Originally Posted by tallpilot

With all due respect, every head in the sand 'automation ain't taking my job' argument assumes that if the computer can't figure it out the airplane just runs out of fuel and crashes. These flights will be constantly monitored from the SoC and there will be multiple ways to upload changes including taking over full control manually.

Do you think it might occur to them to put a video camera on the nose to 'see' that building cumulus you mentioned? Optical sensors keep improving and so do the algorithms used to analyze the data. I don't mean to be insulting but it is truly inconceivable to you that engineers can't figure out how to get a computer to steer around a cloud??

First we will fly these things single pilot to monitor the automation to see how it does. Then we'll move to being on standby in the SoC to take over manual control, then they will figure out they don't need 'real' pilots for that.

I know nobody wants to think of the day the skills we've spent a lifetime perfecting are nearly worthless but ignoring trends and pretending it won't happen is irrational. The only question is can we make it to retirement before it does.