And then there was only one
 

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.

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.

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??).

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.

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.

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

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

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:

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

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.

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.'..

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

Or not, as the case may be.

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

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.