yycflyguy wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2019 12:41 pm
Sure,
YYZ - GRU - YYZ, YYZ-SCL-YYZ, YYZ-GIG-YYZ. Been der dun dat with no AT.
So my points are very germane to the discuss of single pilot. You admitted that not all airliners are auto-land capable and you admitted that not all runways are suitable for auto-lands so single pilot ops are nowhere in the immediate future.
There is much more to consider than pilot incapacitation. Physiology, competency, crew effort, technology, apprenticeship.... it's a long list why there are minimum 2 pilots.
Anyone that thinks that flying single pilot airliners is comparable to watches or telephones doesn't understand liability and airlines operated on risk mitigation. I've watched some Captains that need babysitting, some FOs too. I've also had my obvious mistakes/errors pointed out. 4 eyes, 4 ears is an absolute minimum.
yycflyguy is spot on and this notion of aircraft landing themselves for a single pilot or pilotless aircraft is equally applicable. All of the futurists dream of aircraft being able to do this however they are not aviation experts and do not understand the nuances as well as the nitty gritty technical issues involved in pilotless aircraft and autoland/autotakeoff.
First, unless ICAO is willing to lower the standard for autolanding, big, big hurdles are present for autolanding from an airport/infrastructure perspective.
Runways that support autolands, Category III runways, have many unique characteristics that are not easily attained or perhaps are impossible to attain. The challenges include:
- For a single pilot operation, the runway would need the full Category III lighting system, a very expensive proposition. May not required for a pilotless operation.
- A Category III Instrument Landing System (ILS) is required complete with backup power (usually a diesel generator). In today's CAT III state, when it is operation, the main power supply is the back up power system with the local utility electrical system serving as the backup. In a single pilot/pilotless system, the backup would be operating continuously.
- It is unlikely that satellite-based navigation, including Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS), will ever achieve the necessary technical requirements of Category III; they have been working on it for 25 years now and are still nowhere close. That is, unless ICAO reduces the safety margins and changes the standards.
- The environment near the runway would need to meet the runway certification standard, i.e. be clear of manmade and natural obstacles. Most runways don't even come close to meeting this standard
- The approach area also has to meet certain terrain standards as the radar altimeter is used to judge the flare and pertubations in the terrain are not allowed.
Very, very few runways today are Category III capable because of these significant issues, both physical limitation that may be impossible to mitigate as well as the massive financial cost. In this fantasy world of single pilot/pilotless aircraft, will airports in Red Deer, Regina, Brandon, Kenora, Wawa, Stratford, Victoriaville, Fredericton, etc invest tens of millions of dollars to have a Category III landing system and runway for all of their runways? Not a chance.
Let's talk about the aircraft systems. Triple redundant autopilots, inertial reference systems, radar altimeters, triple redundant power systems, etc. Very few modern airliners have that capability - yes, most of the new Boeings and Airbus's do but how about the Bombardier, Embraer and other fleets of smaller aircraft with large fleets?
The visionaries, many of whom have no aviation background whatsoever, love to pontificate about machines replacing humans however when one considers the issues involved, it is complex, expensive and, in many cases, physically impossible to achieve. How many auto driven Tesla's have had fatal accidents now? Three, in what is a minuscule fleet.
Pilots of the world, relax, your services will be required for a long, long time.