Single Pilot Cockpit
 

Single-Pilot Cockpit Idea Floated in NASA Study - WSJ

How about they pay more and they won't have to worry about a pilot shortage. Trying to do anything they can to avoid raising pay :mad:

"Analysts, labor groups and academics contend any pilot shortage results from the industry’s unwillingness to sufficiently pay pilots. "

the idea IMO is about as likely as standing room seating

Any pilot that would do that shouldn't be a pilot......

I think its more likely that high speed trains will ultimately replace air travel. They are getting faster and faster all the time.

Check out this new train in Japan, does over 300mph!! and is fastest in the world. It uses magnetic levitation to get the train up off the tracks reducing friction.

Elon Musk (Tesla Motors / SpaceX) wants to do the same thing with magnetic levitation but with a twist- encase the railway in a vacuum tube thereby eliminating air friction completely. Called the hyperloop.

Japan approves plans for world's fastest train line ? RT News

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0...h-speed-train/

Hiperloop it a wet dream. they say it would cost 6 Billion, the Environmental impact study will cost at least that!

The California High Speed Train LAX/SFO city-pair should be ready by 2030.. but then they'll add 10 more stations on each end stretching from San Diego to Sacramento and then it won't be high speed anymore.

We can only hope they'll have a green smoking car!

Airplanes can be shifted around to meet demand, trains not so much. In other words, airplanes will always be more cost effective.

Hyperloop is not a dream, they want to build a prototype. Breaking the sound barrier, now that definitely cannot be done.

I wouldn't take it too seriously. NASA has to do research to make it look like they are coming up with brilliant ways to change commercial aviation in America so this is another study that will do nothing. A few years ago they came up with this "SATS" thing that was supposed to revolutionize commercial aviation by making all the little podunk airports into taxicab stations, for example.

I would be down to sign a 4 year pay cap to get solo tpic time in an e190 if psa can get those in their fleet

It's not a dream technologically, I'm sure we can eventually figure out HOW to do it. It's a dream because no one would ever be willing to spend the amount of money required to actually BUILD it. This is a country that can't find money to make sure it's bridges aren't dangerously corroding. There's no way they're going to spend 10+ BILLION on an experimental train.

Airplanes are going to be around long after we're all dead and buried.

That's only because bridges are government infrastructure. Airlines are for profit corporations. Big difference.

If your conclusion was accurate, how do we explain Japan's 300mph trains that are already running?

I once read something that predicted high speed trains for hub to hub travel and airplanes for coast to coast and international travel... That would negate any need for regional airlines in their current form.

Nope
 

No way in he!! That will fly.

Yeah, rail travel in this country is already so profitable, why not spend billions more in tax dollars on infrastructure? How much has Amtrack cost the U.S. taxpayers again??

A very large and dense population, with shorter travel distances that allow for more efficient use of rail travel.

This will happen as soon as they can figure out a way to accommodate a single pilot operation and also allow said pilot to go visit the lav while still maintaining positive control of the aircraft... thinking #2...

There's also a huge difference between a 300mph train running a short distance, and a 760mph train running a very large distance.

Hyperloop would require massive property right of ways and would involve incredibly complex law making, even run 30 feet underground. That gets government involved and it's slow scheduling. With the government involved, the need to accommodate "everyone" would force the system to include "ghetto stops". Now it's no longer an express, just a local. Max Speed makes no difference. Might as well re-fund Amtrack, or even run Greyhound as a public utility. NEVER gonna happen

Figured it out for you.

Train the FO as a flight attendant, 95% of the time, they are doing FA stuff in the cabin. If captain needs to poop, they can watch the AP for a little while.

One crewmember eliminated, pay probably remains the same.

On the CV-440 fast meal service the F/O went back and did the set up's.:eek: Bar-b-cue chicken, always, always.

You're kidding, right?

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enha...60165084-4.jpg

US pop per sq KM= 32 people
Japan per sq KM - 332 people

Politicians promote this idea because it has high appeal to a certain voter demographic (which conveniently tends to have no technical insight).

Trains make sense for short routes in high-density population areas...like Japan and some parts of Europe and China.

But for longer routes, and less population (ie customer base) the fundamental problems with trains compared to airplanes is that air in the flight-levels is free and infinitely flexible...but with trains you have to build (and maintain) the road, and then you're stuck with it's location.

To make matters worse, fast trains need pretty straight tracks....Here in the US (unlike say China) you have to fight for every inch of land that you're going to seize for the train tracks, and you don't have the flexibility to just go around that historic neighborhood or park...fast trains don't like sharp turns. Then all the neighbors who are worried that fast trains stir up electromagnetic waves and cause cancer will sue you for billions. I can't imagine a worse public works project to try and get through all the environmental and NIMBY wickets.

Additionally from an investor perspective...anyone who pays close attention to commercial aviation knows that some very quite and very fuel-efficient planes are coming soon, and they'll certainly be here before HS trains. An 80% reduction in noise, 50% reduction in fuel burn, and maybe 70% reduction in carbon will take away most of the political leverage trains enjoy. The newest planes today are already very quite, hardly louder than a car driving by.

And no, you won't get to skip TSA by taking the train. Airplanes make such great terror targets because the terrorist can leverage the airplane's own kinetic/potential energy to do the damage, ie a little bomb creates enough disruption that the plane tears itself apart. HS trains have all kinds of available kinetic energy... In fact, TSA would expand into a veritable army needed to patrol thousands of miles of HS train tracks...all of which would need security barriers, sensors, land mines, etc, etc. These requirements would be a vast windfall for Big Government $$$$. Of course they probably won't tell you that up front...much easier to sell that part after AQ knocks a few trains off the rails at 600mph.

There's a reason the government is doing this, and not private industry :rolleyes:

Yes. While they could always put the lav in the cockpit (or just make the pilot seat a camping potty), any single-pilot airplane would essentially have to meet ALL of the requirements of a no-pilot airplane since the occasional pilot incapacitation is inevitable.

My guess is that cost of single-pilot airplane technology will never be low enough to justify getting rid of the lower-paid FO. Single-pilot planes will be skipped until the technology is ready for no-pilot airplanes...although the first no-pilot airplanes will likely have a single pilot onboard as a backup until they get most of the bugs worked out.

It's going to take a very long time for the technology, at the appropriate level of reliability, to become cheap enough. That part about reliability is the real kicker...anyone familiar with military UAS reliability knows what I'm talking about. The military was perfectly willing to crash a bunch of big RC airplanes in order to get more cameras on target for longer. While airline management would probably feel the same way, the traveling public won't...

LOL yeah I'm sure they'll get right on this amazing tech and rulemaking process to eliminate one FA. :rolleyes:

Great insight, rickair. And on the matter of trains, why the heck do we keep subsidizing Amtrak so much with billions every year? Not a rhetorical question...

Just another tentacle of "The American System" old school Whig party facism. Nothing new or unique about it. Power corrupts, and the more power the more corruption.

It's not billions. More in the neighborhood of $300m - $400m per year. The answer is difficult, but largely political.

Amtrak is without a doubt perennially losing money, and lots of it. They make a profit on the heavily travelled northeast corridor but lose much more on almost every long distance route. Many of these routes serve small towns with no other connection to major cities (except roads, but no bus service). In that way, it is similar to essential air service. Many of these towns lobby for continued service, and since the government is subsidizing Amtrak they are more likely to continue to do so; they lose incentive to turn a profit. The town wins, Amtrak sorta wins, most taxpayers lose. Very similar story played out all the time in govt.

That doesn't answer anything.

This is the entire story right here.

You'll only see high speed trains in the US in high density areas, just like you already do.

It answers a lot if you search for it. The only alternative would be to get into a huge post that would become political by default and, although highly relevant to the topic, be considered thread derailment by the politically sensitive that like to hold their ears and sing "lalalalalalalala" so I'll leave it at that.