VR and local manufacturing are the real threats to aviation jobs. And to driving jobs, for that matter.

[ManUtd1999]

I heard a rumour Embraer looked into it for the E2 so it would be no surprise if Airbus were researching aswell. There's several options for how it could work, all requiring different levels of automation:

- Keep 2x pilots but reduce the PM role by increasing automated monitoring of systems and pilot inputs. This role could then be much lower-skill, more easily trained and potentially combined with other duties.
- Automate the PM role away and provide a data-link to the ground for assistance where required
- Move to a near fully-autonomous aircraft with a single pilot to monitor and provide a back-up of last resort.

IMO certification, not technology, would be the main barrier. The rules for single-pilot large transport aircraft don't really exist and re-writing them is neither simple, quick or cheap.... Retro-fitting is unlikely to work either, limiting it to new types and further delaying implementation.

In summary, I think it will happen but 2025 is optimistic in the extreme. If I was betting I'd say that the next clean-slate single-aisle (ie, MAX / NEO replacement) will be a single pilot aircraft launched around 2030.

I believe that a young pilot starting out today will see total autonomy take his job away before he or she retires

But that's true of most jobs these days. Mine didn't exist thirty years ago and won't exist in anything like its current form in another twenty years.


True, but if pilots have been automated away imagine the millions of other jobs that will also have disappeared. Society as we know it wouldn't exist so there's not much point planning for it ;)

[Private jet]

The real argument here is the timescale, nothing more. Pilots now face the same "sharp end of the technological stick" that flight engineers faced 30 years ago. Didn't see a majority of pilots back then petitioning for their colleagues, but I'm sure the current generation of youngbloods will want to argue to save their own skins. The only constant in life is change...

[FAR CU]

https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/gcrc/dms/image/C5612AQE1rg3NHsgaWw/article-cover_image-shrink_423_752/0?e=1539216000&v=beta&t=zqvPj2Mgk70CcjQiLhBgNNY0RXLi3G-WYnFKU4rqN7E (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/einstein-quote-technology-making-generation-idiots-preston-vanderven)

[RexBanner]

From my airline I suspect that a good 40-50% of Captains (bear in mind that’s minimum-the ones that show the obvious signs) would not want to be anywhere near the pointy end of a commercial aircraft with all that responsibility with no First Officer to back them up. The job will totally change and I would suspect that far less pilots are going to want to do the job single handed than the jobs that are saved by single pilot operations. A manning crisis would still result. Not only that but how are you going to train captains of the future in this brave new world?

[CargoOne]

From my airline I suspect that a good 40-50% of Captains (bear in mind that’s minimum-the ones that show the obvious signs) would not want to be anywhere near the pointy end of a commercial aircraft with all that responsibility with no First Officer to back them up. The job will totally change and I would suspect that far less pilots are going to want to do the job single handed than the jobs that are saved by single pilot operations. A manning crisis would still result. Not only that but how are you going to train captains of the future in this brave new world?

It might be 40-50% of Captains would not be welcoming this improvement but quitting a highly paid job just because of that? Maybe 5% which is just about the normal attrition rate and scheduled retirement. It could well turn out there will be less new pilots (try to find a flight engineer under 45-50 these days!) but then again it will be matched by new single/no pilot aircraft deliveries.

[RexBanner]

I’m not arguing it’s not the future, I think we all know it is. But the timescale is something that people on here are wildly underestimating here. When the transition comes it’s not going to be from two pilots to one, one pilot is far more dangerous than than two regardless of technology to help mitigating errors (just look at Germanwings, Egyptair, Malaysian?), we cant even stay logged on to CPDLC for more than five minutes so how is this magical ground to air connection going to provide uninterruptible failsafe help at hand? It’s going to have to be straight to pilotless. We’re multiple decades away from that even now.

[RexBanner]

Combine drones with things like Google Earth VR for sightseeing, and I'd say that VR and local manufacturing are the real threats to aviation jobs. And to driving jobs, for that matter.

Same argument that said Premier League grounds would be empty twenty five years ago when the new TV deal and mass televisation of football with Sky was introduced. People will still want to “be there”, you can’t replicate that feeling of being there in real life no matter how good the digital recreation is.

[EEngr]

A manning crisis would still result. Not only that but how are you going to train captains of the future in this brave new world?
Where are you going to find candidates for training? The handwriting is on the wall: Pilotless aircraft are the wave of the future. Why bother pursuing this career? And now you have a self-fulfilling prophecy. The single crew flight decks will be filled by first officers already in the pipeline. So the immediate demand goes down. Trainees will have a longer wait for an opening. Soon, when this second wave of shortages catches up with the market, the airlines will need pilotless technology. Or the planes will sit on the ground. Regulators hands will be forced.

[RexBanner]

Nice fantasy but the same discussion about pilot demise was taking place in the eighties. Thirty years later we’re still talking about pilotless aircraft and it’s still just over the horizon for some undetermined time with numerous technological challenges and impediments still in place.

[parabellum]

single/no pilot aircraft deliveries.

The cost of R & D for pilotless aircraft and an ATC environment to match is way, way beyond the financial capabilities of companies like Boeing and Airbus and therefore not in their interests beyond a bit of small budget dabbling to examine a concept. Have any ATC establishments delved seriously into the pilotless sky scenario and how they would handle it?

My longest commercial sector was 15hours and five minutes, SFO to HKG in mid winter, how is one pilot going to handle this? We were a crew of four with horizontal bunk rest and all dog tired by the time we got to HKG. If such a duty was split between two pilots and a higher level of automation the level of continuous concentration is still a very big ask.

[Herod]

A bit of a simplistic precis, but basically "the days of the manned fighter and bomber are over" (British Government White Paper 1957). Sixty-one years ago.

[Rated De]

When;

Threats
Personal intimidation
Outsourcing
Transfer to group entities
Or in the case of Qantas 'terminal decline'

Doesn't work, why not get a friendly journalist (with a nice quiet family upgrade to boot) to piddle out this story that as Herod beautifully illuminated has been around for decades.

As with most fairy tales, Elon Musk will be on Mars sometime soon!

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking 'contract season' is open!

[Lookleft]

I will repeat what I have said before, when manufacturers commit to building a single pilot/no pilot airliner and an airline commits (not EOI but cash for production line slots), then and only then will pilots need to be concerned for their future. Until then I will continue to go to work assured in the knowledge that my job and that of my F/O are safe, now and into the future. The horizon that the tech geeks see for their pilotless prophecy is that generated by their VR goggles.

[climber314]

Alphabet, Inc. is making big strides in transportation... Waymo, Project Wing (http://www.thedrive.com/tech/22730/project-wing-completes-first-long-distance-residential-drone-delivery-in-us)

[Heathrow Harry]

I will repeat what I have said before, when manufacturers commit to building a single pilot/no pilot airliner and an airline commits (not EOI but cash for production line slots), then and only then will pilots need to be concerned for their future. Until then I will continue to go to work assured in the knowledge that my job and that of my F/O are safe, now and into the future. The horizon that the tech geeks see for their pilotless prophecy is that generated by their VR goggles.

It's not the Tech Geeks you should worry about ... it's all those people in sharp suits with MBA's and accountancy qualifications........... and Senior Management who have obscene bonus schemes....................

[hunterboy]

I understood that the idea of ground based pilots was so that the airlines could get away with 2 pilots for all flights, no matter what the distance. I guess for cargo planes, it may be feasible for them to be pilotless eventually.

[KABOY]

Unmanned won't work, due ATC coordination! Forget reduced separation for increased movement rates, it will become like unmanned trains we see in terminals. Strict separation, no shortcuts, follow the flight plan line. And thats in the air, let the fun commence on the ground!

Long haul single pilot ops, that will be interesting.

"Its time to take a rest Dave.....but Hal there is weather ahead and reports indicate a rough ride. Dave, its time to take a rest to meet regulatory requirements, you must listen! But Hal......"