how long

[valleyboy]

As Rockie points out, there are a thousand little decisions that occur in a pilot’s/ crew’s mind that positivity affect each flight. Something as simple as having the ground crew push slowly to avoid contamination, delaying engine starts, preventive deice, taxiway choice, taxi speeds, stopping to allow the FA’s to secure the cabin, returning to the gate when a passenger feels unwell, working through an MEL, proper use of the brakes to give a smooth taxi, requesting an alternative departure path, requesting a different runway for departure, flap selection to enhance safety, choosing to FLEX, taking an intersection TO, wake turbulence decisions, making appropriate PA’s to ease passenger worries and to explain delays etc. These are decisions that we make but probably don’t even realize we do.
Cheers

Could this not all be done by a remote operator. To me pilot-less aircraft just means the pilot or controller is not sitting in the actual flight deck but controlling remotely. Even a completely autonomous still needs to be monitored and possibly an AI will do it in the future. Like everything else it will boil down to economics. Pilot salaries and numbers are always the target of the bean counters.

The future of transportation, as I see it, will be long haul sub-orbital flights and high speed ground for commuter distances. Pilots as we know them now will certainly disappear.

[tsgarp]

I don't even bother putting up rebuttals to this type of thread of which there are already dozens of variations.

Should have stuck with that policy.....

[tailgunner]

Valleyboy,
I suppose a remote operator may be able to slow taxi, but cannot pick up the subtle clues that are always present.
On a walk around, can a remote operator really assess how slippery the ramp is, or a subtle change in the precipitation rate or type? That’s part of the tactile feedback that a human pilot would gather.
Cheers

[455tt]

We cannot stop the march of technology.

SpaceX can successfully send an unmanned rocket to orbit to the ISS, deliver its payload, and the rocket safely returns to earth to land on a dime on a drone barge.

Take off, enroute navigation and landing of drones is well within current technology.

There is huge incentive for airlines to get rid of flight crew and adopt pilotless aircraft: billions of dollars on crew salaries can be saved. Replacing humans with machines and robots is nothing new in other industries.

So I'd say the only issue is fear from passengers of getting into unmanned aircraft. In time, this fear will be overcome as with other technologies that came along such as fire, steam, electricity, automobiles, dynamite, un-manned transit train systems, amusement park rides, nuclear power, space ships etc. etc.

We'll be there at some time in the future without any doubt and we will wonder then why the thought of pilotless passenger flights was considered such a big deal.

[RRJetPilot]

They delay launches if the conditions aren’t 100% optimal. If you have ever flown an airplane you would realize (especially in a Canada) conditions are rarely optimal.

[455tt]

They delay launches if the conditions aren’t 100% optimal. If you have ever flown an airplane you would realize (especially in a Canada) conditions are rarely optimal.

So is it your position, fellow pilot, that pilotless transport of passengers will occur, as technology advances, provided that departure, enroute and landing conditions are optimal, but that pilotless operations in all-weather conditions could never happen?

[leftoftrack]

everyone one this thread who is saying Pilotless ops aren't gonna happen is working with updated 1980's software.

[pelmet]

I think the military will lead the way on this one....which they already are with sophisticated UAV's controlled from the ground. As time goes by, it will become more and more complex with lessons learned along the way. The FAA will no doubt be extremely conservative on this and perhaps a freight company like UPS or Amazon will lead the way in the civil world with pilots initially as monitors but able to back up in an emergency. I guess pilots will have a lot of simulator time for the occasional landing. Then the inevitable. I wouldn't expect anything very soon for airline pilot replacement with automation. Still a long time away from anything significant.

[tsgarp]

The technology to go pilotless, in certain circumstances, is here now. All of the required capabilities have been demonstrated; either in modern auto-pilots or in driverless cars.

The computers behind the autopilots can monitor more data, more accurately than a human. They can also spot trends more accurately, and that is the bulk of pilot decision making; monitor data, spot trends and select options based on those trends. These are all things a computer can do. The only stumbling block left in the way is the reliability and robustness of the system.

The only real potential showstopper for pilotless aircraft is the fragility of the GPS system, other than that, there really is nothing stopping pilotless flights between major airports (airports with WAAS, ILS and someone to keep the runways clear). I don’t think you will ever see pilotless going into small austere fields or doing floats. There will still be times when you need someone to put the MK1 eyeball on the runway and make sure Jim-Bob didn’t park his ATV in the middle of it.

[rookiepilot]

The time has come to fully tax robots, the same level of tax as the human they are replacing.

Automation must be taxed.

[photofly]

Hear hear. Make those metal pockets bleed.

[Meatservo]

The time has come to fully tax robots, the same level of tax as the human they are replacing.

Automation must be taxed.

I read this and gave it a good long think. Before commenting on some issues, I try to understand why I feel the way I do about them. Like why do I have such disdain for automation? Why do I have a tendency to promulgate stories in which human pilots triumph over faulty automation, while at the same time mentally glossing over the times in my own career where an automated system, even if it's just a beeper or horn, has prevented a bone-headed momentary attention lapse from becoming an incident?

I think it's got to do with why I chose aviation as a career. I can be incredibly dumb sometimes, but I feel that in terms of basic intelligence I could have had a career basically doing anything I wanted, including professional careers. Maybe not a CEO, I think I lack the capacity for strategic thought necessary for making long-term plans beyond the next landing. ...

Anyway I suppose I resent automation because I have found my career as "a pilot", to date, very challenging. Challenging to survive, challenging to enjoy, challenging to justify at times, and even challenging to take a step back from. The model "pilot" I have always had stuck in my head is a fictitious entity who can fly any aircraft well, with their bare hands. They make "flying" so smooth and precise that passengers and employers take notice. They understand so well the internal intricacies of engines and systems so well that they never cause damage or unnecessary wear, and when failures occur they think their way through the challenge and arrive safely. They understand weather so well they are never caught out. They can navigate using pilotage, radio based aids, celestial, and dead-reckoning. Engineers regard them as partners. Flight attendants respect them. Flight-deck crewmembers admire them. Employers value them.

I have failed to live up to this standard. Even trying as hard as I can over the years has had ups and downs- ego, depression, fatigue, joy, self-congratulation, self-effacement, shame, exultation, camaraderie and hatred, all of this has raced through the thread of my life with almost sickening unpredictability. I think I might be one of those assholes whose identity and job are intertwined to an extent they aren't really fully human anymore. I have a buddy who coaches "mindfulness". I used to think this kind of shit was a sign of weakness. Now I feel as though I desperately need it.

Here is why I'm babbling about this stuff: automation represents the end of a lifestyle. I have trouble identifying with young folk and what constitutes "achievement" in their aviation careers. I don't want to start off a "kids these days" kind of talk, but I do, deep inside, feel that pilots of highly-automated modern airliners flying your typical hub-and-spoke routes could easily be replaced by automation. The idea that a human pilot is essential in the event of a failure or situational incapacity of the automation is predicated on said pilot having some sort of experience working without automation. Which is becoming less common. I know first -hand from flying with them, that there are people working in the cockpits of airliners who do not view manual flying skill, navigation, mechanical knowledge, or artistry to be an essential or important part of their repertoire. In fact I would say there are a lot of people who feel this way. I consider this attitude to be complacent and dangerous, but that is simply an artifact of my upbringing.

The fact is, I guess I hate automation because it takes all the lessons I have had trouble learning, all the things I tried so hard to be good at, and all the things that contributed to my sense of worth in my life, and renders them redundant. The idea, or I guess the "dream" of aviation was that it was a worthy activity and that we, the practitioners of that activity, had found a way to make a living at it. Now, the people who have found a way to make a living at it, (well I don't mean just a "living", I mean the people who turn industry into yachts and estates and trust-funds for themselves), are trying to eliminate us. That's what I hate.

And that's why I think automation should be taxed, and not only that, the taxes should go towards establishing a universal basic income. Hopefully none of this generation's pilots will ever have to fall back on it. But if something like this doesn't happen, then automation will simply become a tool for the elite business-class to further drive us into a two-tiered society of lords and serfs. Ultimately the people who sell the goods and services will struggle to sell the goods and services to anyone, when they've turned us all into impoverished subsistence-dwelling livestock on a tax-farm, with employment being either a choice between rising into the business aristocracy or serving and maintaining the robots. Then let the robots pay the taxes.

[Meatservo]

.

[rookiepilot]

Your last 2 paragraphs....yep.

Remember...I'm a right - leaning investment guy.

But it's all gone too far.

Automation is the hollowing out of high skilled labour....to make more money for the lords. Hollowing out of middle class society, without contributing to it.

Look at the hollowed out American cities.

Whether it's AC or loblaws, they are incredibly selfish pigs at the trough. They disgust me with their lobbying and greed. You make big wealth, to help others in my book. Period.

If you don't, I have no use for you, your megamansions and 100 ft yachts.

Even in service economy. It's all self serve. Not just aviation...

It's tax shifting too, to lower tax countries. Angers me. I pay a lot of tax as a small business. The big boys get all kinds of breaks and stock based compensation.

Amazon shopping for a a year -- a competition for the best tax breaks for a new HQ.

I say tax the crap out of the job destroyers and poverty creators. Hammer the shit out of them. In every sector.

Otherwise democracy and capitalism will be lost completely as the pendulum swings way way hard left.

[Meatservo]

I agree. While I don't consider myself to be left or right-leaning, maybe a political scientist could help me work that out. I am more interested in what is true and what is not true. I suppose when it comes down to what is "fair" and "not fair" is the subjective part that divides people into polarized thinking and makes someone identify with "right" or "left" principles. I suspect the truth lies up the middle. The "middle class" wasn't created by the benevolence of the lords. It was created when people who went to the trouble of becoming skilled and educated realized that their abilities entitled them to more than just being serfs. If the greedy elite could maybe back off on destroying jobs and creating poverty, and stop preying on the middle class, they wouldn't have to fight against the socialist nightmare of having to fund a comfortable, dignified existence for everyone. I guess I'm "left-leaning" in the way that a "rising tide floats all boats". Without the depredations of the elite class, we could all have a country or even a world where everyone could be entitled to basic dignities like a clean, comfortable home, running water, and health care, paid for with a fair system of taxation without special breaks or bonuses for anyone. But I suppose I'm "right leaning" because I believe hard work should pay off in some way. Just not to the ruination of others.

Thanks for taking the time to read what I wrote.

[photofly]

Whether it's AC or loblaws, they are incredibly selfish pigs at the trough. They disgust me with their lobbying and greed. You make big wealth, to help others in my book. Period.

Helping your shareholders, the majority of whom are not wealthy, doesn’t count?
Companies are owned by collections of individuals.

[valleyboy]

They make "flying" so smooth and precise that passengers and employers take notice. They understand so well the internal intricacies of engines and systems so well that they never cause damage or unnecessary wear, and when failures occur they think their way through the challenge and arrive safely. They understand weather so well they are never caught out. They can navigate using pilotage, radio based aids, celestial, and dead-reckoning. Engineers regard them as partners. Flight attendants respect them. Flight-deck crewmembers admire them. Employers value them.

Pretty much describes it back in the 50's 60's and 70's - The best compliment passed was "nice hands" and having an engineer respect you to the point of getting your aircraft ready and boiled off in the morning to putting it to bed at night because he acknowledged the crew was working long days where 8 hours was hard to catch. 50 hrs a week or more flown in the busy season. Like everything else time changes all. There is good and bad with every change. Piloting skills are dumbing down in the modern era but working conditions and safety are constantly improving. Automation will hopefully take up the slack.

[rookiepilot]

Whether it's AC or loblaws, they are incredibly selfish pigs at the trough. They disgust me with their lobbying and greed. You make big wealth, to help others in my book. Period.

Helping your shareholders, the majority of whom are not wealthy, doesn’t count?
Companies are owned by collections of individuals.

No. This is what I do, BTW, and it's gone too far.

Way, way too far, shareholders at the expense of labour.

[photofly]

Way, way too far, shareholders at the expense of labour.

That's an honourable opinion. But characterizing shareholders as "selfish pigs" with "100ft yachts and megamansions" seems inaccurate overall, and unnecessarily inflammatory. You should be able to justify your position without resorting to stereotypes.

[rookiepilot]

Way, way too far, shareholders at the expense of labour.

That's an honourable opinion. But characterizing shareholders as "selfish pigs" with "100ft yachts and megamansions" seems inaccurate overall, and unnecessarily inflammatory. You should be able to justify your position without resorting to stereotypes.

Where did I say all shareholders?

I referenced the C suite, who are receiving obnoxious amounts of stock based compensation

That is VERY obvious in my post.

Quote me accurately. If you're confused, ask.

Loblaws just cut back their "Covid" pay bonus --$2 an hour, even as their front line workers receive loads of abuse from customers not wanting to obey the rules. Maybe you'd like to work there. Yeah, that's selfish.

And BTW, I'm a right wing financial trader, not a hard left radical. It's a big deal for me to say what I'm saying.

This site constantly shits on the small business owners, hated by the liberals, instead of the billionaire - monopoly clan protected by governments. US and Canada

I don't get that at all.