BrulesRulez

I’m all for a Vietnam base.

IQuitEagle

A Vietnam base would be awesome. Much preferable to Clark. 👍👍

CAVOK84

Before FedEx, I flew both crew and single pilot corporate. The single-pilot jet had a specific type rating for SP operations (not all do though). It definitely increases the learning curve when moving to a new jet... And while I thought single pilot corporate flying was a ton of fun (far less fun when taxiing around unfamiliar large airports), I don't share the same enthusiasm for single-pilot airline flying.

If there were single-pilot airliners, my guess is that they would have crew variants to allow for training, or perhaps the SP version would have a station and controls for a second pilot (same as SP corporate jets today), with all the important switches being accessible from the PIC seat.... IOE would probably be quite a bit longer.

I still don't see the single pilot airliner stuff happening all that soon. To me, the entrance of the first unmanned cargo airliners would be more plausible in the next few(ish) decades. The benefits of getting rid of all the equipment a human being needs to operate an aircraft are obviously compelling enough; that is if cutting out the highly paid employee were not sufficient.

Single pilot ops would necessitate the airline industry to abandon the concept of CRM, require the FAA to invest in significant R&D in regulating 121 single pilot ops, wouldn't get rid of all that cockpit equipment and human interface stuff, and (in my opinion) would further exacerbate the current problem of over-engineered design e.g., (convoluted layers of nested automation, an inability of the pilot to diagnose a problem with confidence, an inability to assume 'full' manual control of the aircraft, and the possibility of very confusing malfunctions that result from unknown interrelationships between seemingly unrelated systems). It isn't just imperfect automation/software, it's the concept of engineering the pilot out of the plane while still needing the pilot. When compared to today's WB jets-- SP corporate jets are less complex, have a much narrower operational regime, and typically don't involve crewforces of thousands flying at all times of the day/night.

I don't mean to argue that it won't happen, I'm by no means an expert on what SP proponents intend to do. And many of my complaints extend to current-day aircraft (A330).

I just have a difficult time viewing it as a near-term step in the progression towards a UAV.

Huck

The biggest obstacle to SP ops: every single country we operate through would have to agree to it. If one country doesn't approve, and that's certainly a possibility, then the billions spent on the program will be wasted.

I got my start flying copilot in King airs and Citations - most of them were SP certified. Most of them were flown with two pilots. I don't know of a single SP jet operator in my hometown, though many of the planes are legal to do it. Insurance, owner preference, chief pilot preference - it's just not a popular idea. And these are 1 million dollar aircraft with 7 seats in the back.....

FoxHunter

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smith...lub-180960817/

whalesurfer

Probably as ground based FOs “flying” out of double-Y trailers somewhere in Shenzhen or Guangzhou...

A few years ago several aviation universities were given grants to research the CRM concept of two pilots working together but not out of the same cockpit. One of them being in the actual cockpit and the other in a simulator linked to the aircraft but based on the ground. Not sure how that research is going and how advanced the technology has become but I’d imagine we still have a few decades left before this new era of single-pilot captains dawns on us.

BLOB

..........🤔

double-y trailers

Nitefrater

Vocabulary education via television

n188r

Beats a single-Y, I think 😉

whalesurfer

Haha, you got me ther, the publix edukaysion caught up with me.