Pointless

I know that it looks that way but aircraft will always have pilots. The day that they don't is the day I refuse to fly. 🙂

CRJCapt wrote:

I know that it looks that way but aircraft will always have pilots. The day that they don't is the day I refuse to fly. 🙂

the definition of pilot will change to 'scenery viewer'

CRJCapt wrote:

I know that it looks that way but aircraft will always have pilots. The day that they don't is the day I refuse to fly. 🙂

I don't think society is ready for such a notion. You've got to remember that computers haven't got initiative and only have the capabilty to act on what they've been programmed to do. You could never program a computer for every eventuality just as you could never train a pilot for everything, but a human mind has the capability to improvise.
😀 😀
In short, pilots will be needed for a long time yet, to what extent is the true question??

pilotwannabe wrote:

CRJCapt wrote:

I know that it looks that way but aircraft will always have pilots. The day that they don't is the day I refuse to fly. 🙂

I don't think society is ready for such a notion. You've got to remember that computers haven't got initiative and only have the capabilty to act on what they've been programmed to do. You could never program a computer for every eventuality just as you could never train a pilot for everything, but a human mind has the capability to improvise.
😀 😀
In short, pilots will be needed for a long time yet, to what extent is the true question??

Agree with both Gents above. ❗

Food for thought.......

How about pilots flying the aircraft from the ground, just like the drones?

One pilot could handle a number of aircraft. Sat in a cockpit with real time video views if needed. Doesn't a pilot have the capability to land 'blind' by instruments today? So why does he/she need to be actually sat on the aircraft?

The military in a number of countries are working on this already.

How about something similar to ATC where a different person on the ground takes control at various stages of the flight? In place of ATC determining what speed, altitude and heading he wants then passing that info to the pilot, the controller makes the settings directly into the aircraft's flight controls from the ground.

The removal of all the visual cockpit avionics and related hardware, would allow for a few extra passenger seats and the weight reduction would be quite significant.

With no cockpit on the aircraft, terrorists would have a hard job hijacking the aircraft.

The day will surely come.

I will never trust a remote craft,ship,car,train or anything i will trust for my transportation and my life same time. ❗

can i just say of all the places you could come to say that why would you come here?
Making yourself enemies

No

What do you mean?

beerbadger wrote:

What do you mean?

I think CRJCapt answers crystal and clear to these questions ➡

How about pilots flying the aircraft from the ground, just like the drones?

One pilot could handle a number of aircraft. Sat in a cockpit with real time video views if needed. Doesn't a pilot have the capability to land 'blind' by instruments today? So why does he/she need to be actually sat on the aircraft?

Maybe im wrong of course...

You're correct Greekman, The "No" was not in response to you Beerbadger but to madbrit.

Flying people may seem like it can be done like flying a drone but it can't. It is possible to control the aircraft by remote control but the loss of safety is unacceptable. Sights, sounds and feel all play a part in handling malfunctions in real aircraft that you can't experience from the ground. Weather, especially bad weather, can change in seconds. You need an experienced pilot on the aircraft to make split second decisions and maneuvers. You cannot do this looking at a radar screen from the ground. 🙂

Yes GM and CRJ, it is a strange concept today but one which is gradually being introduced and accepted.

If you think about it, there's a good chance you already trust remote systems in your everyday life for transportation. When first introduced, almost every elevator had a person on-board whose job it was to control the machinery. How many elevators today have an attendant?

Is it Japan that has a driverless rail system? At many major airports, the rail transit system is driverless already.

It was not too long ago that Flight Engineers were part of the cockpit crew to monitor the aircraft systems. This is now being done more efficiently by computerized flight systems. Navigation used to be performed manually using a sextant or star charts before the introduction of long range navigation aids and GPS.

Many aircraft have the satellite 'DataLink' system installed which passes real time information between the aircraft and the ground. It is used for simple things like destination weather reports and gate information for connecting flights, right up to complete technical flight data for monitoring and analysis by the operator's ground support crew.

I believe it is still true that there is no complete radar coverage of transAtlantic and transPacific flights and the actual position of the aircraft is known only because of reports from the crew or now automatically from systems like DataLink so the crew don’t have to do it. It's the same for ships also.

I haven't checked the statistics but I wonder if the number of accidents caused by 'pilot error', where the pilot chose to ignore the instruments, is greater than those caused by systems failures. Someone will jump in and tell us. I remember a case of an Airbus at the Paris Airshow coming down during a fly-by because the pilot attempted to fight the flight computers.

Today, once the cockpit door is closed you have no idea who or what is flying the aircraft, especially during a zero-visibility landing, and we have come to accept that. In the event of a full systems failure, the on-board flight crew is likely helpless to do much anyway.

The role of the pilot will probably never go away but my guess is that they might not be sat in the same place they are now and they might be called Flight Controllers in the future.

Human nature is strange. We invent machines and systems to do things for us more efficiently, with the idea of giving us more leisure time or to be more productive, yet we insist that at least one human is in attendance to watch the machinery and the systems working.

Give it time and we'll be flying in remotely controlled aircraft. We're already in the transition stage of having a pilot along for the ride - 'just in case' - and to make the passengers feel safer. Maybe the next step is to have someone dressed like a pilot to be seen to go into the cockpit and close the door behind him or her and make an announcement from time to time. Maybe that's being done already!! Anyone ever asked to see the pilot's license before getting on a commercial flight? 😀

And Beerbadger, if your comment was aimed at me, don't you like a good discussion about flying? I thought this was a flying related site. Why the animosity? Nice incentive for someone reading that response to join this site. And if it wasn't aimed at me, then what did your comment add to the value of the discussion other than trying to disrupt the discussion?

As a friend of mine (who flies various aircraft - mostly military - and trains pilots) says.....tomorrow's pilot is us......we sit here and we fly these virtual aircraft with a great deal of success.....why not just attach us to a proper aircraft?

I accept everything you write dear Madbrit ...But the Terminator movie cant get out of my mind as i read all of these.... 😉

I dont want to deny my human side or to give head to machines...i cant accept it..Makes me feel strange...Maybe im selfish and i cant accept something superior than human(yes strange)mind-spirit.

I think it's inevitable that airplanes will be on autopilot.

That is, if we still have airplanes after we've burned all our oil.

old topic...

however the first hydrogen planes have already flown 🙂

hinch wrote:

old topic...

however the first hydrogen planes have already flown 🙂

And the hydrogen is produced by the electrolysis of water, which requires electricity. Where do you suppose the electricity comes from? Mostly, from burning fossil fuels.

Nothing is free.

Ed