Pilotless Aircraft...looks like it will be awhile.

[AvroGuy]

What is the crash rate of the global hawk? I know that one is fully automated, except for eng start. I know they lost one during flight testing, but how many have they lost since?

 

[cruxx@9]

Okay, as a pilot am I afraid of eventually being pilotless aircraft....hell yes. Management would love to take us off the line, even if only to show a point! And as a passenger pilot now, there are many passengers that have the idea that we just push a button and off it goes and we are all over paid computer programers. I fly an AirBus by the way. And if management could pass off that air fares would be cheaper if WE were not up there....um some of the people wouldn't mind. These are the idiots that I fly from time to time. Anyway, the normal progression would be maybe crop dusters, fire fighters, freight then passenger and so on.

But what most people, especially managers don't see, is the value of experience that a computer can't do. I've never flown a crop duster or a water bomber, but what a computer can't do is see a particular issue and adapt to changing conditions. I'm sure there are many in water bombing and so on.

Also....ummmm Capt. Al Haynes. Has anyone forgot that every once in a while what is never supposed to happen...happens. A computer can never use experience and CRM to fix an unfixable problem. Even though Capt. Al Haynes didn't save everyone, he did a damn good job of saving most of them. A computer would have just done what it was programed to do....which was what? Call the guy that built the airplane? Call the instructors that teach in the sim? Use the jumpseater and all the experience to try and never give up?

A computer can NEVER replace us...even in management wants to.

 

[cruxx@9]

sorry it was soooo long....

I get a little defensive over this issue. The average passenger has no idea what we do. And management doesn't care.

 

[JimNtexas]

" If you can't find a civilian application, it means you have no imagination or
foresight. "

As several have pointed out, UAVs all have to have a pilot anyway. And I bet a UAV pilot is paid more than an airplane pilot. And we all know pilots work cheap anyway.

I write software for a living. At one time I wrote UAV related software, although now I'm in the internet world.

I can imagine all kinds of cool things a HAL 9000 could do besides fly airplanes. Why stop there? Trucks, trains, nuclear power plants, water and waste water systems all have operators that could be eliminated or consolated into call centers with a person with a mouse giving general directions.

Why not? I'll tell you why not. We are 50 to 100 years away from being able to write software reliable enough to replace human operators in those systems with anything close to the safety and reliablity we expect from humans. We're not even close.

Look at Eclispe. Their CEO knows computers inside and out. Yet after five years and hundreds of millions of dollars they were unable to deliver a working integrated comm/nav system for a light jet. Not software that could fly the jet mind you, just a normal com/nav system similar to what exists on most jets, large and small.

I bet if you look at the total cost of the U.S. Customs Predator operation it is 2-5x more than if they just bought manned airplanes to do the identical mission. Three Caravans or King Airs could do the job, and there wouldn't be any worries about flying in the civil airspace. I don't what a part for a Predator costs, but I bet the same part for civil airplane is half or less.

If they must have something exotic Schweizer makes manned U-2 like special purpose high endurance airplanes.

The notion of a robot A-10 tanker is just insane. It's one thing for a Predator to fire a Hellfire from a mile or two away in a war zone. It's another thing entirely for a robot A-10 to try and drop water at 100 feet in the mountains. I'd go so far to say as that is impossible with today's technology, and certainly would greatly endanger any persons or property unfortunate enough to be on the ground or in the air anywhere close to such a flying disaster.

UAVs make no sense in civil applications.

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

A horseless carriage? MADNESS!!

It'll NEVER happen.

CE

 

[Huck]

A horseless carriage? MADNESS!!

The horse wasn't the driver. The propulsion changed - the driver stayed.

Name me a transportation system in wide use that has taken humans off the vehicle. Make that a system that is not in a protected environment like a warehouse or an airport tram line....

 

[urflyingme?!]

Um ya, water bomber ranks about 3rd to last for applications for UAVs.

Talk about STOOPID!