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I totally disagree, self driving cars, and fully autonomous aircraft are orders of magnitude more complex than single pilot. As someone who programs in Pyton, and R for ML, the claim of autonomous items by manufacturers is dubious at best. However, Boeing really needs a gimmick for selling its new 797, or more importantly, a replacement 737 that can compete with Airbus. There will never be fully autonomous aircraft until AI progresses to biological systems, which isn't in our lifetimes. Originally Posted by OOfff
We won’t end up going from 2 pilots to 1 to zero. It will be directly from 2 to zero. There’s no advantage to single pilot, especially augmented with a remote system.
This isn't about eliminating pilots, it's about streamlining the airspace system so a Machine learning assisted autopilot, can fly the aircraft direct to destination, without any separation criteria. Doppler Shift Lidar can actually see the wake from other aircraft. However, you still need someone in the cockpit to manage the system. The AI is essentially replacing ATC, not the aircraft operator. For safety's sake, aviate, navigate, communicate, will be reduced to just aviate.
We are already screwed with FAR 117, because once the FAA approves single pilot, even if the PWA requires 2 pilots, one of the pilot's duty periods, doesn't count against the FAR limits. How long will that contract item last, when the company is putting pilots on trips with 18+ hour deadhead days? This is already happening now, it happened to me.