Is Fred Smith (FDX) that ignorant?

[granlistillo]

In light of his accomplishments and long success, you say he lacks an understanding? Wow o wow!

An important factor here is not to confine vision to within the paradigm of today. Nothing would advance if that were the case. Vision, AKA forward thinking, by it's very nature, creates the environment conducive to the desired advancement.

Fred Smith and ignorant in the same sentence is ridiculous.

 

[MFT1Air]

and if the signal is lost? intercepted?

The alarm sounds; the pilot awakens and flys the airplane.

 

[MikeD]

Fred Smith and ignorant in the same sentence is ridiculous.

Didn't he write term paper or something similar about the concept of Fedex and overnight delivery service while he was a student at Yale long ago, and it was only deemed barely worthy of a "C" grade since it was deemed unattainable or overly ambitious?

 

[granlistillo]

That sounds about right. The man who shrank the world... His business ability is the stuff out of a flaky Ayn Rand novel.

He also was an OV-10 backseater

And has provided a couple of high quality pilot jobs through the years.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Certainly I would not say he is ignorant.

No, it's worse. He's ignorant and a jackass. He should spend a few minutes sitting on the jumpseats of one of his company's airplanes to see what a day in the life of a pilot is like. "20 seconds of work," my ass.

In light of his accomplishments and long success, you say he lacks an understanding? Wow o wow!

An important factor here is not to confine vision to within the paradigm of today. Nothing would advance if that were the case. Vision, AKA forward thinking, by it's very nature, creates the environment conducive to the desired advancement.

Success in one field does not make you an expert in all fields. Fred Smith was great at envisioning a new business concept, and he is a great business man, but he knows nothing of flying airplanes, and I doubt he's very involved in the day-to-day operations of FedEx Express. That's not his job.

Fred Smith and ignorant in the same sentence is ridiculous.

"Fred Smith is ignorant about neuroscience."
"Fred Smith is ignorant about quantum physics."
"Fred Smith is ignorant about cardiology."

Are those statements "ridiculous?" Of course not. The way some of the people in this country idolize business men, thinking they're practically infallible, just drives me up the wall. Just because he had one incredibly successful business idea and has managed it well doesn't mean that he isn't ignorant about other things. Stop putting CEOs on a pedestal.

 

[granlistillo]

The way some of the people in this country idolize business men, thinking they're practically infallible, just drives me up the wall. Just because he had one incredibly successful business idea and has managed it well doesn't mean that he isn't ignorant about other things. Stop putting CEOs on a pedestal.

I don't put him on a pedestal, but I appreciate the great feats he has accomplished. He was a heck of a military officer too. He is one of the few CEOs that deserve the accolades he has received hands down.

Whatever maing, I think alot of CEOs belong in prison. So do so some union leaders.

 

[C150J]

I want to clarify that I mean no disrespect when I say "ignorant." I used the word in its truest form, but should have qualified it by adding the specific job duties of pilots.

 

[C150J]

These technologies will come to pass - I know people who work on these things. It will just take years and billions, because that's the engineering reality. That's just my opinion as an engineer actively involved in aerospace research, trying to turn new technologies into actuality (I'm in the musing business).

Thanks Realms,

Let's take this one step further, just for fun. Say the technologies come to pass (whenever that may be). Do you see job opportunities for specially-trained people with piloting backgrounds? Engineers will obviously be needed, but how about people with extensive experience with operating aircraft in weather, congested airspace, and troubleshooting abnormals?

I imagine we could look to the train industry for foreshadowing. Some rails are remotely controlled these days, but I recall that there are a huge number of people in operations rooms with experience operating these things.

 

[Hacker15e]

I want to clarify that I mean no disrespect when I say "ignorant." I used the word in its truest form, but should have qualified it by adding the specific job duties of pilots.

As a side note, it's a pet peeve when people misuse words like that -- ignorant can have a negative connotation, but that's not the only meaning of the word.

 

[granlistillo]

As a side note, it's a pet peeve when people misuse words like that -- ignorant can have a negative connotation, but that's not the only meaning of the word.

I want to clarify that I mean no disrespect when I say "ignorant." I used the word in its truest form, but should have qualified it by adding the specific job duties of pilots.

I took the word as ignorant as "utterly uninformed or unknowledgeable". I doubt he would make a public statement unless he was somewhat informed. The technology is here today, but is it mature enough to give it 6 nines or 99.9999 % reliable? If it does go down, I would expect it to happen in the cargo realm first.

Not saying I like it, just sayin' I don't think Fred Smith is an ignoramus... (I know the OP didn't say that either). Sometimes a visionary has a vision that is unpopular.

 

[ChasenSFO]

 

[Boris Badenov]

I'm sure Fred has a pretty good idea what pilots do. He runs a company that pays a lot of them a whole lot of money.

That said, I'll start getting nervous when they have remote controlled trains, ferries, or subways. All vastly simpler to operate than an aircraft, and all still controlled by good old fashioned fallible yoke actuators. Or when ATC can afford equipment from this century.

 

[RICHARD5]

Anyone who thinks that UAVs are just over the horizon for operating for commerce in the US needs to take a look at the military's accident rate for UAVs.

What kind of redundancy are you thinking of? The military has UAVs that are designed with several layers of redundancy, and they STILL lose UAVs for lost signal (or any one of a number of other problems related to not having a human in the aircraft) all the time.

It's not that big of a deal when a UAV is $1-5 mil a pop, but with a $100+ mil aircraft like Fred's thinking of, it is a BIG deal. And that's just with an "unmanned" aircraft, where there actually are pilots making decisions about how to operate the aircraft. Fred wants them to be robots!



This is the part that is the most interesting, in my opinion. I think this shows a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of a pilot currently. Fred is perfectly happy to point out that pilots do about "20 seconds" of work. Yeah, that's true, so long as everything goes exactly as planned. The REAL reason to have a pilot on board is to handle decisionmaking when things don't go exactly as planned.

To be sure, most accidents are caused by pilot error. BUT, if you consider all the mechanical and avionics malfunctions that happen on a daily basis that don't turn into accidents because of human intervention, this number would be significantly lower.

All good points. A fail-safe default would be triggered at loss of signal (or other established parameters).

That could involve loitering in a race track to autoland at any number of pre-programed fields. I'm just thinking off the cuff, obviously I'm not an aeronautical engineer.

As for time to launch, that's not my concern. But to say it aint coming (based on current understanding) is denial.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I'm sure Fred has a pretty good idea what pilots do. He runs a company that pays a lot of them a whole lot of money.

I think you assume too much.

 

[seagull]

He should spend a few minutes sitting on the jumpseats of one of his company's airplanes to see what a day in the life of a pilot is like. "20 seconds of work," my ass. .

Actually, he has been on more jumpseats than a lot of line pilots have.

Switching hats to accident investigation, you might want to look at the data a bit harder. The number one cause of fatal U.S. based carrier fatalities is loss of control, #1 worldwide is CFIT. Neither would happen in a fully automated aircraft. The main problem right now is that the human/machine interface leads to problems. One solution (maybe not the ideal one) is to remove the human from the loop.

If we do reach the computing singularity, the ability of the machine to take in all the available data and choose the best course of action will far exceed that of a human. In fact, humans will have to completely shift what they do and their role in the world. This was all foreseen by Isaac Asimov in his Robot series, incidentally.

 

[C150J]

In fact, humans will have to completely shift what they do and their role in the world.

Time to start writing romance novels. Only a human is capable of coming up with that crap!

 

[RICHARD5]

In this world it was the achievements of a man which garnered him respect. I guess this new brave world has no need for such recognition, nay, actively seeks to put down such recognition. Vonnegutt was right.

You graduating from HS is not the caliber of achievement as building a business empire. No matter what your teachers told you.

 

[C150J]

In this world it was the achievements of a man which garnered him respect. I guess this new brave world has no need for such recognition, nay, actively seeks to put down such recognition. Vonnegutt was right.

You graduating from HS is not the caliber of achievement as building a business empire. No matter what your teachers told you.

I agree, but check out Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers." He poses a compelling argument about opportunity having to do a lot with success. I think his contentions are also fair, as he readily admits that opportunity can be made, and that only those who completely throw themselves into endeavors will succeed.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Actually, he has been on more jumpseats than a lot of line pilots have.

A shame that it hasn't taught him anything.

Switching hats to accident investigation, you might want to look at the data a bit harder. The number one cause of fatal U.S. based carrier fatalities is loss of control, #1 worldwide is CFIT. Neither would happen in a fully automated aircraft. The main problem right now is that the human/machine interface leads to problems. One solution (maybe not the ideal one) is to remove the human from the loop.

With you writing stuff like this, I find it difficult to believe that you've been a line pilot in a very long time.

If we do reach the computing singularity, the ability of the machine to take in all the available data and choose the best course of action will far exceed that of a human. In fact, humans will have to completely shift what they do and their role in the world. This was all foreseen by Isaac Asimov in his Robot series, incidentally.

The entire idea of a "technological singularity" is just a crazy theory, and one that is entirely dependent upon the creation of some sort of "super-intelligence" first. I think it's a bunch of BS, and so do most scientists. Only a few fringe scientists believe that this is a real concern.

 

[Realms09]

Thanks Realms,

Let's take this one step further, just for fun. Say the technologies come to pass (whenever that may be). Do you see job opportunities for specially-trained people with piloting backgrounds? Engineers will obviously be needed, but how about people with extensive experience with operating aircraft in weather, congested airspace, and troubleshooting abnormals?

I imagine we could look to the train industry for foreshadowing. Some rails are remotely controlled these days, but I recall that there are a huge number of people in operations rooms with experience operating these things.

I will accept your invitation to don my speculator's hat and think you are right that there will be a need for flight operations jobs. As we know from our econ 101 charts, the role of new technology (or capital) is to increase the productivity of labor. On some older airplanes we have 4 flight crew managing one airframe. Newer ones there are two flight crew on one airframe. At some point, there will be one. When things go remote, now one person can fly two airplanes. Then more things get codified, sensing improves, and some mechanical innovation takes place to improve reliability. Now three staggered planes can be managed by one person. And then four and so on as the grand march of technology progresses. I would not view it as flight ops jobs going away, just that the plane to pilot ratio will continue to advance as we learn more and more. A basic everyday example: we have self-serve check out at the grocery store now but there is still about one employee to every four machines for when they misbehave. When they misbehave less often, which they will, that ratio will change.

The DARPA grand challenge is an interesting thing to read up on regarding vehicle autonomy outside of the railway environment.

This is the silver lining to me:

When technology closes one door, it opens another. I believe that, gradually, over the time period technology constricts professional aviation, space flight technology will advance to open up more opportunities in space flight. I think the human will be able to have more of a role in this medium due to the large unknowns in the environment and the vehicles coupled with communication delay problems. Humans go forth, learn, and codify, and the more complete autonomous systems follow in their wake as more is understood. That is what is happening over time in aviation. Open up a new environment and the process begins anew with a whole lot of exciting opportunities to go with it. That's my hope, anyways.