Yep. Hard to beat the combination of 2 highly trained humans and a highly automated system for making sure all those airplane things happen safely and reliably.
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
The SHOW: Airlines still a "good gig"??
- Thread starter A4sForever
- Start date
Yep. Hard to beat the combination of 2 highly trained humans and a highly automated system for making sure all those airplane things happen safely and reliably.
Don’t forget the part where they have to have the technology to make sure autonomous airliners aren’t being put through windows as well.
They are already working on autonomous air taxis. I imagine if that is successful the path would be to scale up from there.
And yet, it still isn’t 100% safe and reliable.. ?
Agreed. Those will come first, and relatively soon—within 10 years.
Eventually cargo and then airline flights will be automated. It will take a lot longer though—probably not within the working life of V those on the forum.
The technical problems are different, but also there isn’t a huge existing infrastructure of billions of dollars worth of airplanes and related equipment to replace. Those planes are built to last decades, so even if the breakthrough was tomorrow, it would take a long time to implement.
I agree with what you’re saying, but I was talking more about the single pilot “threat” particularly at cargo, not the zero pilot threat. I’m hoping that it doesn’t come to fruition in day, the next 32 years.
No, it isn't. But in the scheme of human-created systems, it's pretty goddamned reliable.
Actually, fully autonomous cars are a bigger tech challenge than air taxis or airliners, and THAT is where the effort is now. If you can safely move a vehicle autonomously through traffic with dozens, even hundreds of other cars driven by unpredictable humans, in varying conditions, you can launch an unpiloted plane, fly it on airways or from GPS way point to way point, descend and land. Of course UAVs do it now, but airlines are practically doing it already. The pilots are just making program changes that can be uplinked or be made by AI. We are all familiar with Tesla autopilot, Waymo and others. When they have that down pat, watch out. Public acceptance will be the only hinderance. The business decision will be a no brainer.
I agree with you mostly. Cars are way harder to automate. There are lots of improvements in efficiency that can be made if all the planes are automated too. You don't have to guess when the base turn will be. No long finals with flaps out. Much easier to get the best altitude in cruise.
What pilots need to focus on is the safety aspect. The final decision making authority of safety of flight. I don't see a need for that role to go away. Maybe you could get away with someone at headquarters doing it covering multiple flights at a time kind of like dispatchers. But separate from dispatchers. Those roles should be separate to provide double looking at things.
But I really think you loose something not having the person ultimately responsible for the safety of flight on the aircraft. We are always going to need flight attendants. I don't think they are every going to take over the ultimate authority role. Who else would have that role if not us?
Great now this thread will get moved to the war zone too
I deleted it and will work on myself in the future ?. Was in a certain state of mind (a few drinks) but I will keep that stuff where it belongs.
Meaning you are human like the rest of us!
I don’t what airplane you were flying at American but having flown 5 different transport category aircraft, I have yet to see the automation ALWAYS work as advertised. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to kill all automation and intervene. I don’t think it’s as simple as data linking some FMS changes. And it ain’t RC aircraft remote flying. I have flown with lots of UAV guard guys and they laugh when they think you can do that with an airliner. (Datalink failures, datalink lag, winds and weather restrictions, datalink handoffs, and many more limitations)
Weather, winds, metering, deferrals, abnormals, emergencies, traffic, I could go on and on.... I just don’t see how you get a “REAL” pilot out of the airplane. And single pilot maybe, eventually, I’ll concede that but it happening for a long, long time. I’ll worry when I see Boeing/Airbus building single piloted transport category aircraft.
