You might be surprised...remember, the CRJ is just a stretched Challenger.

The Praetor is the same tube as a 145, which means something tweening it and the E-Jet family is more optimal.

Initial design with both markets in mind can allow engineering to address those issues.

Or...not.

 

The cost savings will come from the removal of at least one pilot of which all this wonderful technology is supporting.

 

I don’t understand why this is so hard. They need to make a Falcon 7x RJ. End of story

 

Stretches work much better than shrinks. And I'm not sure that the CRJ is a good example of that process working well anyway.

Maybe they can kill two birds with 1.84 stones, but I have a hard time imagining much commonality between a wing optimized for FL490 0.9 and FL240 0.76.

 

All the technology in the world cannot fully replace an incapacitated pilot, so single pilot is a very long way off. Technically possible does not mean safe, economical, insurable, or certifiable.

They would have to build a full auto system, and then fly it two pilot for a long time to demonstrate it's level of safety, and then go single pilot. Who's going to pay for that? Hint: Not airlines, they only buy planes with equipment which is regulatory or will provide an immediate and predictable cost savings. Management gets paid to enhance shareholder value by next quarter, not by next century.

 

Agreed, but we are talking about 15 years from now, plus Boeing and Airbus have already come out and said they have the technology for it. The implementation of new technologies such as 5g, AI, super computing etc will only speed up the process of making computers smart enough to do this, not to mention speed up communication between them. This would also allow for one pilot to be ground based, in charge of multiple aircraft while each plane has only one, the ground pilot only stepping in for emergencies or incapacitation.

To your point about pay, that same argument can be made for every technology that is introduced and it hasn't stopped them from developing it. If there is money to be made, or saved, it will happen.

I am firmly in the group that feels the pilots coming in now in their early 20's are the last true pilots we will see. If my children wanted to be pilots, I would strongly urge them not to solely because I feel there won't be a big need for them in 40 years.

All speculation of course, none of us know for sure how the tech will advance or what the future holds.

 

The technology already exists in high end drones that will automatically follow a pre set flight plan and land in the event of loss of signal from the drone operator. It probably wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to equip airplanes with similar technology for single pilot ops. You’d have some sort of button or control that needs to be pushed or manipulated at regular intervals, if the pilot fails to push the button at the right time, the autonomous aircraft would simply squawk emergency and land at the nearest airport.

I seriously don’t see this happening within the remainder of my flying career, but there’s absolutely no stopping technological advances, no matter how hard we fight it. Once it presents a significant cost savings and is “safe enough”, it will be implemented.

 

I wonder if reduced maintenance costs could make a new 50 seater economic. Longer check intervals etc. or does fuel burn drive everything?

 

Fuel and payroll are the two biggest expenses at the airlines, by a pretty far margin.

 

You definitely do not want a GTF in a 50 seater, GTF's actually burn more fuel on short routes than regular engines. The most likely candidates for the new engine, will be the PW800, Silvercrest, or the Passport, and they all burn about 10% less fuel than the CF34.