Single Pilot Airliners

[mik]

aka FTAO of @IanF

I am not sure if there is a huge debate ongoing or not, but I have watched far too many MentourPilot videos to consider a good idea with current technology. Which doesn't mean it won't be viable in the future (one pilot or even no pilot) of course.

As I understand it, you don't need a 2nd pilot to fly current airliners, but the 2nd pilot plays a vital monitoring role to help prevent errors, and provides passengers (and aircraft) with a rather higher chance of a positive outcome when something does go wrong.

Related article HERE, plus:

[mik]

Also, we should never forget:

[Beany]

It's all fun and games - and of course way cheaper, so that LINE GOES UP - till a pitot tube ices up, I imagine.

[Matty]

It's all fun and games until the air stewardess pops out and says, does anyone work in IT? No? In which case, is anyone here a pilot?

[Mito Man]

I think it should work the other way round regarding the Dragonfly technology.
If the tech gets to a point where the plane can do all functions from takeoff to landing by itself and the pilot is only supervising, then you only need one pilot.
Rather than we still totally depend on the pilot but if they shit themselves mid flight this fancy tech can land itself.

[jamcg]

Someone should point out to them all this super fit professional footballers who can still have heart issues and experience sudden cardiac arrest. What’s the procedure then?

[Beany]

Someone should point out to them all this super fit professional footballers who can still have heart issues and experience sudden cardiac arrest. What’s the procedure then?

Doesn't matter. Line must go up. Line must go up. Must spend less on highly trained professionals. Must increase shareholder value.

[Explosive Newt]

Surely the co-pilot is a very minor part of the cost of flying a jet and the real role of increased automation / AI is to further increase safety?

After decades of the aviation industry being the standard against which medical safety is judged, it looks like things are now flowing the other way. If you can keep A&E running when only half the staff are on shift maybe you can fly a 747 with only half a pilot?

[Sundayjumper]

Surely the co-pilot is a very minor part of the cost of flying a jet...

That is exactly what I was thinking.

[jamcg]

Everything in air travel is supposed to have redundancy, the auto pitch control in the 767max didn’t have that and look how that turned out. The copilot is at least redundancy for the pilot surely

[speedingfine]

Surely the co-pilot is a very minor part of the cost of flying a jet and the real role of increased automation / AI is to further increase safety?

After decades of the aviation industry being the standard against which medical safety is judged, it looks like things are now flowing the other way. If you can keep A&E running when only half the staff are on shift maybe you can fly a 747 with only half a pilot?

[Beany]

Surely the co-pilot is a very minor part of the cost of flying a jet and the real role of increased automation / AI is to further increase safety?

After decades of the aviation industry being the standard against which medical safety is judged, it looks like things are now flowing the other way. If you can keep A&E running when only half the staff are on shift maybe you can fly a 747 with only half a pilot?

Lets replace half of A&E with a GPT prompt and some work experience kids, it'll be fine and Line Goes UP.

[mik]

Everything in air travel is supposed to have redundancy, the auto pitch control in the 767max didn’t have that and look how that turned out. The copilot is at least redundancy for the pilot surely

737max

Auto trim

And I am not sure that was a redundancy issue rather than a failure to understand what TF was going on.

[jamcg]

Everything in air travel is supposed to have redundancy, the auto pitch control in the 767max didn’t have that and look how that turned out. The copilot is at least redundancy for the pilot surely

737max

Auto trim

And I am not sure that was a redundancy issue rather than a failure to understand what TF was going on.

Sensor calibration failed, but didn’t have any backup sensor to confirm failure, or anything to recognise the failure

[Ascender]

Surely the boards who govern air safety would never allow it due to the medical emergency scenario, not to mention fatigue etc?

[Mito Man]

FAA and various safety boards have been saving us for a while now.

[DeskJockey]

Spoke to my pilot friend about it. He flies short haul commercial, and he voiced the same concerns about the risks. He was thinking it would probably hit the longer routes first.

[IanF]

It’s an interesting topic, but as getting airfields to move from magnetic to true north has taken 30+ years and still not expected until after 2030.. this will happen a long time after we are dead (unless Aliens/AI give us a massive tech boost in the near future).

The A350 was the first aircraft designed with this consideration and to fly it single pilot would challenge me considerably on a normal approach.. imagine the difficulty if there was a serious issue on board (and that’s ignoring me being incapacitated!). Plus how do pilots gain the experience to manage any scenario without exposure with a more experienced pilot flying? Do we accept more fatalities whilst they learn?

Data in data out doesn’t currently work over the Baltic, Crimea/Northern Turkey, Eastern Med or near Taiwan due gps spoofing, with a fix expected end of next decade.. and that’s ignoring any aircraft built before then which will not suddenly have the latest tech.. Aircraft are currently miss directed, pushed into failsafe scenarios on a daily basis in all the areas mentioned above. Who is brave enough to fly on or own that company that relies on a non-secure system (the other pilot has to be replaced by someone or something) and currently the US can’t even keep its aircraft secure from the Iranians.

And Alex, Airbus is looking at single pilot ops; and is starting with smaller aircraft first (current research is <100 passengers) for several reasons, but principally fewer deaths and many airfields in close proximity over Europe if anything goes wrong.. If your friend means due lack of relief pilot, then maybe but that still means there are two pilots on board the aircraft at any time