Single Operating Captain
 

The concept of having a single pilot in the cockpit and one on the ground seems to be moving along nicely. The pilot on the ground would be working on as many as twelve flights at one time.

NASA Advances Single-Pilot Operations Concepts | Technology content from Aviation Week

It's one way of addressing potential pilot shortage...:confused:

Do you really think that is a good idea? For safety and our profession? Any shortage of pilots is good for your paycheck. The pilot monitoring is monitoring 11 other flights? Sounds great. He's probably making $50 /hr.

Passengers certainly won't care as long as there is still a human on the flight deck.

When drone technology becomes safe and reliable (10 years?); that's when you will see single pilot airliners.

It will be viewed as a saving grace to a pilot shortage by airline management... Plus millions will be saved in payroll so stock prices will rise.

Yeah, until that single captain in the cockpit yells out "Allah is great!" and slams that plane into a building because no one else is there to stop him or that single captain has had a bad day and learned his wife is doing the mailman, and slams that plane into a building or that single captain has a hart attack and the ground link somehow goes faulty and alt-ctrl-del dont fix it.
sounds like a real bright idea to me.

News flash, you're not preventing A, or B from happening if that's what the guy next to you wants to do. For C. - sure you will make all the difference in this case.

News flash, yes I am and i will.

Never mind any terroristic scenario. The only thing that usually keeps my forehead from making contact with the glareshield during a 4 hour flight is the guy sitting next to me.

With single pilot operations, you're still asking a single pilot to:

-Stay alert and focused with no human contact for hours on end.
-Clear traffic/obstacles both left and right after push, during taxi out and taxi-in.
-Look for traffic in the air.
-Assume he's on the correct routing, taxi route, making the right real time calls.
-Tune radios, run checklists, talk to ATC, talk to FAs, talk to pax


AND MOST IMPORTANT:

This turns back years of progress on CRM by essentially making the CA "god" again, enabling him to make unilateral, real-time decisions with little to no input from others.

Will. Not. Happen.

So a raise for every regional FO in the industry AND I can be home everynight? ;)





I'm not saying I want the industry to go this way, but wages are so depressed in the right seat for thousands of guys, I can't see why they wouldn't apply to do this kind of work.

Not gonna happen anytime soon, folks.

You'll see Part 25 SP bizjets WAAAAY before you see SP Part 25 aircraft operating in air carrier operations.

I mean really, look at the hoops air carriers have to jump through to use iPads and ask yourself if a single pilot 121 cockpit is waiting in the wings...

Pilots don't emit radio waves....!;)

Although they do produce a lot of hot air