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Time to automate civilian airliners?


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Just received the latest AW&ST, this issue had a very interesting article about the recent carrier trials of the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS). During the touch and go phase, the X-47B's nosegear hit the moving carrier's deck with no more than 1' of lateral and 8' of longitudinal deviation (as the article put it, an area about the size of yoga mat) during all 7 landing attempts. This was in addition to thousands of shore based and simulation landings, which yielded similar results.

Given the SFO crash in which 3 "pilots" flew a perfectly functional 777 into a seawall under ideal weather conditions, it makes one wonder if it's finally time to consider fully automating civilian airliners. If a prototype aircraft can achieve this performance on a tiny, pitching flight deck, it seems to me that we now have the technology out there to enable an airliner to safety and consistently land on a stationary, 10,000' concrete runway.

I'm not suggesting doing away with the flight crew, keep one or two onboard just in case we need another Al Haynes (and to keep the pilot's union happy) but otherwise, forbid the flight crew from actually flying and just have them function as Airborne System Managers. They can stay proficient with stick and rudder skills in simulators should they ever have to take control in an emergency but otherwise, the only time they have direct control of the aircraft is when they taxi out to the runway for takeoff and taxi back after landing. Actually, even those functions can (and probably should be) fully automated.

Out of all the airline crashes in the last few decades, the vast majority have been due to negligence by the flight crew. Maybe it's finally time to accept that technology is now able to fly an aircraft better than a human and have the pilot go the way of the navigator, radioman and flight engineer?

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Just received the latest AW&ST, this issue had a very interesting article about the recent carrier trials of the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS). During the touch and go phase, the X-47B's nosegear hit the moving carrier's deck with no more than 1' of lateral and 8' of longitudinal deviation (as the article put it, an area about the size of yoga mat) during all 7 landing attempts. This was in addition to thousands of shore based and simulation landings, which yielded similar results.

Given the SFO crash in which 3 "pilots" flew a perfectly functional 777 into a seawall under ideal weather conditions, it makes one wonder if it's finally time to consider fully automating civilian airliners. If a prototype aircraft can achieve this performance on a tiny, pitching flight deck, it seems to me that we now have the technology out there to enable an airliner to safety and consistently land on a stationary, 10,000' concrete runway.

I'm not suggesting doing away with the flight crew, keep one or two onboard just in case we need another Al Haynes (and to keep the pilot's union happy) but otherwise, forbid the flight crew from actually flying and just have them function as Airborne System Managers. They can stay proficient with stick and rudder skills in simulators should they ever have to take control in an emergency but otherwise, the only time they have direct control of the aircraft is when they taxi out to the runway for takeoff and taxi back after landing. Actually, even those functions can (and probably should be) fully automated.

Out of all the airline crashes in the last few decades, the vast majority have been due to negligence by the flight crew. Maybe it's finally time to accept that technology is now able to fly an aircraft better than a human and have the pilot go the way of the navigator, radioman and flight engineer?

So if pilots aren't flying it, who is? This is not going to be as easy as you might think. The X-47 is a single aircraft with dedicated controllers handling it...either flying it remotely, or on a programmed route. As it is, the typical airline flight is already conducted almost entirely with an autopilot and FMS. Pilots twist some knobs and push some buttons, and the airplane does the rest. However, during a departure or approach, you have to sometimes twist the knobs and push the buttons in the right sequence pretty rapidly. It is not like you can program the plane to fly from here to there before it takes off and be done with it. The National Airspace System is complex in organization and fluid in execution. Pilots have to make regular and fairly immediate adjustments to their aircraft's speed and flight path in response to controller traffic management needs. If you are suggesting that the entire air traffic management system be tuned over completely to a "Skynet" with computers sending flight instructions to thousands of plane autopilots, monitoring aircraft status, fuel state, etc. of every commercial aircraft flying, plus somehow coordinate with every general aviation aircraft out there needing IFR services, then you are talking a level of computer sophistication beyond NexGen, or even anything on the horizon.

If you are just suggesting that most if not all approaches should be handled automatically....then we have that now. As it sits, with an ILS approach most airliners will come down coupled to 200 feet, at which time the aircraft is decoupled and landed manually.......easy in good conditions. Bring in some bad weather/crosswinds and it can get a lot harder. However, no automated system can work for you if it is out of service.

On a related note, I laugh when I hear people make predictions like, "The F-35 is probably going to be the last manned fighter." Ridiculous. Automated systems are useful, but no computer has anywhere near the capability of the human brain to manage an aircraft in a fluid environment. Pilot less, remote controlled or pre-programmed drones are okay for some missions, but they will augment, not replace, traditional manned aircraft. What happens to your drone's mission effectiveness if you get your remote control signal jammed by the enemy?

Edited by DutyCat
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You quote" Out of all the airline crashes in the last few decades, the vast majority has been due to negligence by the flight crew" Ever stop to think why? Airline companies are cutting costs to the bone to stay alive. This includes pilots working beyond their flightime, inexperienced pilots due to companies offering low wages. If you pay peanuts, you get Monkeys. Cutting maintenance or extend it past the required schedules, FAA has a lot to answer for also for not enforcing the regs. The aircrew in the 777 you mentioned I agree were just plain stupid and should be held accountable to the max. I would rather take my chance with an AC in command than a fully automated flight system. Remember the Airbus demo where the pilot could not override the computer and it flew him into the trees while doing a demo flight? All computers systems fails sooner or later.

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Good luck selling the idea to the general public...

Vince

Luck alone won't do it, I fear. If you look at it in a logical way, letting the computers fly is the safest way to go, certainly with a backup crew on board. Human sentiment however has very little to do with logic.

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A few problems with getting rid of the pilots completely, beyond the obvious:

What about the "Miracle on the Hudson"? How would the the automated system handle that situation?

What about the Air France crash over the Atlantic? The autopilot disconnected because of conflicting information. Who takes control of the plane when the computers give up?

Regarding the X-47 flights, under what conditions were they all flow in? Did they ever fly and land under bad weather conditions? Did they land on a rolling, pitching carrier deck at night, or at an airfield in heavy rain with a lot of crosswind? Humans can.

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You quote" Out of all the airline crashes in the last few decades, the vast majority has been due to negligence by the flight crew" Ever stop to think why? Airline companies are cutting costs to the bone to stay alive. This includes pilots working beyond their flightime, inexperienced pilots due to companies offering low wages. If you pay peanuts, you get Monkeys. Cutting maintenance or extend it past the required schedules, FAA has a lot to answer for also for not enforcing the regs. The aircrew in the 777 you mentioned I agree were just plain stupid and should be held accountable to the max. I would rather take my chance with an AC in command than a fully automated flight system. Remember the Airbus demo where the pilot could not override the computer and it flew him into the trees while doing a demo flight? All computers systems fails sooner or later.

This.

No, this is just a bad, bad idea.

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Would YOU put your family on an unmanned plane? Just curious. If he answer is yes, then you, like most of the public have no real idea what pilots do. Unfortunately, because air travel has become so safe, pilots are now the Ralph Kramden's of the sky. Pilot wages and benefits have steadily declined over the past 20 years and will continue to do so as long as bean counters and lawyers run the airlines. Keep in mind, the person flying the "drone" will be a 20 something year old sitting at a screen with no real sense of weather or turbulence or other unforeseen circumstance which will develop along the flight route. So, if the idea is to have someone "monitor" the computer, have the flight attendants do it while they're serving coffee and tea....that is the LEAST cost factor available. 

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Luck alone won't do it, I fear. If you look at it in a logical way, letting the computers fly is the safest way to go, certainly with a backup crew on board. Human sentiment however has very little to do with logic.

The vast majority of any single airline flight is currently computer controlled - the pilots actually do very little flying themselves, although that's not really widely known as Joe Public doesn't trust the computer. The problem is that as the crew requirements become more about systems management and less about flying skills, when a situation arises that requires the crew to actually fly the aircraft, they're less prepared that they should be as quite often turn a systems malfunction into a full-blown accident (a la Air France 447).

Vince

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Not just no, but H@#% NO! Having had a minor involvement with the X-47, and seeing what had to take place just to get that thing to taxi from the line to the runway, let alone fly around the pattern once, there's no way I'd get on an airplane that doesn't have a rated, pilot at the controls. And that was in a more-or-less sterile, controlled, flight test environment. External traffic didn't even enter the equation. It doesn't matter whether or not the majority of the flight takes place on autopilot; it's that tiny fraction of "what-if" that pops up, usually at the worst possible time, that bites you. if it wasn't planned for at first, during the design of the system, then it WILL bite you eventually. And it is not possible to anticipate and plan for EVERY eventuality, as much as we try.

Would you ride in a bus on a city street or highway that was driven by a computer, or do you want a driver up front making decisions real-time in response to the immediate situation?

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Read my post again please. Where did I state that I thought the flight crew should be eliminated? They have a place on board, to monitor the systems and be available if human intervention is needed. We may one day see unmanned airlines but that will be decades in the future. My point was to use the latest technology to fly the aircraft from Point A to Point B with no human involvement other than acting as system managers.

Airliners are pretty much flying automated through > 90% of a flight, I would suggest that we eliminate the remaining 10%. Does anyone doubt that if we had the proper automation and used it, that the SFO accident would never have happened. The Air France flight mentioned above was due to human error, poor airmanship after an autopilot disconnect. The pilot at the controls panicked and kept the stick full back, which only made things worse and led to the aircraft falling out of the sky. Colgan Air in Buffalo was another example, the list goes on and on. My point was that if we adopt the latest technology out there and take the human out of the control loop (except in dire circumstances), flying would be safer.

Still would have manned presence in the cockpit. However, I would respectfully suggest thought that for every Cap't Sully, we have multiple other substandard pilots who have caused crashes not prevented them. The biggest danger to passengers today is not crashing due to structural error or an engine failure, it's crashing due to mistakes made by the flight crew.

I highly doubt that any human could have replicated the accuracy of the X-47B landings that was reported in that article. I know it's upsetting to the traditionalist but logically, I think we are close to the point where a machine can do a better job of flying than a human. I'm old enough to remember similar arguments when the flight engineer was eliminated. The old school kept complaining that there was no way all the critical work done by a flight engineer could be automated. Planes would crash, etc, etc. Guess what? It worked great. This position was eliminated due to advances in technology. Whether anyone here likes it or not, this is the way of the future. Look at how the state of the art has advanced in the last few decades. Pilots obviously are not going to be replaced tomorrow but that day is getting closer and closer.

In the meantime, we'll continue reading about more preventable accidents that were caused by pilot error.

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You quote" Out of all the airline crashes in the last few decades, the vast majority has been due to negligence by the flight crew" Ever stop to think why? Airline companies are cutting costs to the bone to stay alive. This includes pilots working beyond their flightime, inexperienced pilots due to companies offering low wages. If you pay peanuts, you get Monkeys.

So just to run with this idea: Raise the pay and the flying skills magically improve?

Lets take this logic one step further. With pay decreasing, and crashes more rare, does paying pilots more lead to crashes? If we want to see fewer crashes should we cut pay further?

The majority of crashes that are pilot error has nothing to do with pay. It has to do with:

"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect."

In a lot of ways fixing an aircraft is easy, parts are inspected or changed at regular intervals in a certain sequence or method that is spelled out in the manual and within tolerances. actually flying an aircraft is a lot more fluid. environments and situations are constantly changing.

The problem is a helluva lot more complex than just pointing to pay. Pilots make errors on their 2,000th hour and 20,000th working for peanuts, or working for diamonds. And a lot of pilots that fly for major airlines have had millions of dollars and years of experience invested in them thanks to previous military experience. Some are still flying airliners all week and fighters on the weekend with the Guard too.

Cutting maintenance or extend it past the required schedules, FAA has a lot to answer for also for not enforcing the regs.

I beg your pardon? That may be one of the stupidest statements I have seen here, and lately that is really saying something. I worked at an extremely small company in some very out of the way places and we still couldn't tie our shoes without FAA permission. Believe you me the FAA still enforces regulations, Along with multiple other federal agencies from the forest service to homeland security. In fact thanks to DHS, aviation has more federal oversight than ever.

If you want to try and make a case that maint. is failing in its duties, I ask you just how many accidents and crashes are a result of maintenance mistakes? It pales in comparison to pilot error.

Next, extending maint. past extended schedules is not inherently dangerous. We do it all the time (But, again only with FAA approval) for example we had an aircraft that was coming up on a big inspection where we have to tear it all apart. Our engine would be past due for some scheduled maint by about 5 hours. So we requested to overfly the engine by 5 hours so that we could tear the helicopter down all at the same time, (Luckily) they approved it and we saved a lot of time and money. Its like anything "It depends" especially on something as complex as an aircraft. There are other things we would never overfly.

We may also be dealing with a "confirmation bias" and a very limited sample size. If you went by the headlines you be convinced that airplanes only crash and pilots always cause it, yet everyday pilots make thousands of corrections and decisions in order to avoid crashes and accidents, however headlines like

"Thousands of aircraft land safely thanks to pilot competence and safe maintenance" are never seen even though it happens everyday. crashes are damn rare. And you know me, I am not one to automatically defend pilots. they bug the hell out of me, but they are necessary.

Back to automated aircraft, It would start on cargo planes first I would think. After a long time it might start moving onto passenger aircraft. Even then the cargo planes must not crash, and if they do pray its not into a neighborhood on approach or something like that.

I do believe it will happen Someday. Someday is decades away though.

Edited by TaiidanTomcat
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The Air France flight mentioned above was due to human error, poor airmanship after an autopilot disconnect. The pilot at the controls panicked and kept the stick full back, which only made things worse and led to the aircraft falling out of the sky. Colgan Air in Buffalo was another example, the list goes on and on. My point was that if we adopt the latest technology out there and take the human out of the control loop (except in dire circumstances), flying would be safer.

But wasn't humans taking over in dire circumstance a part of what made Air France a disaster as they lacked the skill to recover. I wouldn't point to the air france crash as an example for the future. The system does the work! if it fails the pilots take over! CRASH. Solution? The system does even more work, if it fails the pilots take over!

the latest technology is not inherently the safest or most proven there is a reason we called it the eXperimental-47 There would be a lot of leg work left to be done, and then an affordable system that could be easily integrated. Along with parameters (when does the system "let go" or auto shut off, and under what circumstances does the pilot take over or go "hands off"? When does the pilot recognize that the computer is flying itself into a corner?)

The Air France jet is an example of the aircraft flying itself for all intents and purposes and then when things went wrong, the circumstances were so extreme that the pilots were beyond their depth. A lack of solid emergency training, and a lack of "stick and rudder" time were also pointed to. I don't know how stick and rudder time is improve with more automation. So we would have pilots on board but with more pressure on them to act quickly and accurately in an emergency. The pilots will need a lot more time in and out of simulators and training for specific emergencies and circumstances.

Air France also encountered problems flying straight and level to the destination, landing accuracy wasn't an issue

I highly doubt that any human could have replicated the accuracy of the X-47B landings that was reported in that article. I know it's upsetting to the traditionalist but logically, I think we are close to the point where a machine can do a better job of flying than a human.

are we trying to improve landing accuracy or safety? yes there is a difference. I'm not a traditionalist, The tech just isn't there yet, not by a long shot. We are also talking about airlines having to invest millions when im betting they feel that all necessary precautions have been taken. You have to sell them that this is something they can't live without, after they have been living without it already for decades.

In the meantime, we'll continue reading about more preventable accidents that were caused by pilot error.

yes, seeing as there are still humans flying you will still hear about pilot error. As for whether that could be prevented with an automated system heavily depends on the automation and the circumstance of course.

I'm a perfect QB because I have never thrown an interception in the NFL. never played in the NFL of course. So I'm flawless. Fully automate the fleet and you will see more errors thanks to automation. The statistics would tell the tale over time, even then it may not be cut and dry. For example small errors may disappear, but one or two other Major, or fatal errors could completely nullify that. Initially you may not be eliminating danger just moving it elsewhere. Aircraft are becoming more automated. And we are seeing different problems crop up.

Edited by TaiidanTomcat
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Ahhh, the old trolling thread. I'm on a layover in EWR (voted by Conde Nast as the least polite metropolis on the planet), and I've got some time. With over 31 years of Military and Airline flying, let me ask you a question. Where exactly is the "Easy" button on my jet??? I've yet to find it. What exactly do you think the automation is there for? Two reasons; economy and safety. Automation doesn't do ANYTHING that I don't tell it to do. It's only there to assist. Does cruise control drive your car? There isn't a single bit of automation on the jet I can't do myself. Let's look at the things you think make my presence redundant. FMC/FMS (Flight Management Computer / Flight Management System) - GPS gives us pinpoint precision with regards to navigation. It's nice, but I flew the 737-200 around for years without one using the VOR navigation system - the same as a guy flying a Cessna 172. Delta didn't buy the FMS to make my life easier - it's cheaper to be able to fly direct routes using GPS navigation. The flight plan is altered at any time ATC wishes (with my concurrence, situation depending). It's sole purpose is to provide maximum precision in an increasingly crowed airspace. Trust me, airports, airways and airspace are only getting more crowded by the day. Autothrottles - again, no big deal - when used, their sole function is to save the company money. Another expensive system - it's sole function is to take the current environment, and position the throttles to squeeze the maximum amount of economy out of every drop of very expensive fuel. My jet can hold over 7,000 gallons of jet fuel. At around $3.00 per gallon / $21,000 - a fleet of over 700 aircraft makes fuel one of our biggest expenses - and the Autothrottle system is only there to maximize savings. The "Autopilot" - made famous by the guy in "Airplane". Once again, not necessary - but these expensive systems are again there to assist. While enroute, ATC is constantly juggling kittens on a unicycle. There are oftentimes many changes to any given flight - from ATC and we have to react accordingly. Do you know what RVSM airspace is? With more crowded airspace, more aircraft are squeezed in. If I'm flying from ATL to LAX - I'm at an even altitude (say 38,000'). A guy heading the opposite way used to have to be at least 2,000' different from my altitude - now the requirement is 1,000'. Here's a word problem for you. Using GPS gnats *** precision - you've got airliner "A" leaving the East Coast with 166 souls on board traveling at 500 knots at 38,000'. Airliner "B" is on the same exact opposite course heading from the West Coast to the East at 39,000'. Our old school math tells us that Mach x pitch = VVI (Vertical Velocity). At Mach .08 (eight tenths of the speed of sound - roughly 8.5 miles / minute) - One thousand knots of closure - at 17 miles a minute, how long / and how much of a pitch change would turn this into "Breaking Headline News" - 332 people killed in tragic mid-air collision. The Autopilot is there to maintain heading and altitude with gnats *** precision. I can certainly "hand fly" everything without any automation whatsoever from takeoff to landing - across the state, across the country or across the ocean. The "Auto" systems allow me to use all my years of experience to keep something from killing everyone aboard (ATC screwups / weather / terrain / mechanicals - on and on, every flight). I as the Captain am the last word on safety - everything else is secondary. When we get there - you think it's all "Autoland"? Actually, I only use that feature a couple of times a year. At my home base - the world's busiest airport - Atlanta - I'm flying around the pattern at 250 knots / 287mph. On final, we're flying 180 knots / 207mph to the final approach fix (1,500'). There's landings every 45 seconds - I'm crossing the threshold as a guy's clearing the runway - there is no room for error. There are literally dozens of Delta aircraft in the airport area on the same frequency - and the controller is talking a mile a minute - and when he talks to you (in the crowded, noisy aircraft - that you've just flown all night from South America, and your dog tired - there is no error allowed - ever - period). ie; "Delta 2345 turn left to heading 220 degrees, descend to 3,000' maintain 3,000 till established on the localizer, cleared ILS 27 Left, maintain 180 knots till Depot, contact Tower at Depot on 121.8 - I've got to recite that back to him exactly, perform it exactly without hesitation, and with the highest level of precision because there's five runways at ATL all being used at the same time, and there's a guy less than a minute in front of me, and a guy behind me within a minute - and he's then immediately talking to someone else. This is in all weather, day or night. Personally, I'm qualified to hand fly the jet down to a 50' decision height - 600' of visibility (at 150 knots final approach speed, I'm travelling at 253.2 feet per second). At a descent rate of 700 feet per minute (11.6666 feet per second) I have 4.2 seconds to make sure everything is safe and no one gets hurt. Oh, and I can do this on one engine. So yeah, automation is awesome - but it doesn't do a damn thing if the guy operating it doesn't know what he's doing. By all means - go get on that Automated Future Jet - and I'll keep looking for that "Easy Button"...

Edited by GEH737
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yes, seeing as there are still humans flying you will still hear about pilot error. As for whether that could be prevented with an automated system heavily depends on the automation and the circumstance of course.

Human error will still occur. The difference is that the human making the error is safe on the ground, far removed from the consequences of his error in either time or space. The guy who screws up the programming has no skin in the game, so to speak, whereas the pilot in the cockpit is risking his own neck, just like the cattle in the back. Who's gonna be the scapegoat when that unpiloted passenger jet loses the control link with the ground, and then has a failure that sends it on course for who knows where, or causes the engines to shut down in flight? Can you guarantee that it will never happen? I wouldn't bet too much on that possibility...

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An Autoland on a Contaminated Runway is not possible.

Crosswind components Limits for Autoland are less than Limits for a manual landing.

And so on...

And this with modern Autoflight Systems with triple or quadruple redundancy, capable of really nice and effective landings....

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There are literally dozens of Delta aircraft in the airport area on the same frequency - and the controller is talking a mile a minute - and when he talks to you (in the crowded, noisy aircraft - that you've just flown all night from South America, and your dog tired - there is no error allowed - ever - period). ie; "Delta 2345 turn left to heading 220 degrees, descend to 3,000' maintain 3,000 till established on the localizer, cleared ILS 27 Left, maintain 180 knots till Depot, contact Tower at Depot on 121.8 - I've got to recite that back to him exactly, perform it exactly without hesitation, and with the highest level of precision because there's five runways at ATL all being used at the same time, and there's a guy less than a minute in front of me, and a guy behind me within a minute - and he's then immediately talking to someone else.

As an ex-controller, I find this somewhat amusing, in that we were always taught not to give pilots too many instructions at one time, usually not more than 3 as they easily got confused, especially nothing with too many numbers in it. On the ATC side, controllers have to handle large amounts of information in a short time, often from multiple sources simultaneously.

The approach control controller(s) will have many, many aircraft they are talking to on multiple frequencies, and the example you give above is just one of many in a constant stream. So while you as a pilot are doing your readback the controller is already thinking about their next transmission to the next aircraft, and simultaneously looking at what yet other aircraft are doing. While you are doing your readback they are also talking to the tower, to center, to other approach control positions, etc. They are also coordinating arrivals and departures. In their head they know all the local airspace, and they have every approach for every airport within 100 nautical miles memorized, including all the minimums. They probably can also tell you every frequency for every airport and every navaid within that 100 nautical miles. Indeed there is no error allowed - ever - period.

I don't wish to minimize the pilots' skills, but if the controllers weren't there the airspace system wouldn't work as designed. On the other hand no controller ever got hurt other than when they fell out of their seat...

John Hairell (tpn18@yahoo.com)

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Is it time for doctorless hospitals and lawyerless courtrooms? As GEH737 said, if I'm not telling those automatic systems what to do then they don't do it. Some are truly automatic, but they have all failed at least once before. In those instances I'm there to "automate" the backup or redundant systems.

What a bunch of armchair flyers.

Aaron

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Basically and sorry if it's been said already because I couldn't be bothered to read through the b**ch fest to see, is that what you're saying is already available and in place. As stated 90% of any flight is done on autopilot. Also at least with the 777 auto land is equipped. Even on other aircraft ils is basically an auto land system that will bring the plane almost all the way in. So what I'm saying is that this is pretty much already in place on all modern airliners hence flight crews being reduced to 2. We don't need any less than 2 and anyone who has worked long hours alone can attest to how difficult it can be to stay focused and alert when you're doing pretty much nothing for hours. So reducing crews could cause more problems when something does go wrong and as stated we're already in my opinion automated enough. As for the asiana crash we don't know exactly what happened as far as fatigue or qualifications or experience of the crew but Korean airlines have had issues in the past with poor cockpit resource management and f/o's who are too scared to tell their captain that they're making a mistake even if it means dying because of it. As for the rest of the things brought up regarding air france or pay scale or maintenance cuts those will continue to be a major problem with aviation saftey. And finally with regards to the faa enforcing regs it's easier to miss things if an airline has 100s if not 1000s of aircraft than a small company with a few dozen or less. I'm sure they do their best which is why US carriers are some of the safest in the world however that being said they are a government organization and are subject to corruption and scandal like any other part of the government which can lead to things being over looked etc. That's pretty much all there is to say on the matter I'll never fly in a pilotless aircraft and neither would any of you not for moral reasons but because it'll never happen in our lifetime

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Absolutely disagree with the idea of unmanned passenger liners (as far as flight crew are concerned). Sure, lots of crashes are due to pilot error, the Asiana airlines one in San Francisco being the latest example, but don't expect me to get on a plane flown by a computer! Maybe increased automation, but only with the ability for the pilot to manually over-ride it anytime he/she sees fit...

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So when the LiPo battery in the laptop over seat 10B catches on fire, and there's no indication of it in the flight deck, is the computer going to declare an emergency and land?

How about when some passenger freaks out and yells "I have a bomb!" Is the plane going to divert and notify ATC and the authorities?

How about when both engines quit over the Pacific? Is the computer going to ditch parallel with the swells or perpendicular against them? How will it know what the swells are doing?

You see, there's more to it that auto landing and boring cruise flight with the autopilot on. Professional pilots are paid and trained to do things that they will probably never have to do...but we can still do it.

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