Originally Posted by
rickair7777
This will only happen when the airplane itself is fully automated, at which point the single pilot becomes a piece of backup equipment.
But we are a very, very, very long ways away from that. The cost, technical, regulatory, and public perception hurdles are so high that pilots are simply the cheapest solution for the foreseeable future.
Could we do it right now? Yes. Does it make sense? No. It would be at least equivalent in cost to an apollo/manahattan project...who is going to pay trillions of dollars to get rid of few pilots? Not the government. Airlines? They are lucky if they can plan ahead far enough to make payroll.
I have seen a similar proposal in Europe, floated by some organization nobody had ever heard of which was obviously sponsored by some airline association to scare pilot labor groups. When boeing or airbus starts to make serious noise about this, then it's time to worry. But you'll still have 20 years from then.
I seem to remember 747s once required a flight engineer.
There are only two reasons we still have two pilots: regulations and liability.
Look at the 1900, Shorts, Banderantes, and Metros. All of them can be flown by one pilot or two depending on the type of operation. Same plane, but the regulations determine the crew.
It took only 30ish years to go from Doolittle's first instrument flight to commercial use of autoland. It once took eight engines to push a B-52, but only two for a 777. Navigators took star shots into the 70s and could calculate positions to plus or minus a mile or so, now man made "stars" drive our GPS receivers.
For the cost, figure an "average" Boeing or Airbus FO costs a company $150,000-200,000 yearly (salary, training, benefits, etc.). Each plane requires five FOs. So a company spends close to a million a year on FOs per plane. Consider an airframe has a 30 year lifespan. That means $25 million or so over the life of the plane. Considering a new 737 costs around $80 million, adding a few more million to the final price, for single pilot certification would be a steal.
But, cost of the liability for single pilot ops could be too high, just as the liability of a single engine 737 could be too high. Not to mention, getting the public and the FAA to accept single pilot ops will be difficult.