My point being is that times change. We went from single pilot airliners to airliners with 4 or 5 cockpit crewmembers, and now we're back down to 2. Does anyone really think that today's airline industry is less safe than yesterday's? If the day ever comes where single pilot airlines become the norm, it will be because advances in technology made the second pilot unnecessary, just as 1980's technology did with the flight engineer .
The hardware changed quite a bit, the level of safety too. Taking examples from the 50's and bringing it into 2013 might be troublesome in this way.
Also I don't understand this sentence please explain:
Does anyone really think that today's airline industry is less safe than yesterday's?
I can't figure out how you transitioned to that point from your sentences before and after. But if I were to take it at face value then:
I don't. I would link the single pilot to multiple pilot in the cockpit is a clear distinction of safety levels created. Anyone in the dual pilot cockpit has had those moments when the other guy says, "hey man you want that ils up, you've still got the VOR in" and I've done the same for others. Or the "You said this missed was a right turn right? I thought you said left turn" and you say "Oh crap, yeah left wouldn't be any good hu?"
I know that's a little anecdotal but that isn't going to stop me from doing more. Look into Scare Now up in New England (Air Now really). They used to run a bunch of EMB-110 out of Bennington VT as a single pilot operation. The Fed's were wary of going single pilot on that thing, but they figured, "what the hell it's just cargo and pilots don't count as lives", so after the third crash in about 12 months came a little too close to populated areas for the Fed's taste they made them go back to two pilot cockpits. You see the first couple pilots being strained through the cockpits (Scare Now's specialty), wasn't a big deal, but when it comes to passengers or people on the ground, that's different.
The Fed's believe multiple crew members increase safety, and the numbers back them up. Furthermore, mainstream human factors today has given up on the 1960's goal of a fully automated cockpit in favor of gifting the pilots with more and more tools to "see" as a computer might. This increases aircraft awareness for both crewmembers. We misidentified the problem, it was not how do we get rid of the pilots up front who make mistakes, the problem was how do we create an environment to surround the pilot with more information than he could hope to use in to lower his/her ignorance of a problem. That allows both pilots to evaluate and decide in a concurrent manner, independent processors if you will. However I haven't seen, yet, any tool created by the engineers out there that increases redundant and independent evaluative decision making.
I've had the opportunity to work with avionics people from Rockwell Collins, Honeywell, Hamilton Sundstrand, before I got into flying airplanes in exchange for money, as well as going to a college that teaches the newest brood of engineers, and I have found the idea of a single pilot or no pilot cockpit is mostly on hold. There's always going to be push from someone who thinks they can get the idea to work but mainstream thinking has pushed that way, failed, and moved on to something that works very well.
Ohh the fear, Ohh the horror.