Originally Posted by
Name User
But, save your pennies. For those under 40 you'll probably be out of a job before you retire.
There is absolutely no way that anyone actually able to read this today will be impacted. Don't scare people, management will come looking for concessions to compete with (non-existent) automation, and people might fall for it.
Even if suitable AI existed (it doesn't), there are massive regulatory, infrastructure, and economic hurdles. There will be a very, very long and very, very, very expensive road from initial investment to profitability. Nobody can even guess how long or how expensive. The airlines will not invest in anything until it's certified AND the infrastructure exists (ground handling and ATC). The government is simply not going to embark on a manhattan project to put a paltry 100,000 well-paid union members out of work. So that leaves the airframers. They can take a longer view than the airlines, but still need to show some rational logic and a timeline before spending shareholder money on something which cannot be certified, cannot be insured, and for which no market exists. ONLY the airlines stand to benefit from this, not the airframers, so they will only go there when the airlines are ready to buy. For the government it's all downside (risk) with no upside. And of course you know how much politicians and bureaucrats love risk...
On top of that, add whatever delays will occur due to government inertia and public acceptance. Maybe by the end of the century.
The technical challenge is just the tip of iceberg. Social and economic issues are the real long poles in that tent. Anyone who understands the real world knows that.
Originally Posted by
Name User
For sure, the smaller Caravan sized guys will be gone first, already happening in China.
Yes it will start with smaller aircraft.... cheaper to experiment with and easier to certify (or get waivers). Also short-range missions with VTOL aircraft don't require the kind of human judgment that longer (or over-water) ops require. If you get in trouble you can just auto-land almost anywhere.
You can start to guess a timeline for automated airlines when uber is turning a profit with autonomous UAMs and the military is moving cargo with automated heavies.