ALPA 2 pilot airline poster

Here's me talking too much about the two pilot system we currently use for the most part in aviation. It has some issues, but its the best system we have, or are likely to ever have. Here's why...

Operational Control

For those of you who didn't have this concept hammered into your heads at an airline indoc class; Operational Control (OC) basically means who controls where and how a flight is conducted. In practice OC is a shared responsibility between the Company, in the form of a dispatcher or flight follower, and the PIC/Captain. Either party has the ability to disagree with the other, and once the aircraft is in the air the PIC has final authority, but usually some sort of agreement is made, especially in cases where the aircraft has to be re-tasked; ie a diversion.

Aircraft have to be able to be re-tasked in flight. And that has to be able to be initiated from the ground if needs be.

In addition on the flight deck the two pilots have to also work together, once again the PIC has the final say. In practice most flight are operated as a team, with both pilots agreeing to any needed corrective action in response to any required change. In addition the second pilot serves as a backup to the other in an incapacitation event. Almost all aircraft can be flown if needed by one pilot, aided if necessary by another non-pilot crew or passenger.

Aircraft have to be able to be re-tasked in flight, independent of input from the ground if needs be.

So where does this leave us?

What we have now is a two pilot system; it can and has failed on occasion, but we really don't know how many issues it's stopped. I, as well as pretty much every pilot out there has been told by the person sitting next to them at some point "Maybe we should do this instead?". I personally make sure to brief my FO's with this explicit concept in mind. I'm human, I on occasion fail. Moreover, the SIC can, and they have in a few instances, over ridden the PIC when it comes down to safety of flight.
JetBlue Flight 191 - Wikipedia
We've also seen events where one pilot or flight deck crew has acted out of seeming pure evil:
Germanwings Flight 9525 - Wikipedia
or perhaps out of suicidal urges or depression:
EgyptAir Flight 990 - Wikipedia & Federal Express Flight 705 - Wikipedia
with the intent to bring a flight down. We don't know how many events simply never happened because there was another pilot right there. Because of this, I don't think single pilot ops are feasible on a large scale.

So lets keep two pilots, but put one on the ground!

Not in theory a terrible idea, but it has a lot of issues that are IMHO currently unsolvable. Why? Operational Control. You have to be able to re-task an aircraft in flight; weather, airport closures, security events, they all on occasion make us change where an airplane goes. Also we have to be able, if needed, to take control of an aircraft from an incapacitated or unhinged pilot. To do this would require a system that has the ability to over-ride the PIC remotely. One could also of course simply operate the aircraft remotely completely, leaving just flight attendants as the crew. The technical ability to do such a thing exists; though in speaking with folks who have operated such systems in the military they seem not quite ready for prime time, yet.

Drones, drones everywhere....

My personal feeling is that the security hole required for any sort of remote operation is simply too big. Consider this event;
Iran–U.S. RQ-170 incident - Wikipedia
In this event Iran claims to have forced down one of our bat-plane drones by taking control of it. I have my doubts about that, but it is plausible. In any event if there was a system by which commercial aircraft could be remotely controlled, this would instantaneously become hacking/terrorist target #1 world wide. The recent pipeline shutdown would look penny ante by comparison. Imagine 20 or so heavy's holding on the ocean tracks waiting on a big ransom payment. Or maybe you put an iA330 over Central Park at 1000' and just shut down its engines.

There is no networked data system that is invulnerable to attack at some point; and if it can be attacked, it will be. Further, if a system was developed to allow single or no pilot control everyone would want access to it. I have serious doubts about first world corporate IT security, much less that of smaller and less well resourced national carriers. Hackers/terrorists can try all they want, they only need to succeed once. Defenders have to succeed every time. It won't happen.

So the ALPA posters?

Some nerd somewhere thinks all of the tech issues can be solved. Some MBA somewhere wants to eliminate paying pilots much, or anything. Some engineer thinks the flight systems can be made to work flawlessly. Someday they'll all be in a room together, ready to take over the world. And they'll want to try, broken eggs be damned. Might be the only thing stopping them is the law and public opinion. The posters are an attempt to do just that. Speaking as an egg, I'm OK with my ALPA dollars being spent in this manner.
 
Considering I'm flying a plane that was designed before I was born - and I'm no spring chicken - this simply isn't happening anytime soon. No reason to waste negotiating capital on something that isn't a logical threat, we have many other things to focus on.

As @Boris Badenov says I'm heartened by the glacial pace of the FAA/airlines in general and not to mention the significant cost barrier, network vulnerability, public perception, connectivity requirements, etc.

Once my employer updates our scheduling system from basically MS-DOS then I'll raise an eyebrow. Maybe.
 
The other thing to consider before we all freak out is a large part of society is going to get automated out of a job, probably long before pilots do. It isn't a unique problem to our industry.
 
The other thing to consider before we all freak out is a large part of society is going to get automated out of a job, probably long before pilots do. It isn't a unique problem to our industry.
Certainly, I try to avoid the self checkouts for instance but sometimes it's just way too convenient.
 
Certainly, I try to avoid the self checkouts for instance but sometimes it's just way too convenient.
That, and for some reason without fail every time there's actually a bagger at the end of the full checkout lane, once it's my turn they peace out as soon as I'm up, so I end up bagging my own groceries anyway clogging up the line.
 
The other thing to consider before we all freak out is a large part of society is going to get automated out of a job, probably long before pilots do. It isn't a unique problem to our industry.

Why? Why does mankind insist on making technology to put ourselves out of jobs?

(Unless they can be replaced by new and equal number of jobs).
 
If you're going to have anyone at all in the cockpit, they'd presumably HAVE to be able to override the commands of anyone NOT in the cockpit (or any computer), or it would be kind of a pointless exercise.

And then we're right back at the question of the dude in the cockpit catching a case of the crazy.
Certainly a possibility. Still that really just means that there might be more phsycho testing and evaluations, and even so, as long as the cost of crazies is less than the savings of having a sleepless tireless pilot the company will accept that cost/risk. Think about the fact that Boeing talked people out of extra training and had "optional" components that would keep their planes from turning into lawn darts. You can't think of it from the perspective of a pilot, because ultimately we think in terms of what is best for consistent safe operation, not moola...at least I don't. You need to think like a business pervert. You add in the cost of a couple crazies a year, subtract the cost of an entire training department, and all pilots, add the cost of extra maintenance. If it comes out positive you stick with it.

How do you keep it from being hacked and used as a WMD too? I don’t even want little Amazon drones flying over my house, let alone an unmanned cargo aircraft.
Realistically, there probably will be a human on board. Either flight attendants, or just a the equivalent of a heavy machinery operator. Their emergency functions will be expanded to manually landing the plane(and thats it, no flight planning ADM etc.), or cutting out the external control signal so the plane can work with only onboard commands. Kind of like how some mx guys are approved to taxi. There would need to be some kind of protocol to keep every plane from having the exact same software or control source. This is the kind of thing that will have to be worked out by autonomous vehicle manufacturers. As far as I know there is no good system for this yet. I guess it could store multiple versions of the control software in isolated areas which it could either automatically or manually revert to if an anomaly was detected. Very insidious viruses would probably need a human to manually roll back to other versions of control software, or in the most extreme cases, assume manual control. In the event of a Stuxnet type attack there is really nothing to be done in any flybywire system though I don't think.

Considering I'm flying a plane that was designed before I was born - and I'm no spring chicken - this simply isn't happening anytime soon. No reason to waste negotiating capital on something that isn't a logical threat, we have many other things to focus on.

As @Boris Badenov says I'm heartened by the glacial pace of the FAA/airlines in general and not to mention the significant cost barrier, network vulnerability, public perception, connectivity requirements, etc.

Once my employer updates our scheduling system from basically MS-DOS then I'll raise an eyebrow. Maybe.
Comfort is not security. I think it is worth considering that the pace government institutions move is going to be proportionate to the financial pressure placed on them to move. Tech lobbyists haven't had a reason to mess with the FAA, but if they feel it would be profitable, I suspect they could get them moving just fine, since I'm sure many politicians would be happy to do anything and every single thing to acquire the favor of the financial behemoths. Especially if SpaceX secures more government contracts. I'd say the same exact thing about public perception. We live under a capitalist system and if there is money in it, then it will be done.
 
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You can't think of it from the perspective of a pilot, because ultimately we think in terms of what is best for consistent safe operation, not moola...at least I don't. You need to think like a business pervert. You add in the cost of a couple crazies a year, subtract the cost of an entire training department, and all pilots, add the cost of extra maintenance. If it comes out positive you stick with it.

That’s a pretty naive viewpoint. When it comes to the psychological terror of something like that, it transcends pure cost analysis by a tremendous margin.

Also, this is all entirely laughable considering we just had a piece of infrastructure hijacked (Colonial Pipeline) and returned only after millions in ransom was paid.


No way in hell is something like a large aircraft going to be susceptible to remote direct control anytime soon.
 
That’s a pretty naive viewpoint. When it comes to the psychological terror of something like that, it transcends pure cost analysis by a tremendous margin.

Also, this is all entirely laughable considering we just had a piece of infrastructure hijacked (Colonial Pipeline) and returned only after millions in ransom was paid.


No way in hell is something like a large aircraft going to be susceptible to remote direct control anytime soon.
Psychological terror of what? Thinking anything transcends cost analysis is naive. Were you watching when the initial projections for COVID deaths were over a million people, and CNBC and Fox pundits said people should fall on their sword/wallets for the markets and their children? Think of the children. It was not until people at Black Rock figured out people dying might hurt some portfolios that tunes started changing policy wise. Life is quantifiable and terror is relative to experience. Flying as a concept is pretty scary but it's common place now. Goodwill, risk, and human life have dollar values, and they do drive decisions, like it or not.

I think your hacking article proves my point. Have they been exploited again? Did they return to a non digital system? No. They patched their security, and determined the risk costs less than doing it some other way. You're demonstrating business are already willing to accept these kinds of risk. Everyone keeps saying, "anytime soon." What does that mean? Like it won't impact you or it won't impact any current pilots? Is the energy security of the entire country not a more desirable target than an airplane?

Then you have the increasing reliance on the GPS system which I have posted about sometime ago.
and was brought up at Def Con again

The demonstrated cost is going to trump any hypothetical costs or fears. It's scary that a concerted effort could probably put explosives in the cargo compartment of various aircraft simultaneously, but so far as I know there is no requirement to have the blast resistant cargo nets made by Telair, or anyone else.
 
Psychological terror of what? Thinking anything transcends cost analysis is naive. Were you watching when the initial projections for COVID deaths were over a million people, and CNBC and Fox pundits said people should fall on their sword/wallets for the markets and their children? Think of the children. It was not until people at Black Rock figured out people dying might hurt some portfolios that tunes started changing policy wise. Life is quantifiable and terror is relative to experience. Flying as a concept is pretty scary but it's common place now. Goodwill, risk, and human life have dollar values, and they do drive decisions, like it or not.

I think your hacking article proves my point. Have they been exploited again? Did they return to a non digital system? No. They patched their security, and determined the risk costs less than doing it some other way. You're demonstrating business are already willing to accept these kinds of risk. Everyone keeps saying, "anytime soon." What does that mean? Like it won't impact you or it won't impact any current pilots? Is the energy security of the entire country not a more desirable target than an airplane?

Then you have the increasing reliance on the GPS system which I have posted about sometime ago.
and was brought up at Def Con again

The demonstrated cost is going to trump any hypothetical costs or fears. It's scary that a concerted effort could probably put explosives in the cargo compartment of various aircraft simultaneously, but so far as I know there is no requirement to have the blast resistant cargo nets made by Telair, or anyone else.

Ok, first of all not sure what your point is regarding COVID. Because if you're suggesting the US actually did basically anything to stop COVID early on, you're confused and clearly have no idea how many other countries (correctly) did slow it down. Thank goodness our vaccine efforts paid off, or else we would absolutely be headed towards one million deaths. Aren't we already at like 600,000?

The fact that you actually think the general public would be ok with "a couple crazies a year" is insane. The two MCAS crashes with Boeing damn near destroyed that company, and if there wasn't a clear path to fixing that issue there's absolutely no way people would set foot on a MAX again.

Finally, you seem to have a very poor understanding of what's been going on with these ransomware hacking attacks. The Colonial pipeline is just one of many of these types of events, and to now think that they "patched their security" and everything is cool is very naive. These attacks can and will continue with any kind of open loop system (which an aircraft operated remotely inherently has). Hijacking an airliner via ransomware would be an absolute nightmare, and nobody is stupid enough to willingly put themselves into that position.
 
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