By 2030, commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotlessplanes.

"Greg Farris" wrote in message
...
Technologically, we're just one step away. As soon as clearances are
entered directly into the aircraft's navigation computer, via datalink,
instezad of having to be punched in by the crew, fully automatic
operation will be possible. This will reduce workload for controllers,
who will have direct command,and not have to waste time with
unpredictable human elements.

Why would there be controllers? If the system is more automated, the
controllers could be eliminated also.

"N93332" wrote in message
...
Why would there be controllers? If the system is more automated, the
controllers could be eliminated also.

By the time we get rid of pilots, the controllers will be long gone.

Greg Farris wrote:
Technologically, we're just one step away. As soon as clearances are

Yeah, like the one step Neil Armstrong made.

In reality though, I do not believe the day will ever come when there is
not someone physically on board the aircraft capable of flying it and
landing it safely. There's just no good reason why we would want to do
that.

Exactly. Look at the JetBlue incident last week. A relatively simple
emergency but a whole chain of decisions needed to be made and executed
for the flight to end successfully. Now talk about engine failure, etc.
I agree that a computer can do a great job when everything goes more or
less according to plan, but what about when it doesn't?

Once the airlines get pilots' salaries down to bus driver levels, the

I suspect that if you compute pay on a seat basis (i.e. $salary per
person carried) that you're already there.

-cwk.

wrote:

I agree that a computer can do a great job when everything goes more or
less according to plan, but what about when it doesn't?

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of. It has a
problem if something comes up that nobody thought of -- like the Sioux City
accident, or if it doesn't have certain information -- like the closed airport
used by the "Gimli Glider." And, of course, it can't handle failure of itself
very well.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

In article mle_e.11361$L15.4226@trndny01,
says...


And, of course, it can't handle failure of itself
very well.



But then, human operators haev that problem too :
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19991011-0

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:mle_e.11361$L15.4226@trndny01...
I agree that a computer can do a great job when everything goes more or
less according to plan, but what about when it doesn't?

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of. It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of

The real question is whether pilots on average are able to come up with
inspired solutions to problems more often than they create problems with
perfectly good airplanes.

I admit, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I suspect that
human error in the cockpit causes more accidents than human novelty recovers
from.

This is the same reason that autopilot cars are a good idea, no matter how
offensive they may seem to some people. Yes, there will be failures of the
equipment. But that will happen MUCH less often than the failures of the
humans, and will improve the reliability and efficiency of our
transportation infrastructure at the same time.

Pete

P. Duniho wrote:

This is the same reason that autopilot cars are a good idea, no matter how
offensive they may seem to some people. Yes, there will be failures of the
equipment. But that will happen MUCH less often than the failures of the
humans, and will improve the reliability and efficiency of our
transportation infrastructure at the same time.

Agreed. But the idea has been around for a long time without much
progress being made to implement it. I remember the GM pavilion at the
NY World's Fair in '64 where the diaramas showed the cities of the
future with computer-controlled cars all running smoothly along the
freeways. At that time I would have considered it a virtual certainty
that we'd have auto-piloted cars by 2000 if not much sooner. There
were demonstration projects in the '60s and there are still such
projects and research studies being done today, but I don't see much
evidence that they're much closer to reality now than they were back
then.

So even if all technical hurdles of pilotless airliners can be solved I
don't expect to see them in operation by 2030 or for a long time beyond
that.

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of. It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of

A computer can do a great job, if the solution is properly developed.


The real question is whether pilots on average are able to come up with
inspired solutions to problems more often than they create problems with
perfectly good airplanes.

Another valid question is:

Would the effort required to develop hardware/software for pilotless
aircraft be more or less effective than the effort to develop hardware/software
to help protect pilots from error?

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

Peter Duniho wrote:
"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:mle_e.11361$L15.4226@trndny01...
I agree that a computer can do a great job when everything goes more or
less according to plan, but what about when it doesn't?

Actually, a computer can do a great job of anything you can think of. It
has a problem if something comes up that nobody thought of

The real question is whether pilots on average are able to come up with
inspired solutions to problems more often than they create problems with
perfectly good airplanes.

Looking at major air accidents in the US over the past 5 years I'd say
humans are doing awfully well. Aside from the AA airbus right after
9/11 (which has lots of question marks) it's not at all clear to me
that well trained pilots in modern airliners don't save more than they
cause. A fairly large chunk of Part 121 accidents involve maintenance
or systemic causes that a computer pilot would not presumably make any
difference with.

OTOH, fully-automated aircraft would probably make a huge difference
for GA safety, where pilot failure is the primary cause of accidents.

This is the same reason that autopilot cars are a good idea, no matter how
offensive they may seem to some people. Yes, there will be failures of the
equipment. But that will happen MUCH less often than the failures of the
humans, and will improve the reliability and efficiency of our
transportation infrastructure at the same time.

Look at this for an idea of the state-of-the-art in robot cars. It's
pretty pathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_DARPA_Grand_Challenge

OTOH, ABS and stability control, etc. have unquestionabaly made driving
much safer. Some high-end cars use forward-looking radar to sound an
alarm if you start closing in on the car ahead of you very quickly and
even cruise control which maintains a following distance rather than
fixed speed. Presumably this trend will continue much as an Airbus
today is a largely automated plane but with big decisions still made by
pilots.

-cwk.

Peter Duniho wrote:

I admit, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I suspect that
human error in the cockpit causes more accidents than human novelty recovers
from.

I doubt that anyone has good statistics. People investigating a accident in
which the pilots don't survive are (or at least were) likely to declare it
"pilot error" anytime they couldn't figure out what went wrong. And if the pilot
survives, he's probably going to try very hard to hide any mistakes he might
have made.

There's also the tendency of the NTSB to blame the pilot for *something*, even
if the basic cause was beyond anyone's control. If the engine fell off, one
"cause" of the accident is likely to be "failure to maintain adequate clearance
from terrain."

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.