Originally Posted by
DENpilot
Never mind any terroristic scenario. The only thing that usually keeps my forehead from making contact with the glareshield during a 4 hour flight is the guy sitting next to me.
With single pilot operations, you're still asking a single pilot to:
-Stay alert and focused with no human contact for hours on end.
-Clear traffic/obstacles both left and right after push, during taxi out and taxi-in.
-Look for traffic in the air.
-Assume he's on the correct routing, taxi route, making the right real time calls.
-Tune radios, run checklists, talk to ATC, talk to FAs, talk to pax
AND MOST IMPORTANT:
This turns back years of progress on CRM by essentially making the CA "god" again, enabling him to make unilateral, real-time decisions with little to no input from others.
Will. Not. Happen.
You are missing the mark. Single pilot operations will only start once airliners are completely autonomous. They would be able to fly as drones however due to liability and to keep the public happy it will still require a pilot at the controls simply to monitor, therefore, the things you mention above wouldn't be too important.
Lastly, I realy hope this doesn't happen but technology is moving at a rapid clip and our jobs could be targeted.