Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiplash6
If you're under 45 you won't retire doing this job.
This is not about remote piloting. There is nothing to be gained by moving the pilots from the cockpit to a shed on the end of a data link when the airplane is already required to have pressurization and environmental control. Not to mention that 2 pilots are only a minuscule amount of weight in a large aircraft.
Notice that not one word has been said to indicate that Boeing's MoM project is considering anything other than a normal 2 man flight deck, and this is an airplane that will be in production into the 2050s. Add a 25 year service life, and the pilots that will retire out of it are just being born.
What we are really talking about is autonomous flight. And while it makes sense for large companies to do a little R&D in it (one never knows, and there might be spinoffs), AI and autonomous flight are just barely entering flight test at the very edges. Thinking today about routine autonomous flight with revenue on board is like Wilbur Wright pondering SST designs in 1903.
And it is a mistake to assume that technology will advance quickly. History shows it advancing in spasms, with periods of rapid advance followed by a dramatic slowing and sometimes even stagnation. Aviation itself being a prime example.