80ktsClamp

Dont forget that even the newest generation train engines are crewed by 2 people onboard the engine.... both of which make about as much as RJ captains. And they can only move forward and backward!

dckozak

It worries me to see so may pilots sure of the insuitabilty of UAV's. I mean really, would you buy stock in a company (pilots) tell you is a sure bet?
That said, I do have a couple of questions for the UAV operator posting on this thread. How do UAV flyers deal with gusty cross winds?? Does a UAV pilot have any peripheral vision in flight? How quickly can any UAV operator see/sense a problem and how long does it take for the action directed by the operator to have affect?? I see these as some of the most obvious short coming of UAV flying. Contrary to the good reasons posted by many, I do think UAV flying will come to freight ops, and probably within my life time. I think the bean counters will see savings, even if we can show the short sightless of some of their rationale. Never underestimate the power of someone outside of operations (in any industry, those who manage rather than build/produce) and never underestimate the bean counters, arguably the worst of the non producers. Most upper managers are bean counters either by education (accounting) or from related fields (business MBA's) that see everything in dollars and cents.

Bucking Bar

Jeesh "D a d"

I'm not sure what an L&R event is, but aren't the good gig's sitting someplace near Vegas? Just the difference in the show girls ... nothing wrong with hairy ... it works for the Kardashians.

But as your metaphorical children, you surely don't want us all to be jobless? How much support for UAV's do you expect on a site called "Airline Pilot Central"?

80ktsClamp

Sheesh...you're getting mighty defensive real quick. Relax!

Military aircraft, as a matter of fact, run significantly lower hours than airliners. You know better than that. Individual airliners run around 18-24 hours a day. I know UAVs do not have that high of indivual ship utilization.

2000 hours is a lot for a military pilot because of the intensity of operation, but the amount of malfunctions you yourself experienced in that very low amount of time does not bode well for that technology to be utilized in a high cycle environment.

On top of that, as already stated, the crewing is only removed from the machine to the ground, which would add to the cost for the airlines, not reduce it. b

blastoff

Argumentum ad verecundiam.

Bucking Bar

Mostly, fire trucks.

Elliot

ALCON,

Bar, 80, Elvis, Blastoff, Johnso, etc. (Apologies if I missed someone in the discussion.)

Bottom line: I don't EVER see a pilot-less airliner.

This same topic/thread was started by Forgot to Bid about 6-9 months ago.

People argue the liability, financial feasibility, & all sorts of other ideas. My discussion, granted it may be playing the "devil's advocate" at times, is I can see, in the next 20 years, the possibility of "REDUCED CREWS". Imagine a FedEx 777 needing only one crew to fly from Beijing to Memphis instead of two? How about a Delta 777 departing ATL - DUB w/ one crew? Possible? The plane still has "pilots" aboard the aircraft. These pilots just relinquish control to remote operation long enough during the "cruise" portion of the flight to be legally rested when it's their turn to land the plane in either ATL or DUB. Or an emergency alternate, taking the risk away from the crew, remotely operating it from the ground.

That's all.

GJ

blastoff

Its mainly because many of us are military and aware of the ignorance of UAV safety records and understatement of technological flaws in magazine/newspaper articles. The same newspapers that have been peddling the "pilot shortage" by regurgitating the same article for 25 years. It is an effective technology...within the context of military operations.

Elvis90

GJ, if I am Richard Anderson, who won't pay for anything without a return on investment, and will not buy new stuff unless it's proven...why would I want to spend the money modifying my airplanes, getting satellite time, establishing the ground-based infrastructure, in order to remove one pilot from a long-haul flight? How many years would have to pass before I see the benefit of my investment?

80ktsClamp

Tada! That is the crux of it. There has to be an ROI. In a combat situation, removing pilots is a good thing as it reduces loss of life. We've likely seen the last generation of manned fighters for that very reason... not to mention a manned fighter would not be able to compete against a RPV fighter that could pull 20 Gs without flinching. The remote piloted thing reduces risk for the crew and saves critical weight on the machine to be used for surveilance and things that go boom.

It is a completely different ballgame in the low margin airline industry, and even in the higher margin freight industry. Weight savings would be minimal and that is offset by astronomical costs of the ground based tech with the same amount of staffing (it would still take 2 crews to do atl dxb, just one would be from the ground from the ever so pricey RPV interface)