You knew it was only a matter of time...

[Massey1Bravo]

As I said, the Right Seat of an Airliner is the biggest revenue generator of all the seats onboard. Why would you remove it?

That's because in the future there won't be an steady, continuous supply of dreamers willing to fork out 30K Euros for P2F schemes, especially with deteriorating career prospects caused by increased automation. People starting out right now in their 20s could potentially have to endure 50 years in the industry if the retirement age rises to 70 or even 75, so the possibility of single pilot operations (and huge job losses) becomes very real. This is already happening in the US where the dropout rate for student pilots is about 70% to 80%, and one reason you could say for this is the diminishing return on investment of even a basic pilot's license, let alone P2F.

Plus you have to think about the motivations of the beancounters who are looking at cost reductions in the long run. Also they generally don't like pilots or unions.

[Ancient Observer]

Dog Trainers?

It's a great opportunity for dog trainers.

The dog occupies the rhs and bites the pilot when he falls asleep.

[FAStoat]

I thought todays 3rd Level Airliners had First Officers who had to PAY to fly in the right seat.!!!!!!Anyway
Effing Computers do NOT have Mortgages,Wifes(Or Mistresses!),Children,Grandchildren or a firmly developed yellow streak down their back from years and years of flying experience,that gives the Experienced Captain a sixth sense Anticipation that not only will keep him alive ,but the rest of the crew and passengers.Just imagine another AF447 scenario with a fully automated non human flight deck.When I did an Airbus 320 sim check with Caledonian in the mid 90s,the Interview Board asked me what else I would like to have in the cockpit?I told them I really wanted a BIG red lever that said "I have control",not squiggly wires in natural law,or whatever they called basic aeroplane computer flying!!!!

[zfwmac]

Pilot and the Dog

I was told many years ago that the cockpit of the future would consist of one Pilot and a Dog. The Pilot would be there to reassure the passengers and feed the Dog, the Dog would be there to bite the Pilot if he tried to touch anything.

[Huck]

1. Modern glass-cockpit jets are flown single-pilot now - witness the Citation Ultra or CJ.

However....

2. Single pilot ops requires a VERY competent, talented, experienced captain. So... where are we going to train future captains, if not in the right seat?

As I've said for years here at PPrune, I'll start worrying when the freight trains running by my house reduce their crew complement - currently two...

[blue up]

DaveReidUK (post number 10).

I forwarded your message to Boeing. They've replied that the 787 battery system has proven to be more than capable of toasting Bread, Muffins and even a Kelloggs Pop Tart. Carbon Fibre has proven to be marginally less successful but the new stainless steel box will gentle radiate enough heat to toast a slice of Kingsmill Nutty Brown at a range of 5 feet (and is also rated for frying a slice for breakfast should the need arise.)
With 2 crew it should be possible to get the FO to slap the bread down, race back to the flightdeck, make a radio call, perform a fuel check and still be back in time to prevent the same sort of light scorching shown in those NTSB photos.

[Heathrow Harry]

FE rtd wrote:-

"Heathrow Harry, "Quote:- "I was never a great supporter of the idea of three pilots or two pilots and an FE were absolutely necessary ...."

Absolutely correct, one Pilot and one Flight Engineer was sufficient.

Standing by! "

Every FE I know/knew always thought that the pilots were only there to make announcements and walk about about the cabin impressing the ignorant SLF with their gleaming teeth and perfect haircuts

[Heathrow Harry]

"that gives the Experienced Captain a sixth sense Anticipation that not only will keep him alive"

unfortunately it also gives him the sense that he can do the impossible - if it were not so why do so many experienced pilots commit dreadful errors?

I bet that aircrew today are as good airmen as they were 50 years ago - but the accident rate is way down - because of the increased use of technology. The drive to add technology, which is relatively predictable, and replace humans, who are not always predictable, will eventually lead to 1 pilot operations - maybe in 20 years ............. possibly the 737 replacement ......

[Massey1Bravo]

I'll start worrying when the freight trains running by my house reduce their crew complement - currently two...

But the US military isn't spending billions on driverless trains, compared with what they're currently doing with drone technology. Whatever technology the US military can come up with will eventually end up in the civilian sector, usually through the defence contractors, such as.......Boeing.

[Contacttower]

Obviously designing an airliner to be flown single pilot would be pretty easy - that tech already exists and the loss of safety that entailed from a human factors point of view could be mitigated to a certain extent by more innovative flight deck and avionics design.

However presumably in order for the travelling public to accept single pilot operations there would have to be a system whereby a computer or human monitored a number of flights and was ready to take over in the event of one of the pilots being incapacitated. An actual viable monitoring system like that could be used in real airline service is probably still a long way off.

The system would also have to be able to react very quickly in the event of something happening to the pilot at a critical moment like take off or landing - perhaps that problem could be surmounted by making all take offs and landings automatic.

Just having a single pilot airliner with no back up at all is not something the travelling public would accept...I would have thought.

[cwatters]

if I understand correctly the research proposes that on long haul the sleeping pilot is woken up and asked to help out when things get interesting. Isn't that sort of what happened to AF447 only there was already two up front.

[procede]

I'm surprised AF447 is used as an example, as it would not have crashed if there had not been a second officer on board pulling the stick backwards when the AP disengaged...

[funfly]

Just out of interest - What would a system do, on its own, if the cowling came off of one of the engines?

[rick.shaw]

Aaah - this old chestnut. Just a skim through www.avherald.com and you could easily see the lives that could potentially be lost should the flight deck complement be reduced from what it is today. As for those who dream about pilotless flight decks - dream on! Just in the last few years, thousands of lives would have been lost without human intervention from those 'on the spot'.

Yes - the industry DOES factor in cost of safety/improvements etc versus cost of lives. That has certainly been the case for many years.

And yes - there is a good amount of human error. But at the end of the day, these same humans save more lives that they cost. I could never say the same for today's aircraft computers.

[Sunnyjohn]

I'll start worrying when the freight trains running by my house reduce their crew complement - currently two...

The Docklands Light Railway in east London, UK, has been operating driverless trains for some years. The network is 25 miles long with 45 stations and runs seven days a week from 5.30 am to 12.30 am. In the year 2012 it carried 140 million passengers. There is a driving console and staff are available to take over where necessary but normally all journeys are driverless.

[Al Murdoch]

The Docklands light railway is connected quite firmly to the ground and doesn't do 500mph. The potential for catastrophic loss of life is pretty much zero, given that, in my experience, it struggles to exceed 25 mph.
It seems fairly strange to me that in an age where the technology is being either doubled or tripled in redundancy, we seem to have an endless fascination with halving or removing any human involvement in the process.

[WindSheer]

Please please dont compare air to rail.

I teach train drivers....Uk rail is a single driver operation. If anything happens to the driver....the train stops; there is sufficient protection built into signalling systems to maintain train separation.

Lets be honest, we are not far away from ground controllers 'tapping' into an aircraft to bring it back home if pilot incapacitation occurs, but as previous posters have mentioned there are way too many variables up there!!

[racedo]

It has an inevitablility about it but is likely to be used in Freight sector first.

It will happen but is a generation away i.e best part of 25 years before it becomes common.

[racedo]

I teach train drivers....Uk rail is a single driver operation. If anything happens to the driver....the train stops; there is sufficient protection built into signalling systems to maintain train separation.

But GPS is now being used to open the doors on trains which bit of a bugger when the signal dies and driver overrides it and does it manually.

[roundwego]

Single Pilot? Why not?

As long as the pilot has at least two hearts and two brains, all with automatic functional changeover on failure of one system and independent blood supply which has been tested for contamination on a regular basis.