Originally Posted by
skylover
Good...at least I don't need to worry about that.
I think the biggest hurdle will be getting passengers to be accepting of this new technology. There are so many aviation incidents where the PILOT saved the day, not the autopilot. The Hudson Crash? Sully made the decision to ditch - would a computer do the same? Hmm...
The hurdles are:
1) Technology, almost there except for a computer which is adaptable enough to solve a problem which the engineers didn't think of (not that THAT would ever happen
).
2) Upfront Cost of all the extra redundancy. A good example is automated spacecraft and satellites...they cost typically 1 Billion+ each. But they only have to complete one trip (albiet a long one).
3) On-going Mx cost and operational hassles. This is the ultimate deal-breaker...to maintain the required standards of reliability, all Mx would have to be done in a clean room by guys in space suits (just like for nasa products). Any Mx item would be grounding, the only allowable MEL would be for a broken toilet paper roll in the lav. I anticipate a fleet of automated airlines would have about a 20% dispatch reliability.
3) Cost of a TOTAL revamp of ATC.
4) Chicken/Egg dilemna. The other deal-breaker: Who's going to kick this thing off? Boeing/Airbus? Not a chance in hell if the ATC system and regulatory allowances are not in place...they are not going to build something they cannot possibly sell. The government? They're broke, why would they spend 100 billion to put 100,000 pilots out of work...they don't hate pilots or love airlines that much. Anyone who's been following the Next-Gen circus would laugh at the idea. The airlines? They're all on the verge of bankruptcy (again)...their managers are not going to spend hopeless sums of money NOW (which they could never come up with anyway) in the hopes that it will help the company in 25+ years. They only care about next quarter's earnings call.
5) Security. The idea of a "back-up pilot" on the ground is ludicrous unless you somehow develop a fail-proof, jam-proof communications system. Oh silly me, I'm sure the airlines would just drop another $500 billion on a secure global private satellite network.
Oh, and how is the computer going to deal with Wx? We can work our way around or through a line of CB, but computers aren't good at dealing with grey areas yet. It would most likely just turn around and RTB, or at least go waaaay out of it's way.