Whereas the known limitations of human beings don't cost lives?

Here's an interesting article on the possible impact of automation on the US trucking industry - how long before we're replacing 'truck' with 'plane' and rehearsing the same arguments all over again?

Personally think it's so far out that we really don't know what the world will look like. I don't expect my career to be threatened by it and I have another 20 years left.

yellowperil, it's not the limitations that cost lives (well, they do, too, sometimes), but the discovering of them. The more you rush into this, the more limitations you're going to discover rather than anticipate--in a situation where you can't just stop the vehicle and wait for help.

One known limitation: we already know that humans need some time to get their bearings when entering an unfamiliar situation, so when a plane calls a remote pilot for help, that better be some minutes before pilot input is needed: but if the plane is going to try and anticipate that, there are going to be a lot of false alarms, which are going to lead humans into treating alarms as not so serious.

The unexpected challenge in avoiding accidents with the Google car has been to prevent other cars from hitting it: it needs to conform to human expectations when moving in traffic, or a fender-bender can result. If you do not research beforehand how automated planes can intermingle with traditional aircraft in congested airspace, you're going to have some avoidable accidents.

Before we know of the limitations, can we really make an informed decision on whether it's worth it? You can dodge the question by saying "it's going to be inevitable", then you don't need to have a discussion on the merits; but you could be making a bad choice. (Well, it won't be bad for the tech companies driving the change--their bottom line is going to be assured.)

No flight crew
 

I'll fly in an unmanned aircraft when the CEO of the airline will sit in the adjacent seat.
Not just once, but everytime.

why does it have to be a new design?

It's all an issue of integrating the current electronics and sensors TBH and the decision taking software in the black box -

It'll probably be the 737-5000

Piltdown Man, you are of course right that many incidents have been averted by action on the part of the crew. However if that number is matched by the number of incidents caused or contributed to by the crew, then we are no better or worse off than in a robot airliner.

Mathfox, The saving of 100kg is a bit of an underestimate. Once you take the pilots out, you can get rid of this little lot:
instruments
cockpit controls
switches
armoured cockpit door
flight crew rest compartment
pilots' seats
pilots' luggage
pilots' oxygen supply
all air ducting
all cockpit glazing
windscreen wipers

In other words, strip the cockpit out completely and there is room for another two or three rows of seats. What's more, the area currently occupied by the windscreens can now be the most aerodynamic profile possible, which has got to save a good few tons of fuel each year. Eventually, unless passengers can be persuaded to pay a premium for a view out the front, all airliner's cabins will be like the lower deck of a 747.

If its a cargo aircraft, you won't need the toilets or galley either, unless carrying racehorses and their stable hands, and the latter can probably use the straw like their charges anyway.

Mechta you are making a lot of false assumptions to support your argument.

No-one knows how many incidents have been prevented by the crew. You would have to go through every airlines database of safety reports to determine that. You can't just assume its the same number. There is a reason that air travel is the safest mode of transport and its not just the technology. You also can't just assume that autonomous 2D vehicles can be easily replicated in a dynamic and often volatile 3D environment. People who know nothing about the airline environment often quote that "Aeroplanes are so sophisticated they can land themselves!" True, but in a very limited environmental window and they still can't get themselves into the air automatically. Until software can't be corrupted, hacked or changed then autonomous airliners are just a tech nerds fantasy.

You'd have to do more than go through incident reports. I don't write a report every single time I rescue the aircraft from its dumb automatics.

Mechta makes some valid points

I'm old enough to remember when the pages of "Flight" were full of navs ,radio ops and engineers using exactly the same arguments now appearing here. If you can't show how many flights you may have saved you have no facts to argue against the bean counters and management both of whom would loveto dump everyone

Ironically, some of the improvements that could make autonomous drone flights safe would also make human-piloted flights safer: ILS on every runway, automated traffic awareness not only in the air, but also on the ground, including general aviation.

The bottom line with removing all the other crew HH was that there were still humans on the flight deck. As an example of how a third crew member did save the day look at the accident of the Ansett 747 in Sydney. Despite the FE being confused about the configuration of the landing gear he was the one that prevented the flight crew from trying to go around after the T/R were deployed.

The challenge to the tech heads is can they guarantee that the software required to operate autonomous airliners will be 100% reliable and unable to be hacked into?

Er, can they guarantee today that the pilot is not suicidal, drunk, a control freak, or incompetent?

I'm looking forward to self driving cars. They will make mistakes, but far fewer than humans.

No, but put any one of those character flaws in the control room on the ground in a control booth, which some are suggesting, then watch the carnage. With software flaws there are no opportunities to correct them before they manifest themselves. Mental health is a society wide issue and amongst pilots it is being addressed. Drunk and drugged pilots are being sorted with drug and alcohol testing and they are being caught. A control freak? You would have to clarify that as to how that leads to an accident. CRM took care of that problem years ago. Incompetent? All walks of life even, software engineers. I am not saying that human error can be completely eliminated but from what I can tell "software glitches" can be just as fatal and fully autonomous in their manifestation and catastrophic results. Where the pilots came in handy were on aircraft such as the MAS 777 and QF 330 off the coast of Western Australia.

So don't look for 100% guarantees.

It doesn't need to be 100%. Technically it just needs to be better than people, but I suspect that won't be acceptable to the public and a significant improvement will be required.

The rise of automation in aircraft is very much part of the amazing drop in accident figures even tho' the number of flights has (ahem) soared....

Personally I'd prefer a pilot but I suspect there'll be few on main-line passenger flightsin 50 years time

One thing we haven't touched is that many airline managements seem to actively dislike their flight crews. Just look at the way they treat them..... Clearly viewed as grit in the operation.... arguing, moaning striking, need constant management (time and holiday allocation), training and RETRAINING....,sim costs, pensions......

Then just think of those lovely, quiet, obedient machines. Buy it and that's it... even updates itself...... and the bosses can concentrate on screwing cash out of the SLF and their bonus package......

I said 50 years...... maybe 20 will be more accurate........

The way that modern (so called) management treat their pilots is the same way mgmt treat staff in most other lines of work. over the last 25/30 years the 'cut everything to the bone' 'shareholders first' 'my bonus next' 'staff and customers nowhere' has become the normal process.

In due course, the cycle will move on but not soon.

Paxboy. If it does move on it will only be to change the order. It will be 'my bonus first', shareholders - whatever, staff and customers - what are those?

Hmmm. Take a look at the Ryanair thread here:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/6...-runway-7.html
If so many pilots are unable to agree on how to successfully drive a 737 and where and when to actually take off, what chance a computer getting it right every time?