Thread: Would you fly in a pilotless airliner?

It's going to happen.

The first stage will be to soften the public's perception by having pilots on board aeroplanes that are being ground controlled. Once the passengers realise that the guys up front are doing nothing , which may take some time, then the pilots may be removed.

There is a huge amount of infrastructure, control and system interfacing to "allow" a pilot to fly a modern aeroplane. Once the pilots are taken out of the equation (and remember , most systems must be duplicated for the 1st Officer, or co-pilot) a massive amount of weight can also be removed from the aeroplane. Consider all of those switches which must hard mounted and wired . In the case of long range flights , changeover crews are on board. eg 747, A-380 .

The frontal area of the aeroplane can be made more aerodynamic...no windows, or shortened considerably etc.

I'm a little unsure how CAT may be detected and adjusted for, but there will be a ground crew monitoring everything in flight anyway.

The changeover will be an interesting time.

Yep I'd be all over it, cheap flights come at me.

I remember quite a long time ago being on a small plane flying to Lord Howe Island and being a bit concerned when the pilot got up out of his seat, walked down the back of the plane, grabbed a newspaper, went back to his seat and sat there reading the paper while the plane flew on autopilot. We didn't crash, so I guess all was well.

I hope airbus has sorted out its pitot tube icing problems by then. Not that pilots seem to be able to save that all the time.
The redundancy systems would be horrendous, fly by wire controls in the airbus I think has 3 channels and about 7 different levels of control and protection dependant on what sensors are out etc. something like that, maybe one of the airbus guys on here could correct my rambling! The only fly by wire I know is stainless steel wire

Nope.. won't happen. I'm not going to say never, but not for a very long time. Anyone who thinks it will is either deluding themselves or has no knowledge of how jets actually fly. Further, they have a profound misunderstanding of airline costing. We pay pilots well, but they are nowhere near close to the biggest cost of airline operations. Remember too that whatever we replace them with must come at a cost.

Yes, planes can be flown by themselves - that bit is without question (although it should be noted that a pilot does land them). Yes pilots do sometimes mistakes - but not very often. It's one thing having an automated combat plane go off line and crash but it is very definitely another having a large transport plane with 400 people and 200 tonne of jet fuel going dark.

People also need to understand that in many ways flying jet's safely is a mind boggling complex issue. They need to remember that while it's for the most part plane sailing in Australia that it's not the case in other parts of the world where the traffic density is far higher and the weather worse.

If you think the ethics of self driving cars are a headache you wait till you think about airliners.

I think the insurance cost will kill it. Imagine calculating the risk of killing several hundred people.

I agree with Capt Rightfoot. I don't know of any computer capable of critical reasoning. That's pretty much a human trait, which is absolutely essential when it comes to operating an aeroplane safely and efficiently.

Do we go left or right of that weather? Climb or descend if possible?

Ahh, we have a flap/slat or flight control malfunction. How does the computer deal with what can be a very complex problem solving issue? What does it do now once the problem is under control? And how does it make its decision to go to a particular airport should a diversion be necessary, when it is incapable of reasoning?

There has been a sudden deterioration in the weather enroute or at the destination. How does the computer work through what might be several scenarios, and come to a decision on what is the best course of action?

How does it deal with advice from other pilots or ATC regarding weather/turbulence etc?

There's hundreds of scenarios I could think of that a computer would be incapable of completely resolving, both in the air and on the ground.

I feel quite confident of keeping my job until retirement.

Hi,
No!
Cheers