Is it possible? Absolutely, there is no question it CAN be done. The real question is, SHOULD it be done? Let’s start with passenger perception. People won’t do it. At least not in large numbers for the airlines to sustain any kind of profit. You’ll begin to see those TSA daily passenger numbers begin to roll back, big time, and stay there.
Passengers are already scared enough as it is with flying in general, they are not going to get on an airplane with no pilots upfront unless you give them lots and lots of alcohol, maybe a few nerve pills in addition, both before and during the flight. But then you will have the problem with a lot of drunk passengers getting into arguments/fights in the sky. I could see a lot of flight attendants in droves updating their resumes and sending out apps to places in other industries. You will lose a ton of flight attendants. Before something like that could ever be done, you would have to ask the general public how they would feel about it. It’s a safe bet to assume they won’t like the idea of it.
There needs to be a lot of changes to regulations as well, which takes 10 years for the FAA to do for just about anything. Good luck dealing with that bureaucratic beast.
And probably the biggest issue is dealing with software problems. You would have to create the best software in the world, that could never fail in any way shape or form. No computer crashes. No glitches. It would have to have the ability to think ‘outside the box’ when the crap hits the fan. Is it going to perform like it’s supposed to? What if it doesn’t perform? Then it’s immediately scrapped, done. At that point the jig is up for the ‘unmanned airplane’ fantasy. Just take one look at the recent Southwest Airlines computer ‘glitch,’ or the pipeline that was hacked, and that’s enough persuasion right there that there’s serious risk to the general public with trying to build airplanes without human pilots. And then of course there’s always the chance the signal could be jammed, or hacked. I’ve talked to many people about this and asked both pilots and non-pilots (except the tech gurus who are so enamored with unmanned airliners) “would you get on an unmanned airplane?” Just about everyone said no. Myself included, I wouldn’t do it. Lol It scares the poop out of me thinking about walking down a jet bridge and getting on an airplane with no pilots. Literally, there are any number of scenarios/emergencies that the software would need to handle, FLAWLESSLY, every time, under the worst conditions, in order for it to be safe.
I just cannot see this ever happening with passenger aircraft, EVER. Maybe, MAYBE with cargo, but not pax ops. I’m willing to bet in 40 years we aren’t going to be any closer to moving in that direction than where we are currently. People were saying that 20 years ago, and where are we?
Also, what’s going to happen when the first airplane goes down?? Then we go back to that public perception issue. The flying public will become very scared to fly on these things. How the heck will the airlines try to remedy that? while at the same trying to crawl out of an economic recession period? as this industry gets hit super hard during hard times. Talk about major damage control that would cost a lot of money to convince people that it’s safe to fly on these aircraft again.
