Originally Posted by
jcountry
I think it’s much more of a threat to cargo operators.
Overwater first.
I’d really be worried about this if I flew cargo.
Unfortunately, the general public-and their dumbass DC scumbag reps-give not 1/2 a rat’s ass what happens on cargo flights.
I'd be worried if I flew cargo, and expected to live to 120 (and expected the FAA to raise the retirement age to 110).
Keep in mind this thing is win/win for the people behind it. Best case, they get to fire half their pilots someday. Worst case, the publicity might scare some pilots into making concessions to help preserve their jobs in the face of a (highly improbable) threat.
This will take a long, long time and we'll see it coming years out. What these people are fantasizing about doing is eliminating pilots in CURRENT aircraft, which were not designed for that. The costs of retofitting and certifying the needed technology probably exceed the costs of the pilots over the life of the planes.
The time to worry is when manufacturers start trying to "bake" this sort of capability into new designs... but they won't do that unless they KNOW that it can certified, sold, and operated and they know the precise roadmap to certification. That last is so far beyond the technical capability of the FAA as to be laughable. Don't believe me? Google "NextGen"...
