Left Handed

I was thinking more along the lines if they shelled an engine the FA would just come up front and hit control-alt-delete and solve the problem.

BoilerUP

I've got a hair under 32 years go to until 65, and fly cargo.

I'm not worried about being 'replaced' during my career. And if I am...well, I'll put my bid in for RPA Operator and enjoy home-based "work".

DFWAviatior

US Air Geese through both engines over the Hudson? Glad there were two in the cockpit that day. Yes humans make mistakes, humans also catch mistakes and when things happen outside of parameters they can use judgement to determine a course of action that a computer simply cannot.

Let me draw a parallel for you. Keep in mind there has been an A320 crash because the computers decide it was going to land (France). Would you walk into an operating room, lay down on a table, and say "Ok Dr. Robot Machine, do your thing!" Probably not...what happens in a power outage? What happens when there is a loss of a network connection? What happens when there is malware or incorrect code or a computer crash? Yes some medical practices utilize machines but they work in concert with an experienced trained medical team. Why? The robot may be more precise, but we need someone there with judgement to assess the situation, make decisions, and provide inputs accordingly.

Why did we lose the flight engineer? Automation can set power, balance fuel, monitor systems and alert the crews when something falls outside of parameters (Sorry if this over-simplifies the position of flight engineer). These are job functions with clearly defined norms and easily targeted abnormal situations which can trigger an alert that can now be handled by the remaining two crew members.

Aircraft without transponders, birds, rapidly changing dynamic weather, runway incursions just prior to touchdown. These are all things that a human can scan for and react to accordingly. Lets not forget that students from the University of Texas hacked into a drone and took control of it midair:

Texas Students Hijack a U.S. Government Drone in Midair | Popular Science

Excellent, now hijackers don't even need to slip through security!

Before we all panic, lets look at another industry, railroads. These are vehicles tied to a track. They don't turn left or right. They speed up and slow down and thats it. They STILL require engineers. I think we are safe in our profession for some time to come.

NYC Pilot

Who in their right mind would board an airplane without pilots??? It's scary enough as it is...

iFlyHi

I wonder how these robot pilots could handle a large solar flare that happens to be pointed at the earth knocking out massive amounts of electronics and satellites.

That sounds like a pretty bad day...

As is our world as we know it would end in an instant, no more cell phones no more online banking, no social media etc. (not without massive amounts of effort to bring things back up, and I highly doubt this would be an overnight task)

Just think if all airliners were manned by robots and an event such as that were to happen!

iFlyRC

And you think the fly-by-wire systems wouldn't be affected? Humans or no humans, would make for a bad day.

Stryder

My maddog wouldn't even flinch!

Jughead135

Analogous to the cockroaches taking over after the nuclear holocaust, eh...?

Forrest Gump

Remember, the robots don't need to be perfect, simply better at performing the jobs than humans.

iFlyHi

I agree. It's a bad situation regardless but even an airplane like an Airbus can be "flown" without all of its fly by wire systems working. Not saying the airplane will be easy to get on the ground but I think in that situation a human would perform much better than a robot. I don't think United 232 would have had the same result if a robot was in charge. It wasn't a fly by wire airplane but regardless, this robot would just be looking at the instruments with its "eyeballs" and continuously putting in control inputs that yield no response. Even if it somehow was able to analyze loss of hydraulics, how would it have handled that?