Airports and air travel of the future

See

http://news.com.com/Will+airport+of+...3-6115126.html

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:32:02 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote in :

See

http://news.com.com/Will+airport+of+...3-6115126.html

By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: September 13, 2006, 4:00 AM PDT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The airport of tomorrow might have virtual
intelligence agents that check your bags, "smart dust" sensor
networks that vet passengers heading through security and commuter
pilots who fly the plane from a home office.


When UAVs become more developed, they may gluttonously pilot
themselves on airline flights. :-(

On Wed, 13 Sep 2006 17:15:47 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote in :

gluttonously = autonomously

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

See

http://news.com.com/Will+airport+of+...3-6115126.html


When pigs fly...

http://news.com.com/Will+airport+of+...3-6115126.html
When pigs fly...

Oh, I dunno... follow the money.

Who would =really= benefit from technologies that quietly deliver
individulals' personal data to a government agency? Can we do this with
the individual either unaware of or uncaring about the immense privacy
invasions this would ultimately mean?

Look at the "savings cards" issued by grocers.

'nuf said.

Jose
--
There are more ways to skin a cat than there are cats.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote in
:

http://news.com.com/Will+airport+of+...y/2100-1008_3-
6115126.h
tml
When pigs fly...

Oh, I dunno... follow the money.

Who would =really= benefit from technologies that quietly deliver
individulals' personal data to a government agency? Can we do this with
the individual either unaware of or uncaring about the immense privacy
invasions this would ultimately mean?

Look at the "savings cards" issued by grocers.

'nuf said.

Jose

Yeah, follow the money.

Grocers use Savings Cards as a profit generating tool. By getting your
personal information and identifying your demographics, they can save
money on advertising and increase marketing returns by sending only the
proper ads to your house or on your phone. It is the CORE of their
business. They have been pushing Newspapers to accomodate their needs for
years, and the newspaper industry as a whole is suffering for it. It's
totally and completely driven by advertising, sales and profits. The
advertising industry spends gazillions of dollars every year on market
research, demographics testing, and list generation because it's how
companies generate revenue. And so anything that improves their research
is easy to subsidize.

It is not about government conspiracy. It is about corporate profits.

All this techology that Evans is talking about will not generate profits
for anyone except a small number of technology companies. Perhaps it will
eliminate jobs, or more likely it will take low-paying, low-skill
screener jobs and replace them with higher paying higher skilled
technology jobs that will probably get sourced to India anyway. Not
something that a government official is going to push through.

And the RFID chip idea is not innovative or new technology - we've had EZ
Pass on our highways in New York for over 10 years, and RFID has been
used in the warehousing industry longer than that.

The article starts off with a set of claims that is completely ridiculous
("... commuter pilots who fly the plane from a home office") and then
goes on to basically say that Evans is a dreamer, no one with money (ie:
the CFO) is buying in.

I don't buy in either.

All this techology that Evans is talking about will not generate profits
for anyone except a small number of technology companies.

.... but the tracking ability of some of the proposed (and possible)
technologies would benefit more than just the tech companies.
Government would love to get this kind of information on us, and we'd
gladly surrender it in exchange for shorter lines (which, like
"commercial free TV", is a chimera).

Those in government can then use this to increase their own power and
wealth.

The article starts off with a set of claims that is completely ridiculous
("... commuter pilots who fly the plane from a home office")

Well, while I don't believe this will come to pass (for many reasons) it
is certainly not beyond the pale. UAVs are being deployed right now,
even when they are not appropriate (IMHO) ways of accomplishing the
stated tasks. I don't know how much of a factor pilot salaries are in
commercial aviation (I suspect gas costs far more than pilots) but I do
not for a moment think that this kind of technology (UAV) is impossible
to shove down our throats. But it will be an evolution, and we will
barely know what is happening. Hopefully we'll all be at a much higher
flight level by then.

Jose
--
There are more ways to skin a cat than there are cats.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:
All this techology that Evans is talking about will not generate profits
for anyone except a small number of technology companies.


... but the tracking ability of some of the proposed (and possible)
technologies would benefit more than just the tech companies. Government
would love to get this kind of information on us, and we'd gladly
surrender it in exchange for shorter lines (which, like "commercial free
TV", is a chimera).

Those in government can then use this to increase their own power and
wealth.

The article starts off with a set of claims that is completely
ridiculous
("... commuter pilots who fly the plane from a home office")


Well, while I don't believe this will come to pass (for many reasons) it
is certainly not beyond the pale. UAVs are being deployed right now,
even when they are not appropriate (IMHO) ways of accomplishing the
stated tasks. I don't know how much of a factor pilot salaries are in
commercial aviation (I suspect gas costs far more than pilots) but I do
not for a moment think that this kind of technology (UAV) is impossible
to shove down our throats. But it will be an evolution, and we will
barely know what is happening. Hopefully we'll all be at a much higher
flight level by then.

Jose

I won't say that it is impossible. I will say that it is impossible
within my lifetime. It is possible that remote management will be
available for cargo planes in a couple of decades. I might believe it
when I see such technology being deployed in situations where it would
be of real benefit. Combat jets for example. Today a major restriction
on aircraft performance in combat is protecting a pilot. When most of
the air force combat planes are run by sergeants on the ground I may
begin to believe.

Oh all right they will have to be majors so that their bosses all can be
generals but they will be doing sergeant's jobs.

Jose wrote in news_eOg.1080$GR.560
@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:

All this techology that Evans is talking about will not generate
profits
for anyone except a small number of technology companies.

... but the tracking ability of some of the proposed (and possible)
technologies would benefit more than just the tech companies.
Government would love to get this kind of information on us, and we'd
gladly surrender it in exchange for shorter lines (which, like
"commercial free TV", is a chimera).

Those in government can then use this to increase their own power and
wealth.

But everything in government either happens faster than anyone can notice,
or takes an extra, extra, extra long time. And it's only been about 10
years since the technology has been mainstream, so it will not happen for
another 10 years at least.

The article starts off with a set of claims that is completely
ridiculous
("... commuter pilots who fly the plane from a home office")


Well, while I don't believe this will come to pass (for many reasons) it
is certainly not beyond the pale. UAVs are being deployed right now,
even when they are not appropriate (IMHO) ways of accomplishing the
stated tasks. I don't know how much of a factor pilot salaries are in
commercial aviation (I suspect gas costs far more than pilots) but I do
not for a moment think that this kind of technology (UAV) is impossible
to shove down our throats. But it will be an evolution, and we will
barely know what is happening. Hopefully we'll all be at a much higher
flight level by then.

Technically it's not a problem, but politically it's too "scary" to way
too many political groups, including the AOPA (they're already complaining
about UAVs!)

The upside isn't there for enough people to create any momentum behind it.

Jose writes:

I don't know how much of a factor pilot salaries are in
commercial aviation (I suspect gas costs far more than pilots) but I do
not for a moment think that this kind of technology (UAV) is impossible
to shove down our throats.

Crew salaries (in total) cost about the same as fuel, each being about
a fourth of total operating costs. Pilots are a small minority of
employees in most companies, but they are also the best paid by far,
especially for large commercial transports at large airlines, so they
may represent a significant percentage of total crew salaries, but I
don't have a figure for that. I know that at Air France, the
president of the company ranks #300 in salary, after the pilots.

Eliminating pilots would provide vast savings. However, there is
still nothing more versatile than a human being when it comes to
handling the unexpected. (For normal and abnormal situations
anticipated by designers of automated flight systems, the automation
usually handles the situations much better than a human pilot.)

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.