I cant get em to upload the winds correctly...def not worried bout single pilot in my lifetime

 

When people ask me about aircraft without pilots, I agree that it will take a long time before this is allowed.

We have a very expensive robot vacuum that needs constant attention. It can't operate more then a few hours without getting stuck or sending me countless annoying messages requiring attention. If a 10 pound machine operating in one dimension is this faulty, when do expect a 600,000 pound aircraft will be ready to be turned loose?

 

Well, our contract specifically states UPS flights will be preformed by UPS crew members. Until they can break that, non-crewed ops at UPS proper won’t become reality. I’d imagine most union shops would fall under the same protections. Otw, Military will be first (already started), followed by operators based in non union regions.

AFA single pilot ops, I don’t see any language in our contract preventing it though I only did a quick search.

 

Let's not forget that it's not just the airplanes that need to be capable, but the entire aviation infrastructure around the world will need to be upgraded. ATC will need to be able to effectively take some of the workload off of the single pilot or assume all of the workload if that single pilot is incapable for whatever reason. Traditional aircraft will need to be upgraded in order to participate with new "see and avoid" systems that will be necessary on the newly designed airplanes. Airlines pursuing this technology will undoubtedly need to hire more dispatchers to effectively monitor and provide support for the overloaded single pilots in the air. Communications, navigation, and datalink systems need to be 100% reliable and 100% secure. They will need to work perfectly in the face of hacking, jamming, 100 year solar storms, minimally trained third world operators, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. Airports themselves will need to be extensively modified before anything like autonomous operations can take place on them. All of this and more will take time and, more importantly, lots and lots of money. Is it likely to happen eventually? Probably. Is that someday in our generation's ot even the next generation's future? Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but given the hurdles and the costs, I don't think so. It'll be a long time before the cost of making single pilot/ autonomous ops feasible is lower than just continuing to pay pilots, distasteful as that is to airline management types.

 

Every airline pilot should watch the clip below, not it's not click bait and if you don't wish to click on it, go to the TubeOfU and type in "Wien Air Alaska"! It's the 1977 Strike video. It talks about how the "Union" fought againt losing the third man (FE) on the B737-200. The "Union" eventually lost and the B737-200 went to a 2 man cockpit. United, Western, Wien ALL went two men (and women). I say women for the obvious reason AND I believe Frontier had already gone two men/women as there was a famous woman that was hired by Frontier back then.

The gist is automation or crew workload. If the airlines can prove it, it will happen. I do believe drones or autonomous vehicles will deliver packages first then single pilot ops.

The second video is cool as you'll see later in the video what I'm talking about here.

https://youtu.be/LwSzlMRCbsA?feature=
shared


https://youtu.be/CNhNHd8w5TU?feature=shared

https://www.instagram.com/alpapilots/reel/C4OIa94tDyl/

Emily Howell was her name and guess where she wound UP!

 

A group of Texas A&M students hacked a drone. Ask the AF/ANG guys who deal with drones about their loss rate.

i think you’ll find a bulletproof datalink system does not and will not exist in our lifetime if ever. Someone will always find a way to hack it.

 

Currently, certain operations require 3 or more crew members. I think the first place we see reduced-crew operations (eMCO) will be on those flights. Not sure exactly what that might look like. Perhaps an authorization for a single pilot on the flight deck while the other sleeps. To be sure, there are hurdles in the way of doing this. I think the biggest one is insurance risk. Next would be regulatory approval, though Airbus is greasing the wheels in Europe.

 

This will be their ultimate downfall should any company decide to be the ‘test dummy’ and go forward with this. Management types. These people are so out of touch with reality with regard to the ENORMOUS technological, financial, regulatory, and safety hurdles, as well as the hurdle of public perception, for this to be remotely possible. But all they see is money.

The first airline that tries this WILL have an accident with one of these things, and when that happens the public will be absolutely terrified of getting on one of these things again. Then the ensuing fallout begins when the airline loses billions and eventually folds. If multiple airlines have these aircraft, then they will probably fold too. People are already scared enough to fly, and we think having robots fly them around is gonna change that? It’s just way, way, way too risky to try this, even if it’s still 100 years out.

I’ve said this many times before and some say I’m insane, but I believe this to be reality: it will never happen. Not with passengers. Maybe in freight, but even with freight I doubt it.

Some people will say ‘well we’ve been doing this with unmanned military aircraft for at least 2 decades now.’ And they’re right, we have. But the military and civilian environments are vastly different when it comes to acceptance of risk. There’s no comparison. It’s foolish to try this in the civilian realm. Like the poster above alluded to, until they design software that is 100% reliable, and doesn’t crash, doesn’t ’bug up,’ doesn’t do weird things every once in a while that nearly every device that has software eventually does, then it’s a no-go. These airplanes would go through a long period of design, flight testing, certification, and very likely redesign all over again because the original prototypes were flawed in many ways. The price tag of these airplanes would be huge in the end. I mean it’s taking Boeing 10-15 years to get the 777X certified for crying out loud, and that’s with 2 pilots required. And then look at all the problems they’ve had with the 737 max. Not to mention all the Boeing fuxx ups with the max along the way and being deceitful about it. And we’re gonna trust them or other manufacturers to build a completely new design that is without pilots?

Every time this subject gets revisited every few months to weeks on these boards, I just roll my eyes as it’s a pipe dream. And anyone who mentions it or puts out an article about it, is usually a ‘tech geek/guru’ and isn’t a pilot. Airline management would LOVE that, they salivate at the idea of getting rid of pilots. Thankfully airline management types aren’t engineers. How scary would that be? I could go on and on deeper as to why it’s not gonna happen, but I’ve got a deadhead flight (that has 2 pilots onboard) to catch.

 

I would presume single pilot ops would require some of the latest technology.

Good thing UPS aircraft are basically Jurassic jets when it comes to technology.

Now if a new airframe like the A350 shows up....I would put a stack of money on UPS wants assurances from Airbus they can do single pilot ops.

 

I'd be interested to hear theories on how this will work. When/if we go from a three or four person crew down to two, how does the rest work? We have definitions on what constitutes an on board rest facility currently. Do we all of a sudden decide that napping in the seat is a suitable alternative? I would assume the answer is no. If that's the case, then what happens when the one pilot in the seat needs a physiological (pee) break? Food? Coffee? Etc? Does that person then interrupt the other pilot's rest in order to attend to these needs? That seems like it could be very fatiguing, to the point of disrupting the operation. I'm not being the least bit ironic or dramatic here. If my inflight rest were being continuously interrupted and/or I felt I couldn't attend to physiological needs for fear of interrupting the other pilot, I would be quite inclined to call a UPS "safety timeout" upon landing. Hell, as a captain, I think I'd likely be inclined to divert the aircraft anytime I thought safety of flight was being jeopardized by the inability of my crew to get adequate rest enroute. One pilot in the seat is the same as zero pilots in the seat. It is very difficult for me to imagine a scenario in which at least two pilots were required on the flight deck at all times. That means the current crew compliments are the absolute minimum. Tech can and has replaced radio operators, navigators, and flight engineers. We're a long way off (imho) from technology replacing at least two human brains trapping one another's errors.