Originally Posted by
Magpuller
Look, you guys are preaching to the choir here. But, and I mean this with the highest respect for my fellow pilots, you guys are in a bit of denial. Your points are all fair, quite poignant, concise, spot on but they are heavily biased and unfortunately irrelevant. Take your potential job loss out of the picture, remove your perspective and look at it from the pov of an airline CEO. I'm with you guys, but you are not addressing the primary driving force toward cockpit automation:
$$$$ Cha Ching!!!!
If you don't believe that airline CEO's and BOD's aren't salivating at the chance to replace pilots with Windows 20 then well...dare I say they got you fooled. Think about it, how wise would it be for say Doug Parker to publicly acknowledge a corporate policy towards acquiring pilot-less aircraft once the tech is completely viable? Airbus has not put a huge amount of effort into maturing the technology because they have no takers on it. But that is not because no one wants them, it's because no airline wants to go out on that limb today. Parker would have his house stormed with pilots holding pitchforks and torches if he placed an oder for "George jets."
But some carrier, probably much sooner rather than later will bite. And that will be all it takes for Airbus to deal with the kinks...funding is everything with aviation tech development.
The fact that some cargo carriers still fly guys sideways is also irrelevant. Old technology will always co-exist side by side with the state of the art even at the same company. I.e. that United 787 sitting on a gate parked next to a 767-3 (yes I know the 76 has no FE but you see my point) in the same livery. That comparison is meaningless. It's all about the economics. No company will park old planes overnight in lieu of new ones. Fleet integration is a never ending process of airframe renewal and timeout. Most airlines are equipped with the last 3 or 4 generations of technology at any given time.
Airline labor costs are traditionally around 25% of the operation. This includes all labor, not just pilots. Once you add in the technology and increased insurance costs, I doubt there will be any cha chinging going on.
I see airplanes with one pilot happening in the span of our careers. Maybe even within the next 20 years. Of course, the unions will fight this, just like they did when the navigator and engineers were replaced by computers in the 70s and 80s. That will be the biggest obstacle, not the technology. Most modern digital jets could easily be flown single pilot.
As for fully automated planes, I don't see the public support there anytime in the next 50 years. You will always have the fear of computer failure, unexpected weather (who's going to see that huge buildup that's not painting on radar, and ask for 10 right?), and a host of other issues.
Talk of datalink security only applies if we're talking about drones with pilots on the ground. I see even less support for that in an airliner, because no one is going to get on a plane where the pilot isn't vested in the successful completion of the flight.