Air travel safer without pilots!

[wishboneash]

Thought this was funny. Couldn't stop laughing. Just like the impending take over of the skies by flying cars.

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/11/21/would-air-travel-be-safer-without-pilots-steve-jurvetson-thinks-so/

[ArtVandelay]

My favorite quote "The closer you are to technology, the more you trust it. What I don’t know is how you would assure people." I'm a computer engineer, I understand the technology, and I don't trust it. I wonder if he has his personal information on the cloud, gone shopping at Target, etc...the more complicated a system is, the more possibilities of failure.

[ryoder]

When I took my checkride the DPE told me that Boeings new designs don't have a cockpit. He also said that baby boomers took all the money out of aviation. This guy had zillions of hours in extremely large airplanes and was not excited about the future of aviation.

[peter]

I wouldn't be so quick to laugh about this. My pre-teen kids will be learning to drive at the same time that driverless cars hit main street. I womder if they will be the last generation that has to learn how to drive to be able to use a car. For them, pilotless aircraft will make sense. When you consider that we rarely hear about the aviation catastrophe that was avoided thanks to the heroics and skill of the pilots, but often hear of the one that was the result of pilot error, I expect the future will be full of folks who are comfortable flying in a pilotless aircraft and afraid of the ones that depends on the pilot to get to their destination.

[pinerunner]

Personally I believe in the ideal man-machine interface. Dumbing down the human side isn't part of that. An example for me was my kids and the neighbor kids playing video games fifteen years ago. They'd set up a LAN down in the basement and go at it. They were all using hot keys and setting up their own macros to do customized moves on each other. Icons were available but those that only used icons were just left in the dust.

 

Pilotless airplanes is as bad as nonpilots regulating aviation in my book.

[flyboy0681]

What would people have said in 1955 when the notion of removing navigators from oceanic trips was mentioned?

[Piloto]

What would people have said in 1955 when the notion of removing navigators from oceanic trips was mentioned?

Same as when the lift operator was removed from most elevators. After all Lindbergh didn't have a navigator.

 

A captain in an airliner is more than just the operator of the plane. He is responsible for the proper attendance of the plane and the passengers. In some instances he is the guy that pays for the fuel (with company money)  and ground services. When you are dealing with a $200M plane and 200 passengers you need a person responsible for them, not a computer.

 

José 

[bonal]

Killing little timmy

[aviatoreb]

Killing little timmy

 

Please don't bring Timmy out of his play pen.  If Timmy and that full contact politics fun leaves that area, I am afraid I will be done with Mooneyspace.

 

Point taken though - the world is changing and this era of pilots being human heroes is fleeting.

[aaronk25]

Please don't bring Timmy out of his play pen. If Timmy and that full contact politics fun leaves that area, I am afraid I will be done with Mooneyspace.

Point taken though - the world is changing and this era of pilots being human heroes is fleeting.

Ha......I wouldn't worry about them branching of the little Timmy thread and polluting the rest of Mooneyspace as I think they for forgot the rest of mooney space exists .

Hey btw you were in there playing on the Timmy thread not that long ago....now...now...now...

[aviatoreb]

Ha......I wouldn't worry about them branching of the little Timmy thread and polluting the rest of Mooneyspace as I think they for forgot the rest of mooney space exists .

Hey btw you were in there playing on the Timmy thread not that long ago....now...now...now...

 

Its true - I made a post there sometime ago.  A single post.  I lost my temper and I was rude.  I learned my lesson and I avoid.  As I said, I do not want to be inclined to avoid the rest of Mooneyspace.  I enjoy when we talk about airplanes, LED lights, LOP, weather decisions, etc, etc, and all the many little things we need to know to be better pilots.

[bonal]

Well I was just seeing if I could push Timmy to page 2 almost made it. I am going to delete my silly rushed posts.

[Marauder]

Its true - I made a post there sometime ago. A single post. I lost my temper and I was rude. I learned my lesson and I avoid. As I said, I do not want to be inclined to avoid the rest of Mooneyspace. I enjoy when we talk about airplanes, LED lights, LOP, weather decisions, etc, etc, and all the many little things we need to know to be better pilots.

Timmy's place is like a shaded hole in the desert. You know not to stick your hand into the hole. What's in there will probably bite you.

As long as Timmy stays on his street I'm fine...

Now about those LEDs that Peter installed. I like 'em.

[Seth]

It will start with cargo flights.  It's already started. 

 

Originally there were multiple crews.  A flight engineer or three, a captain and first officer.  Then, just one flight engineer, captain, and first officer.  Soon it'll be on the cargo flights a computer flying the entire thing with a safety pilot on board.  Once the safety rate increases with the entirely automated flights in the cargo world, with the computer flying the entire mission with a single pilot on board, it'll transfer to the airlines.  Then they'll start cargo flights without pilots.  I'm curious when or if that trend will occur with the airlines.

 

-Seth

[bonal]

I think it will take a couple more generations of techno geeks at least before we see people willing to climb on board a pilotless aircraft. Maybe with a safety pilot but I know I will likely never be comfortable with the idea. Personally just the fact that many of the pilots flying now don't have military experience seems a little unsettling but that's just me. I know that does not make someone a better pilot automatically but has always been my perception or misconception that the training and more importantly the flight experience that one gets in the service is greater.

[carusoam]

Elevators used to have operators.

Light rail trains used to have operators.

Google almost has a car.

The aviation world has been working on automation and they have done pretty well.

- I can buy my own ticket on line. Fully automated...

- I can check my own bag. 95% automated.

Relieving the pilot of his duty will come after eliminating the CEO of his duty.

Thinking out loud,

-a-

[Hank]

I'll fly on a plane without a pilot AFTER the airline bigwigs fly on it, with no pilots on the [nonexistent] flight deck and none in the crew, either.

 

Put me down for Seat 5C, one way, on the 4th of Never.

[bonal]

When you get into the elevator you still have to push the button to select what floor.

Pretty hard for a train to get lost something called a track I think.

What operating system would they use to fly these planes windows 8 good luck you won't even get the number 2 started before the damn thing has to do an upgrade requiring a restart. Shure the technology will be there it basically already is but not for this old school dude.

[FlyDave]

The general population may get jiggy with this idea but we as pilots know that when something goes wrong - and WE know that things go wrong - you need a trained pilot IN THE COCKPIT to troubleshoot the issue and get the people on the ground as safely as possible.

In the end, the airplanes and the automation are created by humans and, although they may be very reliable, there will be bugs and situations the engineers didn't account for. Remember 9/11 and how many planes were in the air that morning? Some of the pilots sounded a bit terse after trying multiple airports to land at and getting dangerously low on fuel. In this case I believe the human factor got all those planes on the ground and packed into airports safely.

I don't like to say I'll NEVER do something like this but, I just don't think I'd sit in the back of a plane without trained, capable pilots up front putting all their knowledge and experience to work to avoid being the first two people to "arrive" at the crash site!

 

Afterthought....It may be safer than flying Asiana Airlines.....