Manangement's Dream Scenario
 

Widebody freighters could be
piloted remotely within 15 years

By: David Learmount Amsterdam
12 hours ago
Source: http://www.flightglobal.com/images/a...ernational.png

Civil freight aircraft will be flown by either a single pilot on board with a remote co-pilot on the ground, or no on-board crew at all within 10 to 15 years, delegates of the ATC Global conference in Amsterdam were told.

The extraordinary prediction came from Steve Pennington, executive director of the US policy board on federal aviation, who spoke at the event earlier this month.
As a senior military official, Pennington has considerable experience of managing the deployment and operation of unmanned air vehicles across various sizes and mission types.

Pennington says one of air traffic management's major challenges for the near future will be managing UAVs, because they will be used in a significant proportion of civil and military operations.

He predicts this will start in commercial civil aviation via the freight operations of companies such as FedEx and UPS, which will use a single-pilot crew or pilot devices entirely from the ground.

Totally agree
 

Single Pilot, monitoring the dog....This will increase the standard of Pilot Skill set...as required by the FAA.

Like the (almost) unmanned trains, only there to give the public a feeling of security.

I predict within 10 years for cargo, and 15 for pax.

The UAV progress is the guide, but I dont see MOL attempting this, but I am sure he will get his publicity machine powered up.

glf

At the current development rate of artificial inteligence, it will probably be sooner.

I might be being thick but why's it desirable for companies to take pilots out of the cockpit? (from a military perspective it obviously makes total sense, given the nature of operations) If as, is being suggested here, there'll still be a need for monitoring, you're still going to have to be paying wages, and, presumably, they'll still need to be trained to the same/similar standards as now in the event that they're required to 'step in'? And surely the less interaction a remote pilot has with the machine, the more difficult it will be to retain necessary skills and even attentiveness while at the (remote) controls? (safer when all is well, less safe than now when the **** is hitting the fan?)

Should this just be viewed as a step towards removing the man from the process entirely (which, I completely understand, would be desirable for commercial operators)? Are cargo operators really going to be that bothered by such a halfway house?

All this has been thrashed to death before, the security risks and considerations far outweigh any advantage to going pilot less. A dedicated suicide bomber and his mates could take over a ground control station, causing chaos, or they could simply transmit rogue signals that block the genuine ground to air signals, also causing chaos. The concept is a non starter due to security, regardless of technical advances.

The USA should know better than anyone, if they check their inventory of UAVs they will be well aware that they have lost a lot of UAVs and most are not through enemy action, they are light years away from an acceptable level of reliability.

Parabellum,
I fully agree with you. The number of independent variables affecting any commercial flight is staggering and increasing yearly. I have heard this for many years and IMHO it's getting further away than ever.
(Please dont mention solving this with yet more layers of software!)
However a nice Federal research budget for big US contractors might be more realistic....

Manangement, always wanting ;)
Not going to happen for a looooooong time.

I don't see this happening in my lifetime, and I expect to live another 30 years, al least! :rolleyes:

Why don't we ask Mr Military, how many of thy UAV they have lost...

I am sure the number is sky rocketing compared to the accident record in civil aviation...

Any numbers out there? I guess u woun't get any...

In all fairness, I think the lawyers are going to be on the pilot's side so to speak for once.

I can't imagine a manufacturer daft enough to take the huge liability of unmanned aircraft on them. It's simply too risky.

How trains are driverless?

I can think of the DLR in London and not many more.

They must be a whole lot more to automate and yet they haven't managed to do it yet.

I'd say the trend is the opposite. We're putting more pilots on board, not less.

I fly for Fedex. We are buying new 777 and 767 freighters, paying hundreds of millions of dollars for them. The 777's typically fly with four pilots onboard. The 767's will have provisions for three.

I've said this a thousand times on this board - I'll start worrying about my job when I start seeing unmanned freight trains.

The military guy has never had to worry about a bottom line, either. Who is going to pay for all the certification? For the infrastructure?

I just flew CDG-Dubai-Delhi, passing through the airspaces of the european countries, Turkey, Iraq, UAE, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. ALL these countries would have to be on board and provide the infrastructure and support required. All to save the cost of a copilot?

What about the flight attendants? will they be inflatable ones also controlled from the ground?

It's all about liability!
 

Why bother with remote control (technical issues, costs, liability when there's an incident, accident or terrorist take over) when the airline managers can hire cheap pilots who will fly for food, throw any sensible FTL's out of the window and blame those arrogant and overpaid pilots if something goes wrong?

The money saved by lowering pilot salaries and by not acquiring expensive remote control technology can then subsequently be distributed among managers and shareholders!

Now that's a win win situation for management and it's been going on for years! :}

Quite a lot of 'little' people-movers the size of DLR are centrally controlled - usually to be expected for new construction, and some retrofit going on.

But the comparison isn't valid because trains effectively operate in just one dimension (being constrained to the track), and entail a zillion fewer things that should they go wrong unexpectedly might lead to disaster.

The realization that sophisticated "unmanned" aircraft e.g. GlobalHawk operate very successfully makes one forget that they're remotely piloted, not pilot-less.

Programmable flight into aircraft so in the event of loss of ground communications it flights itself to destination or alternate with options in case of weather etc.

Unpalatable as it seems, I see it as a reality with time frame described.

I can almost envisage a scenario in the future when aircraft have no cockpit, no windows and Airline crew on board amount to one or two people who check that everybody is buckled in.

Fact is that they can end a cargo vehicle to Space Station without a pilot.

Yes, but at what cost? Keep in mind that you've got to get the cost per mile down below the cost of a flight crew.

And forget about "cockpitless" cargo airframes. No way a clean sheet aircraft can compare in cost to a used airliner. I would submit that the cost of development would rival that of the 787. All to save the cost of a flight crew?

We can do many things. But in practice we do the cost-effective things.

Why are the posts in this thread so riddled with spelling errors and missing words? Just READ through it!
A living example of pilot error.

Before you dismiss the idea of autonomous aircraft out of hand, read this:

With the level of automation already available on current aircraft (reliable Autopilots, Auto Thrust, AutoLand etc) we're already more than half way there.

Self healing electronics are now in development.

Sometimes I wonder - why an ECAM action message at all? Why not an automatic system action and follow-up ECAM completed advisory?

Personally, given the inevitable progress of computing power, I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the future. The only question is WHEN, not IF.

I'd agree it's not "if" but "when", but I'd ask how far off are we having all runways and all airports supporting autoland on a 24/7/365 basis to allow fully automated operation?

It would also be interesting to see a fully automated system action for the likes of a "Fuel Imbalance Message".........

Hello Hal, do you read
Your destination has an unforecast crosswind, you will have to program
yourself to do a circling approach onto the shorter runway without
an approach aid or guidance.
Whats that,you hav'nt been programmed for this, never mind, just
throw yourself into the ground near the airport.
That way its easier for us to collect your pieces and re-cycle you.
PEOPLE are landing UAV's remotely.It's one thing to do autolands
in ideal conditions by onboard computers, there are too many
variables for much else.

Hopefully mankind will have burnt all the kerosene up before
this develops to onboard human free piloting.