Boeing studies pilotless airplane

[trey kule]

I like to go back and look at all the predictive threads once in awhile...

There is a theme. The use of antcedotal examples as if they were the norm....
It is interesting. If not always relevent,

Or, only looking at half the picture:
For example, Bede posted the flight crew cost...but conveniently did not look at the cost of accidents caused by flight crews that might be reduced...
sully’s water landing is constantly brought up...but again there is no comparison to how many accident could have been avoided. In the big picture, a reduction of injury, death, accidents is what is being sought.

So, is automation progressing?

Btw. I very very seldom see anyone bothering to reference articles like this:

http://www.ijtte.com/uploads/2012-12-05 ... 2(4)_6.pdf

It is all about using specific examples which just happen to co incide with our point of view.

[Rockie]

I like reading posts from people who miss the big picture entirely.

Or, only looking at half the picture:
For example, Bede posted the flight crew cost...but conveniently did not look at the cost of accidents caused by flight crews that might be reduced...

Or miss 99% of the picture by conveniently ignoring the cost of the potential accidents pilots prevent every single flight.

but again there is no comparison to how many accident could have been avoided.

There is no comparison to how many accidents brainless, unthinking automation would cause without human intervention. Automation is flawless...blah...blah...blah.

[trey kule]

Its coming Rockie..

Time will tell who did not see the big picture.

[Rockie]

Its coming Rockie..

Time will tell who did not see the big picture.

It might be coming, but not in our lifetimes. First they'll have to figure out the countless practical, not to mention ethical and moral issues that come with real artificial intelligence because nothing else will suffice. But even before that real artificial intelligence has to be invented.

Then they have to convince people to trust their life to it.

[StudentPilot]

"Action Needed: Tell Congress No Single-Pilot Aircraft

What allows some business jets flying at the same speeds and altitudes to fly single pilot but not a jet carrying cargo? If telling "Congress no single-pilot aircraft" does that mean all single pilot planes (including 172s) should require two crew? Why do cargo jets need two pilots to talk to people and fly the plane? How do single pilot business jets manage it? What happened to aviate, navigate, communicate?

Sounds like they are very worried about jobs (and the number of union members) more than safety of flight. Ground-based control would have been nice in the German Wings suicide/murder, not to mention during 9/11.

[Boreas]

"Action Needed: Tell Congress No Single-Pilot Aircraft

What allows some business jets flying at the same speeds and altitudes to fly single pilot but not a jet carrying cargo? If telling "Congress no single-pilot aircraft" does that mean all single pilot planes (including 172s) should require two crew? Why do cargo jets need two pilots to talk to people and fly the plane? How do single pilot business jets manage it? What happened to aviate, navigate, communicate?

Sounds like they are very worried about jobs (and the number of union members) more than safety of flight. Ground-based control would have been nice in the German Wings suicide/murder, not to mention during 9/11.

More people in the cockpit would have been better, not less. The single-pilot setup they're trying to implement is a Pandora's box.

A single individual with ill intent in the pointy end can do a lot of damage before any ground-based system can take over. Are there not going to be any CBs for onboard automation / external control? Even if you take them out, how quickly can a ground-based F/O step in when the sole pilot onboard decides to go rogue on short final with a bunch of airplanes lined up on the adjacent taxiway? It won't matter much if its a cargo plane or not. Lots of scary scenarios here.

For what its worth, I took the train the other day and there were two guys up front. Not sure if thats standard for them, but still. The train. Its on the ground and on rails. It can just come to a stop at any time...

[goingnowherefast]

"Action Needed: Tell Congress No Single-Pilot Aircraft

What allows some business jets flying at the same speeds and altitudes to fly single pilot but not a jet carrying cargo? If telling "Congress no single-pilot aircraft" does that mean all single pilot planes (including 172s) should require two crew? Why do cargo jets need two pilots to talk to people and fly the plane? How do single pilot business jets manage it? What happened to aviate, navigate, communicate?

Sounds like they are very worried about jobs (and the number of union members) more than safety of flight. Ground-based control would have been nice in the German Wings suicide/murder, not to mention during 9/11.

Safety and risk management. A 172 is a small, simple aircraft, very forgiving to human error. Single pilot biz jets are also small and fairly simple. Plus when one crashes in downtown, small fireball and a few casualties. Crash a complex cargo 777 into downtown and thousands of casualties.

[StudentPilot]

The 1.5 pilot idea is a Pandora's box. The FAA is only being directed to study reducing crew complement, not make regulations or implement it. Sounds like a good idea to me, even if it points out what issues are preventing it. How quickly a ground-based system can take over (and how ground-based pilots are alerted), how to lock out suicidal pilots/hijackers as well as how to lock out crazed ground-based pilots intent on destruction, etc are all things that need to be considered. Ideally without any time constraints such as when Delta, AA, and United are telling Boeing they want single pilot airliners and Boeing is pushing for regulations so they can get on with their design. Perhaps the FAA would do the study and conclude there are reasons that make single-pilot operations unfeasible or that further technological innovation must happen first.

My initial annoyance with the release is that it does not mention any thing reasonable such as CBs, response time, or the size of the fireball which are all valid points.

"Maintaining safety...requires at least two...pilots in the cockpit" - again no reference to aircraft size or type of operation, a business jet or a cargo jet would both ruin your day if there was a midair with your airliner. From their words, rather than fighting against a reduction of crew they should be fighting to get three or four flight crew to be the minimum because it is safer according to them. It drones on about talking with ATC and dispatch, checking weather, looking for traffic, and monitoring systems. Either they think these routine tasks should be accomplished by two pilots all of the time for safety (and inferring all single pilot aircraft are creating hazards in the air and to those on the ground) or it is wasted words that have no bearing on (and distracts from) what they are actually talking about, which annoys me.

Personally, barring any massive jumps in technology (say, from a global war between nations), I doubt pilotless airliners will happen soon and reducing crew complement will take a while yet. If the worst part of the bill to fund the FAA is a directive to study 1.5 pilot operations, why not? I seem to recall seeing numerous articles in the recent past about short term funding for the FAA so they don't shut down for lack of cash...

Personally, I would rather not see either happen. The demand for pilots in the airlines right now makes things better for pilots at all levels.

[confusedalot]

I guess I am a bit thick. I am also guessing that the notion of having one on board and one remote pilot is primarily driven by a perceived or real cost advantage. But what would that advantage be? You are still paying for two pilots. So I am guessing once again that the ground based pilot would be tasked with operating multiple aircraft at any given time, which introduces a cost advantage?

[Rockie]

C172's don't operate in the same environment large passenger jets do, and when one of them goes down it's on page 25 right behind the latest mass shooting of the day. Large passenger jets operate in an environment where controlling/configuring the aircraft is only part of the picture because where we go everybody in the cockpit has to have their heads as much outside in the airspace as inside in the cockpit. It's a very crowded, procedurally complex, at times environmentally hostile, very dynamic and usually unpredictable 4-dimensional world we operate in...not a people mover on rails.

And we haven't even begun to discuss when things go wrong with the much ballyhooed automation and aircraft systems.

[Posthumane]

C172's don't operate in the same environment large passenger jets do, and when one of them goes down it's on page 25 right behind the latest mass shooting of the day. Large passenger jets operate in an environment where controlling/configuring the aircraft is only part of the picture because where we go everybody in the cockpit has to have their heads as much outside in the airspace as inside in the cockpit. It's a very crowded, procedurally complex, at times environmentally hostile, very dynamic and usually unpredictable 4-dimensional world we operate in...not a people mover on rails.

And we haven't even begun to discuss when things go wrong with the much ballyhooed automation and aircraft systems.

C172's don't, but certainly many of the single pilot jets do, like Citations, Phenoms, and even some of the higher end turbo-props. They can fly single-pilot, and if one of them crashes it's generally front page news, especially if they happen to crash into an airliner.

Automation to assist the pilot can not yet handle many scenarios and a pilot is still needed. Perhaps in the future it will be able to handle more. Even then it may not be able to handle a Sully type scenario to a successful outcome. But on the other hand, maybe it will do better than humans in a air france of air asia type scenario. I guess what needs to be looked at from a safety standpoint is how probable are scenarios where it will fail and do worse than humans vs. how probable are scenarios where it could improve safety over just humans.

[Rockie]

But on the other hand, maybe it will do better than humans in a air france of air asia type scenario.

Both those accidents were triggered by equipment failures (well, Air Asia captain made it a lot worse, but still). What was critically missing in both those cases was a properly trained pilot. Automation is equipment...and equipment fails.

I guess what needs to be looked at from a safety standpoint is how probable are scenarios where it will fail and do worse than humans vs. how probable are scenarios where it could improve safety over just humans.

Equipment fails all the time and does worse than humans. Automation is a fancy way to keep the wings level, the airspeed stable, and follow a pre-programmed line without thought and hopefully free of interuption or disruption. It isn't a brain and it isn't a pilot, it's a tool for an actual pilot to use. That's all.

[fish4life]

Think about it this way, a 172 only requires one engine yet 2 engines is safer. Why? well at a point the risk reward doesn't add up, at the end of the day safety costs money and the line usually gets drawn around the 9 passengers in the back. Then it becomes more essential to have the added layer of safety.

on a side note their is wayyyyy more movements of airliners every day than GA aircraft, yet GA aircraft have a much higher rate of casualty so keep in mind how safe things are right now.

[Posthumane]

Equipment fails all the time and does worse than humans. Automation is a fancy way to keep the wings level, the airspeed stable, and follow a pre-programmed line without thought and hopefully free of interuption or disruption. It isn't a brain and it isn't a pilot, it's a tool for an actual pilot to use. That's all.

Of course equipment fails. Pilots fail sometimes too. Do you have good data as to which one kills more people?

The discussion about increased automation potentially reducing 2 crew aircraft to one crew in the future is not referring to the systems in your airplane designed 20-30 years ago. Those are piecemeal solutions designed to, as you say, "keep the wings level, the airspeed stable, and follow a pre-programmed line without thought and hopefully free of inter[r]uption or disruption." What you are flying is not an automated aircraft, and that is not what the discussion was about. We've discussed this before, and while I respect your skill and experience as a pilot, I also know you have little to no experience with system design or modern automation.

[Posthumane]

Think about it this way, a 172 only requires one engine yet 2 engines is safer. Why? well at a point the risk reward doesn't add up, at the end of the day safety costs money and the line usually gets drawn around the 9 passengers in the back. Then it becomes more essential to have the added layer of safety.

on a side note their is wayyyyy more movements of airliners every day than GA aircraft, yet GA aircraft have a much higher rate of casualty so keep in mind how safe things are right now.

Except that statistically, two engines are not much safer than one. Twin engine piston aircraft have a similar fatal accident rate to single engine piston aircraft of the same class (i.e. faster, traveling singles), and two engine turbo-props have a similar fatal accident rate to single engine turbo-props of the same class. I don't think there's much data for comparing single engine cabin class jets since there's so few around.

Interestingly, this article talks of a study comparing single pilot and two-pilot ops in biz-jets. Same aircraft, only difference being the number of crew members. The sample size is low, but the fatal accident rate is comparable; close enough that they stated it is inconclusive.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... -advantage

[Boreas]

Think about it this way, a 172 only requires one engine yet 2 engines is safer. Why? well at a point the risk reward doesn't add up, at the end of the day safety costs money and the line usually gets drawn around the 9 passengers in the back. Then it becomes more essential to have the added layer of safety.

on a side note their is wayyyyy more movements of airliners every day than GA aircraft, yet GA aircraft have a much higher rate of casualty so keep in mind how safe things are right now.

Except that statistically, two engines are not much safer than one. Twin engine piston aircraft have a similar fatal accident rate to single engine piston aircraft of the same class (i.e. faster, traveling singles), and two engine turbo-props have a similar fatal accident rate to single engine turbo-props of the same class. I don't think there's much data for comparing single engine cabin class jets since there's so few around.

Interestingly, this article talks of a study comparing single pilot and two-pilot ops in biz-jets. Same aircraft, only difference being the number of crew members. The sample size is low, but the fatal accident rate is comparable; close enough that they stated it is inconclusive.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... -advantage

I don't think that comparing fatal accident rates is a good way of looking at single vs. dual pilot operations.

There are a lot of things that have to go wrong before people die. Issues such as altitude deviations and runway/taxiway incursions are much more common in single pilot operations - especially if operating high performance aircraft in congested areas. These issues, ranging all the way up to non-fatal accidents, would not be accounted for by simply examining the fatal accident rates.

[fish4life]

http://m.scmp.com/news/china/society/ar ... pit-window

FO injured / half sucked out, CPT loses all automation which presumably would have cut the ground to flight connection. This just happened and is another example of how 2 up front increases safety yet doesn’t show up in the statistics.

[StudentPilot]

Think about it this way, a 172 only requires one engine yet 2 engines is safer. Why? well at a point the risk reward doesn't add up, at the end of the day safety costs money and the line usually gets drawn around the 9 passengers in the back. Then it becomes more essential to have the added layer of safety.

What/who determines the risk reward? Someone likely did a study and decided where to draw the line. Not much different than what Congress is asking the FAA to do.

How about back when all jets were three person crews? What suddenly made two person crews acceptable? I was not flying then, but I assume someone looked at the current/new technology and decided that it was acceptable for two people to do that. I imagine the flight engineers were complaining about that change, but these days I don't see anyone suggesting flight engineers be put back into the cockpit to increase safety.

What about ETOPS when jets moved from three/four engine designs over to twins? Who decided it was 'safe enough'? Probably a study. Four (equivalent) engines should be safer than two, so why were twin jets permitted?

Things change. In order for the FAA to gather data and decide what is and is not an acceptable risk they need to do a study. Just what Congress is wanting. If it is such a clear case of not being safe I would have thought being part of the study and leading it to a negative conclusion would be far more effective in the long term than simply delaying the study from being done.

[StudentPilot]

http://m.scmp.com/news/china/society/ar ... pit-window

FO injured / half sucked out, CPT loses all automation which presumably would have cut the ground to flight connection. This just happened and is another example of how 2 up front increases safety yet doesn’t show up in the statistics.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe the ground link will be required to be in a hardened case in the tail so it is physically separate from the cockpit and independent of the flight deck automation as a result of the study Congress wants done.

One could also spin this the other way. If independent systems for the aircraft- and ground-based controls were required, one pilot gets half-sucked out the window and injured. Is it better to have a second pilot beside him with the wind and cold blasting into the cockpit, no automation, and potentially limited or lose of other controls or for a ground-based pilot sitting in a comfortable, climate controlled office with completely independent/redundant controls to take over?

[Rockie]

Do you have good data as to which one kills more people?

I can tell you how many times a week automation tries to kill me and I prevent it, but unfortunately those stats aren't collected by Boeing, Airbus or anybody else.

What you are flying is not an automated aircraft, and that is not what the discussion was about. We've discussed this before, and while I respect your skill and experience as a pilot, I also know you have little to no experience with system design or modern automation.

Well I'll have to disagree with you there. I do in fact fly an automated airplane and I have a lot, to a real lot of experience with modern automation in aircraft. I've also had the privilege of seeing how automation and systems design has progressed over the years. Some of it has made my life easier, some - like automation - has made it much more complicated and difficult to stay on top of. Because you see it cannot be trusted. It isn't a pilot and never will be until someone builds a real AI.

I admit I can be a dinosaur in many things, but I'm still very much smarter and capable - and necessary - than any automation I've seen.