Originally Posted by
Imapilot2
Could you imagine having a hydraulic failure? Running that checklist, flying the airplane, setting up the approach, communicating over the radio and configuring the aircraft for landing by yourself. Scarry
Humans are humans and being by yourself in that situation that's not going to work.
Yes. The only way you'll get single pilot is when the airplane is fully autonomous anyway. You'll just be a backup to the backups, until they have enough operational experience to show they don't need you, and the public will go for it.
This is all a very long way off... to make it happen rapidly would require a vast manhattan project costing Trillions of dollars, but the ROI on that is negligible by comparison. There are less than 100,000 airline pilots in the US. Nobody has an incentive to drop the coin now, certainly not the government (which would have to develop roadmaps for certification, change laws, and COMPLETELY re-engineer the ATC infrastructure).