Advance of automation
As time goes by it will become increasingly difficult to deny the obvious.
Last Wednesday Bill Voss, the president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation made the following comments on Nightline:
(Warning: These statements have been taken out of context, but it is still accurate for my purposes.)
"in modern aviation, these planes almost fly themselves. Voss said that on any given flight, pilots are manually flying the plane for only three minutes -- one minute and 30 seconds each for take-off and landing."
"We moving towards automated operations where the pilot isn't even permitted to fly," Voss said. "That means the first time in your career you will ever feel what an aircraft feels like at 35,000 feet is when it's handed to you broken."
Another note worthy comment from the story.
"Airbus is proud of the fact, they like to say that their plane is 'pilot-proof,'" said aviation lawyer James Healy Pratt.
The computer flies the plane and we are moving into a time when pilots will only hand fly in the sim. The article is about the Airfrance accident but it is the comments being made by industry professionals regarding automation in the flight deck that I find the most interesting.
I believe that in the near future pilots will fear the thought of disengaging the autopilot and actually hand flying the plane with live passengers in back. It will be an emergency procedure. Like it or not that is the future of aviation. Some would say that it is already here.
Skyhigh
Air France Flight 447 Investigation: Pilots Not Properly Trained to Fly the Airbus A330? - ABC News