Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

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C-GGGQ
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Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by C-GGGQ »

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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by complexintentions »

Hmmm...the old equating of moving from three to two, as the same from two to one. Not exactly a correct analogy, to my way of thinking of redundancy.

Why not get rid of twin engines then too? Far more cost savings to be had than getting rid of one pilot. And since technology is so much more reliable than human, should be a no-brainer to go to all single-engine ops, right? :mrgreen:
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Eric Janson
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by Eric Janson »

These fantasy stories appear every few years. Not going to happen imho.

Ranks right up there with 'Pilotless Airliners'.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by photofly »

I love this quote from the article:

“Replacing the vast array of knobs and switches with more digital interfaces familiar to today's teenagers could also help to shorten the amount of time it takes to train pilots, thus easing the shortage.”

Training pilots takes time because there are so many knobs and switches! Of course! It’s so obvious, now! Sometimes it just takes a journalist to come and show us all what should have been clear from the start.

The same journalist covers healthcare, where they point out that the reason it takes a woman nine months to have a baby is because there are so many knobs involved. If Boeing can reduce the number of knobs in the process, gestation could be cut to a couple of months.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by C-GGGQ »

My favourites are

"The other driver in all this is that we're really short of pilots. They're a very expensive resource"

And

""On long-haul, crewing is a tiny proportion of the cost, compared to the fuel and the capital cost of the equipment," he added. "It outweighs paying the salary of one pilot."

The flying public also has concerns; a UBS poll found only 13 per cent of respondents would take a jet with a single pilot.

Forging ahead
Regardless of the concerns, manufacturers are pushing ahead with projects like embedding artificial intelligence into cockpits and connectivity that allows for decision-making on the ground."

So pilots are a huge expense, except not really. Also, no one really wants it but manufacturers are gonna go for it anyway
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by goldeneagle »

C-GGGQ wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 4:54 pm Also, no one really wants it but manufacturers are gonna go for it anyway
If they build an airplane certified for single pilot operation, it doesn't mean an airline cant choose to put 2 pilots in, heck, most navajo's are flown that way today.

The reverse is not true, if it's certified for crew of 2, you cant arbitrarily decide to use just one.

Certifying for single pilot operation is inevitable, no matter how much folks here suggest otherwise. The question then will be, how long till some ULCC starts operating that way, and will it make a difference in loads?
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by photofly »

It’s not that pilots are expensive; they’re just self-entitled opinionated pains in the butt to management. Zero pilots would be fantastic; but one pain in the butt instead of two, is still a pain in the butt.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by Gino Under »

Here we go again.
So, if we actually improve aircraft software to more accurately manage and maneuver the hardware thereby reducing the liveware, why would you encourage anyone to learn to fly? Especially self-sponsored ab-initios?

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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by Speedalive »

The sad thing is that single pilot airliners are inevitable. If it saves even a cent for every flight, it’s probably worth it for airline management. Once more and more people start warming up to the idea of self driving cars, it won’t be long before they welcome the idea of autonomous airplanes too.

I think a lot of student pilots will be pretty angry after being told relentlessly about the pilot shortage and forking out thousands of dollars for flight training only to have no job prospects because the required crews got sliced in half. Pilot hiring would probably come to a standstill in Canada and I imagine there would be layoffs.

I hope I’m wrong about everything I wrote!
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by FL007 »

Speedalive wrote: Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:34 am The sad thing is that single pilot airliners are inevitable. If it saves even a cent for every flight, it’s probably worth it for airline management. Once more and more people start warming up to the idea of self driving cars, it won’t be long before they welcome the idea of autonomous airplanes too.

I think a lot of student pilots will be pretty angry after being told relentlessly about the pilot shortage and forking out thousands of dollars for flight training only to have no job prospects because the required crews got sliced in half. Pilot hiring would probably come to a standstill in Canada and I imagine there would be layoffs.

I hope I’m wrong about everything I wrote!
You may be right but the thing with this is that it would take literally decades to fully implement. I doubt a retrofit to older airplanes would be possible due to assymetric positioning (ie captain side tiller bar/fo side stuff)..

The only way would be if future airplanes are created to allow single pilot operations (10+ years from now) then the current at the time fleet of airplanes are retired since assymetry and cockpit design can't necessarily be overhauled, which could be 20+ years from then..
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by co-joe »

photofly wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 4:20 pm I love this quote from the article:

“Replacing the vast array of knobs and switches with more digital interfaces familiar to today's teenagers ...
In other words, replacing the cockpit controls of today with an Xbox controller.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by ahramin »

I was thinking it was more about changing buttons for touchscreens. Instead of a big pile of buttons and handles in the overhead, system problems would be dealt with on interactive touch screens. No excessive "fire handle 1 confirm" "confirmed" "pulled rotated bottle discharged" "engine fire drill complete" verbiage. Engine fire, pops up on the screen with a fire drill prompt, are you sure y/n? and away it goes, shutting the engine down and discharging the fire extinguishers on its own.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by digits_ »

ahramin wrote: Sat Jul 21, 2018 7:31 pm changing buttons for touchscreens. Instead of a big pile of buttons and handles in the overhead,
Better hope there's no turbulence when pushing the touchscreens...
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by Bede »

Boeing can't even get a half decent overhead panel in the max. I doubt they'll be able to pull off a single pilot airliner within the next few years.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by ahramin »

I was chatting with my cousin last night and he's huge into VR rigs. Got me thinking about how much easier it would be to avoid thunderstorms if instead of looking at a 2D picture on a little screen you could but VR goggles on and see an infrared picture of the actual clouds in front overlayed on 3D weather returns.

All sorts of stuff could be upgraded to decrease training and apprenticeship time.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by av8ts »

ahramin wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 12:20 pm I was chatting with my cousin last night and he's huge into VR rigs. Got me thinking about how much easier it would be to avoid thunderstorms if instead of looking at a 2D picture on a little screen you could but VR goggles on and see an infrared picture of the actual clouds in front overlayed on 3D weather returns.

All sorts of stuff could be upgraded to decrease training and apprenticeship time.
All the people in the back on wifi can even pull up a live radar picture that’s many times more helpful than what we get up front
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by Ki-ll »

av8ts wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 1:27 pm All the people in the back on wifi can even pull up a live radar picture that’s many times more helpful than what we get up front
Absolutely not. That image is at least 10 minutes old, likely more. An eternity in thunderstorm land. Looking at the radar around YEG the other day, the storms were popping from nothing into red in one refresh cycle online (10 min). I’d prefer a shitty airborne weather radar to an uplinked image any day.
I have no idea how it will be possible to program thunderstorm avoidance into a computer.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by photofly »

Ki-ll wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 2:15 pm I have no idea how it will be possible to program thunderstorm avoidance into a computer.
Isn't that a little bit like a computer scientist saying he has no idea how it will be possible to fly a plane without looking out of the windows?

What would you like us to infer from your lack of ideas on this subject? You have no idea how it will be possible... and therefore, it won't be possible?
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by Ki-ll »

photofly wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 3:27 pm
Ki-ll wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 2:15 pm I have no idea how it will be possible to program thunderstorm avoidance into a computer.
Isn't that a little bit like a computer scientist saying he has no idea how it will be possible to fly a plane without looking out of the windows?

What would you like us to infer from your lack of ideas on this subject? You have no idea how it will be possible... and therefore, it won't be possible?
Good point.
I meant to say that in my opinion thunderstorm avoidance and weather radar operation is too complex and too important of a task to be automated.
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Re: Two become one? Planemakers work on tech to cut pilot numbers

Post by KAG »

I see a hybrid system being feasible where there is 1 pilot and a drone like operator overseeing many flights. At some point every pilot needs to use the washroom, someone (remote drone pilot?) There to oversee such times. Problem is someone will hack that network, use the plane as a WMD just once, and were back to 2 crews. So in short, it may happen but not soon.
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