Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Fred has nothing to lose by saying this. He's most likely wrong, and even then this sort of talk might scare his pilots into concessions.
The FAA has been ordered by congress to "open up" the skies to UAS. But the devil is in the details and if the FAA requires adequate safety and see-avoid capability then the costs could be extreme.
The problem with UAS isn't can we do it...of course we can. The question is does it make economic sense? Two pilots provide redundancy for a LOT of system malfunctions just because they are smart and adaptable...computers are still not "smart" as we know it and have little adaptability beyond what logical chains of events their programmers thought of.
It would hard for a computer to do what Al Haines did. It would be really hard for a computer to do what Sully did. In both cases it would have to knowingly accept a crash while trying to minimize the damage.
That A380 that grenaded and engine out of Singapore? It took the pilots HOURS to run all the checklists associated with the hundreds of EICAS messages they got. It would very, very hard to write a computer program that could sort out a mess like that. Not because the computer is slow, but because the (non-pilot) guy who wrote the software wouldn't be able to script that all in advance.
There are some advanced artificial intelligence concepts out there, but they're not ready for prime time. The problem there is that the adaptability desired in AI also means unpredictability...literally a certification nightmare as far as aviation goes.
And ultimately while management loves talking about unmanned airliners, they'll be terrified the day one actually shows up on their ramp. Why? Because then they won't have anybody to blame...the ultimate responsibility for safety will default to management and the company. If something needs to be MELed they'll have to convene a committee of lawyers, MBA's, and accountants to approve it!
Unmanned airliners would have a low dispatch reliability unless an ENORMOUS amount of money were spent on improving systems reliability and/or redundancy.
At some point pilots are just cheaper...
All of this above, plus the one thing nobody is talking about, you still have to sell tickets to humans and convince them it's going to be just as safe to fly on an unmanned airplane! The tickets would have to be MUCH cheaper to get anyone to buy one.
Pilot pay/benefits has fallen so much since deregulation, as a percentage of total operational costs there would not be much of a savings in ticket price to the pax.
Fuel/mx/taxes are so much higher a percentage of total operating costs, the ticket price on an unmanned aircraft would be very close to a manned one, difference of maybe 10%, might be less than that when you factor in the costs of all the hardware/software/drone operators/computer programmers, etc. needed to run a pilotless operation 24-7. Hell, it will probably cost MORE to run unmanned flights, certainly when you start comparing it with RJ Pilot wages.
And as correctly pointed out above, who would the company have to blame when things went wrong? No pilots, no pilot error, that will put the blame on Management, and that will have an impact on Management's Bonuses, when -they- have to be held accountable for every accident.