Originally Posted by
detpilot
What happens when there is cabin fire, and the nearest airport is a 8,000' GA field with no instrument approaches. Will hal be able to make that work?
How about when a main landing gear fails to lock. Will hal do a low approach to let the tower check out out? Will it troubleshoot until bingo fuel, ignoring the fact that the bingo was based on the lower fuel burn of having the gear up? Will it pick a longer runway, touching down on the side of the good bogie?
Our FOM states:
“Tower can not provide confirmation of gear position. Therefore, a tower fly-by is
not recommended.”
They add the emphasis on “not”. At this stage of the game we are very much needed in the cockpit. There will be a time when the level of technology and reliability reaches a point where we are not. At that point pilots will be up there as monitors while the flying public gains confidence in the reliability and safety of unmanned travel. My guess is that we’ll be dead and gone, but it’s going to eventually happen. Technology gains have enabled many manufacturing jobs to become obsolete. They are now even performing remote robotic surgery. If a surgeon can sit in an office and robotically cut into someone miles away, what makes us think that we’re immune to the same advances in technology?