Single pilot 797

SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
I mean, okay. It’s just an opinion not supported by evidence.
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I rather like the Tesla Shared Autonomous Fleet goal. I hate that my car sits most of the time, partially due to my living in walkable neighborhoods, and partially because I go away for days on end.

And yeah, fine, the Autopilot accident rate, according to Elon Motors, is 1 in 2.8 million miles, compared to the average accident rate for all vehicles of 1 in ~435k miles.
 
Derg said:
I don’t see it happening for quite a while if ever.

I’m running through an emergency procedure in my head and I’m trying to figure out how I’m both going to fly an airplane, try to recover the systems and coordinate with the cabin and ATC with zero help.

No offense, but when the weather hits the fan and I ask dispatch for a little help, oftentimes it’s “I’m working X flights right now, I’ll get back to you when (if) I can”. I can only imagine remote communicating with someone on the ground, dividing tasks, coordinating a potential evacuation and having another “pilot”, completely secular to the smells, sounds, coppery taste of fear in his mouth and the potential doom making operational decisions with inputs to my autoflight system.

My car can look at my schedule, open the garage door, back itself out and turn on my favorite radio station on time, but when it autopilot decides to epically fail, it fails hard so you have to watch it.

Just like an airplane. Autoland is great until it ain’t, and that’s a recurring nightmare you don’t get over.
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THIS, and more. People don’t realize how many safety critical decisions pilots make everyday that keep people safe.
 
QXDX said:
Does anyone really, seriously, believe that the people working on this stuff don't have an understanding of how pilots fly airplanes? I know a few test pilots who would disagree with you.

I think the naysayers are guiding the future by the past. They're solely focused on the airplane and ignoring the big picture. If single pilot or pilotless aircraft ever come to pass, it won't happen in isolation. It will be accompanied by a paradigm shift in aviation systems.

Think of the Apollo program. They didn't just build a rocket and go to the moon. They built a complete operational infrastructure to go along with it. In fact, they did it twice, starting with Project Gemini.

These things won't happen in our careers, and likely not in our lifetimes. But to say they will never happen? Never is a long time.

And by the time it does happen, people will wonder what the hangup was.
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Where did anyone say “never?”
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
Where did anyone say “never?”
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I think it will happen a lot quicker than most of us think, because most of us on this site are pilots and (if the other thread is any indication) aren't very curious about the cutting edge in aircraft automation or how any of this stuff works. Sure it might seem inconceivable to us that we'd be replaced, but there's a crew of engineers chained to their desks in some DOD contractor office working diligently to cut the cost of crew.

Pilots like to think we're white collar workers - we "manage" the "flight deck," but really we're just working stiffs like any other heavy equipment operator. Modern bulldozers, combines, and locamotives have glass panels too. We're not special and economics is King. Management wants to cut costs, the second automation is cheaper than paying an FO, the airlines will cull the crew complement like the flight engineer and navigator before us.
 
ppragman said:
I think it will happen a lot quicker than most of us think, because most of us on this site are pilots and (if the other thread is any indication) aren't very curious about the cutting edge in aircraft automation or how any of this stuff works. Sure it might seem inconceivable to us that we'd be replaced, but there's a crew of engineers chained to their desks in some DOD contractor office working diligently to cut the cost of crew.

Pilots like to think we're white collar workers - we "manage" the "flight deck," but really we're just working stiffs like any other heavy equipment operator. Modern bulldozers, combines, and locamotives have glass panels too. We're not special and economics is King. Management wants to cut costs, the second automation is cheaper than paying an FO, the airlines will cull the crew complement like the flight engineer and navigator before us.
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No one is a bigger advocate of pilots realizing they’re blue collar labor than me. But the FAA stands in the way of this form of automation. It’s not as simple as Bezos replacing warehouse workers with robots. The FAA moves with the speed of an elderly tortoise. I’ll be surprised if I’m still alive when a pilotless airliner flies. Not because of the technological requirements. But because of the regulatory and public relations issues.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
No one is a bigger advocate of pilots realizing they’re blue collar labor than me. But the FAA stands in the way of this form of automation. It’s not as simple as Bezos replacing warehouse workers with robots. The FAA moves with the speed of an elderly tortoise. I’ll be surprised if I’m still alive when a pilotless airliner flies. Not because of the technological requirements. But because of the regulatory and public relations issues.
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I would like to think so... But I've worked a lot with the FAA, you can get anything done with money. Anything. Just look at the MCAS debacle.
 
ppragman said:
I think it will happen a lot quicker than most of us think, because most of us on this site are pilots and (if the other thread is any indication) aren't very curious about the cutting edge in aircraft automation or how any of this stuff works. Sure it might seem inconceivable to us that we'd be replaced, but there's a crew of engineers chained to their desks in some DOD contractor office working diligently to cut the cost of crew.

Pilots like to think we're white collar workers - we "manage" the "flight deck," but really we're just working stiffs like any other heavy equipment operator. Modern bulldozers, combines, and locamotives have glass panels too. We're not special and economics is King. Management wants to cut costs, the second automation is cheaper than paying an FO, the airlines will cull the crew complement like the flight engineer and navigator before us.
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I think the human factors issue is too great for single pilot though. Boredom, no check & balance for fatigue, error, etc. I'll wager it'll go automated with two before one. Just much cheaper wages being paid.
 
They can’t get an airplane back in the air and it’s been flying around for over 50 years. I don’t think you guys need to worry. Nor to the generation of pilots after you. The Lionair crash with a 250 hour FO couldn’t recover. Imagine being single pilot with a stab trim runaway.
 
QXDX said:
Does anyone really, seriously, believe that the people working on this stuff don't have an understanding of how pilots fly airplanes? I know a few test pilots who would disagree with you.

I think the naysayers are guiding the future by the past. They're solely focused on the airplane and ignoring the big picture. If single pilot or pilotless aircraft ever come to pass, it won't happen in isolation. It will be accompanied by a paradigm shift in aviation systems.

Think of the Apollo program. They didn't just build a rocket and go to the moon. They built a complete operational infrastructure to go along with it. In fact, they did it twice, starting with Project Gemini.

These things won't happen in our careers, and likely not in our lifetimes. But to say they will never happen? Never is a long time.

And by the time it does happen, people will wonder what the hangup was.
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People in the future can do what they want. My answer, today, is “Nope”. Ymmv.
 
Lemme add, we were the lucky recipients not too long ago of an engine failure over the Pacific in the middle of the night. Quite happy there were 4 of us to handle it. This whole business of getting rid of any more us is pure nonsense and thankfully a very long ways away.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
Self driving cars, even at this relatively early stage, are far safer than human driven cars. Humans suck. That said, flying is far more complex than driving, and I don’t see this happening in the next few decades. Bring on the driverless cars as quickly as possible, though!
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That’s because people can’t drive worth jack here and our driver testing is a freaking joke in this country.

It’s also partially because people have all their pent up anger and frustration of their lives and their work day that then spills out in the car / driving because that is then the only power they have in the day.
 
mrivc211 said:
They can’t get an airplane back in the air and it’s been flying around for over 50 years. I don’t think you guys need to worry. Nor to the generation of pilots after you. The Lionair crash with a 250 hour FO couldn’t recover. Imagine being single pilot with a stab trim runaway.
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Ethiopian was the low time FO. Lion Air crew had several thousand hours (each about 5-6k-ish total time) but both were hired on the 737 with just 750-780 hrs.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
That’s because people can’t drive worth jack here and our driver testing is a freaking joke in this country.

It’s also partially because people have all their pent up anger and frustration of their lives and their work day that then spills out in the car / driving because that is then the only power they have in the day.
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This is all true. But it’s also true that humans just suck at such things, regardless of testing and skill. Elon says his new Tesla hardware 3.0 is capable of processing 2,000 frames per second of data on autopilot. If your brat kid distracts you and your eyes leave the road for just a fraction of a second, you’ve become far less safe than the automatic car that is continuously processing data without fail. And the reality is that you are continuously distracted while driving, and your eyes frequently leave the road. You also don’t don’t even have the field of view or the variety of sensors that the car hardware does. The car sees 360 degrees not only in the visual spectrum, but also using LIDAR, radar, etc. The Tesla has sensors to even see underneath the car ahead of you. It will predict and prevent side impact collisions that were never even in your field of view. Etc.

Humans simply aren’t as good at this stuff as computers. We need to accept that. It will save tens of thousands of lives per year.
 
CIVE_pilot said:
Well the FRA just threw out a proposed rule requiring two crew members, but that was only because of positive train control.
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Last I looked the domestic PTC implementation was sufficiently delayed such that I might use the term "meme," but it's been a while since I last looked.

SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
This is all true. But it’s also true that humans just suck at such things, regardless of testing and skill. Elon says his new Tesla hardware 3.0 is capable of processing 2,000 frames per second of data on autopilot.
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The computing architecture behind (capital-A) Autopilot is all manner of jam-up awesome and impressive. I think the Model 3 version runs on a pair of nVidia neural network computers, which is some serious computational horsepower. (I was distracted by torque when I was riding around in my buddy's Model 3, so don't quote me on the specific details.)

It is fail-passive, though; look at the accident that they had out in the Bay, where the road markings were sufficiently lousy and ambiguous that Autopilot happily steered into a highway barrier at high speed. The difficulty will lie in making sure a human operator does intervene when it is warranted. (Which is infrequent but spectacular.)
 
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