Yeah Sky, what he said. What employer of your past installed HUDs in the aircraft? Sounds a little fishy to me. Do you have a picture of installation?

 

The hurdles are:

1) Technology, almost there except for a computer which is adaptable enough to solve a problem which the engineers didn't think of (not that THAT would ever happen ).

2) Upfront Cost of all the extra redundancy. A good example is automated spacecraft and satellites...they cost typically 1 Billion+ each. But they only have to complete one trip (albiet a long one).


3) On-going Mx cost and operational hassles. This is the ultimate deal-breaker...to maintain the required standards of reliability, all Mx would have to be done in a clean room by guys in space suits (just like for nasa products). Any Mx item would be grounding, the only allowable MEL would be for a broken toilet paper roll in the lav. I anticipate a fleet of automated airlines would have about a 20% dispatch reliability.

3) Cost of a TOTAL revamp of ATC.

4) Chicken/Egg dilemna. The other deal-breaker: Who's going to kick this thing off? Boeing/Airbus? Not a chance in hell if the ATC system and regulatory allowances are not in place...they are not going to build something they cannot possibly sell. The government? They're broke, why would they spend 100 billion to put 100,000 pilots out of work...they don't hate pilots or love airlines that much. Anyone who's been following the Next-Gen circus would laugh at the idea. The airlines? They're all on the verge of bankruptcy (again)...their managers are not going to spend hopeless sums of money NOW (which they could never come up with anyway) in the hopes that it will help the company in 25+ years. They only care about next quarter's earnings call.

5) Security. The idea of a "back-up pilot" on the ground is ludicrous unless you somehow develop a fail-proof, jam-proof communications system. Oh silly me, I'm sure the airlines would just drop another $500 billion on a secure global private satellite network.

Oh, and how is the computer going to deal with Wx? We can work our way around or through a line of CB, but computers aren't good at dealing with grey areas yet. It would most likely just turn around and RTB, or at least go waaaay out of it's way.

 

Obviously you've thought about this a lot! I just hope that the raw talent and knowledge needed of a (human!) aviator doesn't go away as technology improves. Flying takes a certain amount of constant awareness of your surroundings that I don't think computers can match yet.

 

USMCFLYR

The Alaska Air group has a Cat III program that utilizes a HUD.

Skyhigh

 

I think we'll see single pilot passenger airliners first. When that day comes, then I think pilotless airliners will be closer on the horizon.

 

So Alaska Air Group is made up of Alaska Airlines and Horizon correct?
I know you say you flew for Horizon and wanted to fly for Alaska Airlines, so you are saying Horizon installed HUDs in every aircraft?

USMCFLYR

 

FWIW:

Following bizav

 

And the DATE of that transformation skylover was....?????
Question. Did Skyhigh ever fly the Dash-8 for Horizon?
I don't know the answer to these questions which is why I am asking him.

USMCFLYR

 

USMCFLYR,

I was a first officer in the Dash 8-100 and 200. They had the HUD. The old Folker jets they had at the time however did not. They had a Cat II program that involved the first officer flying the ILS down to 100 feet when the Captain would take over and land.

As far as I know currently there is a HUD in every Dash 400 at Horizon Air and probably in every 737 at Alaska Air.

Skyhigh

 

Was this the old HGS1000 HUD?
Coming from a background that relied on the HUD I'm very fond of them actually. Loved the velocity vector. I forget.....what years were you at Horizon?

USMCFLYR