I think we will see significant progress on this within the next ten years. My guess is that we will first see this with freighters and long haul flights that today require two crew complements. It will be a gradual process until we eventually see pilotless flights.

CC

PS Some trains are already running without conductors as in ATL and other airports.

Very good points. Taxiing alone will probably present the biggest problem. I think if this ever happens, it will be way down the road. The insurance companies will ultimately decide when or if this will happen anyway.

Trains are on tracks. Pretty hard to screw that up isn't it?

Actually reducing train crews to single engineer is very controversial. Congress is studying it; holding hearings and the FRA is not convinced, neither are the unions.

As to what can go wrong, have you read the papers of Lpac Megantic, Lynchburg and other wrecks?

GF

So are airplanes in a sense. The computer flys the invisible flight track.

Pilots are an intermediary between ATC, and the aircraft systems, eliminate ATC, and you can get rid of one pilot.

Pretty soon Humans won't be necessary. Where are all the jobs for humans going to be, fixing the robots? Really, where is this taking the human race...extinction?

Who ever said no more 18 year F/O is right, now there will only be HALF the Pilot jobs. Milliminums will love it though, it's all an electronic World, just pull up a virtual Pilot video...but hey, they can still text!

I haven't heard about this, nor have I heard of a policy-making inspector (Washington) doing enroute checks :)

Maybe it's true, but I've heard nothing of this in the FAA, so it must be "top-secret".

Still, this is coming, just like self-driving cars are coming.

This^^^ is what I'm afraid of. Corporate greed and the eternal cost cutting strategy. It's not about safety or efficiency, it's about cost-cutting and efficiency.

Cars are built by robotics, parts, computers, the same. Manufacturing is all to automation and robotics. Hell, even the farmers machinery runs the fields fully automated and on a precision GPS track.

What worries me is humans are populating this world more and more each year, yet each year more and more corporations are automating and removing the human work force one by one. What are we all do do?

Thank God for Obamacare and free Obama phones and social welfare because that's all we are going to have (unless you're a top manager running all the "machines").

I guess I'd better buy that boat and enjoy it now now while I still have a chance.

Deleted

Extra words. Pizza is good.

Railroading is every bit as challenging as aviation. It's all about energy management and when you're coming down a mountain pass with the Earth's gravity pushing 18,000 tons of coal on your butt, you'd better have you head on strait and be working as a crew. You've got to use just the right amount of brakes. Air/car braking and locomotive/dynamic. Too little, you overspeed the first curve and you're a dead crew - fiery train wreck - taking out a small town in the process. Too much braking and you'll mismanage your air and end up with zero brakes or if you don't do that you'll melt through all your brakes and become a runaway. Next curve, same result. Pulling a hill is just as challenging too. You also have to learn an enormous set of federal regulations just like we do in aviation. It's more similar than you'd imagine.

Switching out cars in the yard is an exercise in complex logic every day. Like a massive jigsaw puzzle, how do you take apart a train, and put another one together with X number of tracks, in the least amount of moves. How do you do this day in and day out without derailing, or crunching equipment together, or the biggest challenge, not crunching yourself! It is an incredibly physical and mental environment and you're dealing with long hours, many through the night, in every type of weather. I was challenged every day, and recognized strait away that no dummy can do that job.

I wrote an article a few years ago titled : Airline Pilot vs Railroader, you should check it out.

Maybe you'll shoot me a 'cool story bro' once again, but this time really mean it:)

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