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the future of pilots??

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Old 05-19-2007, 05:24 PM
  #1  
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Default the future of pilots??

I was watching "Stealth" today and was wondering... what the likelihood of having planes (commercial or fighter) without human pilots would be in the future... obviously not anytime soon... but you think it would be possible within 20 years to actually have 100's of people load up on a "pilot-less" airliner??? I could see this possibly with fighters, but airliners???

To me i think it is just un-safe... and i dont think we should ever have an airliner without somebody at least watching to make sure nothing happens... which is pretty much now with autopilot.

any comments ???
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Old 05-19-2007, 06:25 PM
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Good question.

Short answer: Fighers Yes, Commercial No.

UAV's (the new in-vogue acronym at DoD is UAS: Unmanned Aircraft System) have several distinct advantages that appeal to the military:

Long endurance: For recon, patrol, or close air suppport there is a huge operational advantage to loitering in the area of interest for extended periods. Fuel is not an issue due to in-flight refueling, and once you take the pilot out of the picture the limiting factor becomes engine oil (could last for days) or ordance expenditure for armed aircraft.

No Pilot: This saves weight and space for mission payload, and more importantly limits the political exposure for high risk missions where the pilot might get shot down and killed or captured. Stealth is also easier without a canopy for the pilot to see outside.

There are a number of disadvantages too:

No adult supervision for attack missions: A robot could easily kill friendlies or innocents. An ground operator using a camera is not the same as real eyeballs on scene.

Lack of creative response. The UAV will only do what it was programmed in advance to do, unless it is under positive control.

Risk of jamming: This could cause loss of tactical or even flight control, and could prevent a recon bird from reporting data back.

Low return rate: Larger UAV's return intact from their missions 95-99% of the time (noot counting combat losses). This is a FAR higher failure rate than for commercial aircraft, something like 100,000 times worse.

Isreal has taken a very practical approach (as usual): They intend to use a mixed fleet of manned and unmanned military tactical aircraft in the future, probably working together to leverage the advantages of both.

The obstacles to automated commercial passenger aircraft:

The military has NO plans to automate passenger aircraft. None whatsoever.

The cost would be absolutely ENORMOUS to solve these technical problems:
- UAV safety rates need to improve by a factor of 100,000, give or take decimal point. Any enginer knows that working out the last few bugs in a very complex system is the hardest part of the job, and can easily require 80-90% of the effort. The simple act of clicking off the autopilot to deal with a confused nav or auto-flight control system takes on vast new dimensions of complexity...airline pilots do this maybe once a month.
- Integrate automation into global air traffic control system: Those clowns can't even fully utilize RNAV yet....good f*&^ing luck!
- We can't even automate cars and trucks on interstates or passenger/freight trains yet...what makes you think airplanes would be easier (hint: they're not).
- Taxiing and abnormal situations would almost certainly require positive human control, so you're going to have to pay "pilots" of some sort anyway.

Passenger perception: Anybody born before 1995 (and remembers 911) is not likely to EVER feel hunky-dory about riding in an unmanned airliner. At the very least you will still require one pilot (a captain), so why spend all that dough just to get rid of the First Officer? With one pilot you would still require full automation and ground control in case the guy/girl becomes incapacitated.

Security risk: What happens if bad guys hack into the control system for unmanned airliners? 5,000 ready-made cruise missiles waiting for their targeting instructions If ATC can control the airplanes from the ground, so can other people.

It might happen someday, but it will take a VERY long period of experience with military and government UAV's...like 100 years probably. Even then it will start with cargo, not passenger planes.

I'd be more worried about running out of petroleum in your working lifetime.
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Old 05-19-2007, 06:42 PM
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Originally Posted by rickair7777
so why spend all that dough just to get rid of the First Officer? With one pilot you would still require full automation and ground control in case the guy/girl becomes incapacitated.
unless you can do it for less than $19/hr... haha..

thanks for the response... i was just wondering... you really went in depth! i really appreciate it too...
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Old 05-19-2007, 07:26 PM
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Reminds me of the old joke.....


Planes of the future will only need one pilot and a dog up front.

The pilot is there to monitor the gauges and systems.

The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything....


I think a pilotless commercial airplane is unworkable if only from a perception standpoint. Of course I am biased in my views (and I have a mortgage to pay...)
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Old 05-20-2007, 06:10 AM
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There already was a pilot-less airliner.

Note:** No passengers or crew are on the plane

http://youtube.com/watch?v=a5NXpar4Ouw
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Old 05-20-2007, 06:13 AM
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Originally Posted by hassan60665
Note:** No passengers or crew are on the plane
As you will read in the comments under the video, there are arguments about if there were people on board.
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Old 05-20-2007, 06:24 AM
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I believe there was a crew on that flight and the pilot caused the crash. There's a half dozen or so explanations of what happened here:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/test_flying_videos.htm

Scroll down to "Airbus Autoland Crash".
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Old 05-20-2007, 06:44 AM
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My recollection was that it was a demonstration flight at an airshow.

There were pilots as well as press and selected guests on board. Several were killed as the pilot attempted a go around. A glitch in the software would not allow it due to the aircraft's current configuration and it flew into the trees. Just before it hits you can hear the engines spool up in a too late attempt to override the computer.

Allegedly, the glitch was fixed.

It begs the question (based on above posts): If it was designed as a pilotless airplane, why did they waste money and add the extra weight to install cockpit windows??

Discuss....
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Old 05-20-2007, 06:56 AM
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Yeah, I don't think it was supposed to be pilot-less so much as less-pilot.
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Old 05-20-2007, 11:02 AM
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I've read the cockpit transcripts for this accident. They're contained in a book I own called, "The Black Box" that contains transcrips from many airline accidents.

My recollection is that the pilot was attempting to demonstrate an alpha floor limit maneuver in which he expected the aircraft to automatically increase power to prevent a descent while in level flight on the AOA limiter. Unfortuneately the aircraft was designed to NOT increase power when in the landing configuration and at very low altitude. Otherwise the aircraft would not ever allow you to land.

So the pilot thought he was doing a level slow flight demo on the AOA limiter and the airplane thought it was landing.
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