Pilotless Cockpit?

[pilotmiketx]

The last Jepp IAP revision I did, most were NDB approaches that were eliminated. FNL HAD a NDB Rwy 33 that is no longer. That's where I learned to fly with an ADF. APA is the only airport in range (less than X-counrty distance) where I can still go to shoot NDB appraoches. The real problem is that our rental aircraft have inop. ADFs and they won't be fixed anytime soon.

I like the NDB!!!

Man, I've been having so much trouble posting on this board with my Commodore 64, I think I might have to upgrade. I saw an Atari 6400 on Ebay for $10...Nothing like hanging on to obsolete technology for nostalgic reasons.

Dadgum, when did the Democrat whippersnappers turn off them thar mail route beacons? Ah can't fly 'cross the mountains no more at night in mah Pitcairne Mailwing.

 

[Traderd]

10 years ago I am sure that UAV's were considered James Bond nonsense. Now the Air force is considering replacing half of their fighters with the latest one from Boeing.
Skyline

From a horse's mouth while running a VIP leg out of Langley. "The F-22 will be the last manned fighter procured by the United States Air Force"

He had more shiny stuff on him than me and the points looked pretty sharp so I tend to believe him. Also, he used the word "procured". Could be wrong as as I never say never, unless of course I'm saying never say never.

I also understand that the F-35 package was scaled back when the first whiff of the X-45 tests arrived at the five sided building.

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/x-45/flash.html

 

[QueensPilot]

10 years ago I am sure that UAV's were considered James Bond nonsence.

Skyline are you sure about that? I think the military has been using UAVs for much longer that 10 years. I think I remember reading that they were used in the first gulf war, although I only vaguely remember reading that. Remember, UAV stands for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. A paper airplane is a UAV. Those remote control airplanes and helicopters you sometimes see being flown at the park are UAVs. I even remember reading that the military used them in the 60s, except they weren't called UAVs. I believe they were called Drones. Maybe they took photos?

Can a bus driving down 5th avenue in Manhattan be automated? Are bus drivers worried? How about big cruise ships. Are Cruise and cargo ship captains getting replaced? Are they worried?

Speaking from a purely technical standpoint, if technology has infinite potential, then EVERYONE, including doctors, lawyers, accountants, drivers, pilots, fedex deliverymen(did you see irobot?), counterservers, policemen etc will be automated out of the picture. Sounds really ridiculous, but not if you agree that technology has infinite potential.

And just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should.

And anyway pilotless cockpits may be an oxymoron.

 

[GVFlyer]

The time is now. The last major Al Qaeda operative killed in Afghanistan was made room temperature by a Predator UAV piloted by a guy sitting in a van in Langley, Virginia. The US Air Force has already stated that the JSF will be the last manned fighter. The unmanned Global Hawk is flying high altitude trans-continental surveillance missions. Predators and Global Hawks take off and land like ordinary manned aircraft.

Stop by Nellis AFB sometime. The guys there are saying tht within 10 years half the aircraft flying in Red Flag will be unmanned. While you're there check out what the 11th, 15th and 17th Reconnaissance Squadrons are up to.

In addition to strike and reconnaissance missions, the Air Force is also planning unmanned bombers, transports and tankers.

In the near term the Air Force is going to 15 Recon Sqdns manned by Guard and Reserve unit.

Make no mistake, all of this is transitional technology. At first, there will be one operator for each UAV. As technology improves, one operator will be able to control groups of UAVs with similar missions.

Think about it. Many aircraft have autoland and auto-braking systems - that's old technology. Right now, the FMS on new generation Gulfstreams knows all of the terrain on earth and when you're going to run into any of it. It also knows all of the SIDS, Airways, Stars and approaches on Earth and can fly them without pilot input. The HUD already projects an image from a camera beneath the nose. Gulfsteam has been working on synthetic vision technology for over five years. Synthetic Vision will place a computer generated image with scalable terrain up on the HUD which is updated by Millimeter Wave Radar. Pretty soon the question becomes do I need to be in the cockpit to read what is already a remotely generated view of the world?

GV

 

[Big Duke Six]

We Aren't Going Anywhere

I'm not talking about this thread, I'm talking about pilots.

First, as a gee-whiz note, I was taxiing for takeoff years ago at Davis-Monthan behind an F-100. Yes, a gen-u-ine SuperSabre. When it turned left to take the runway, I saw that the cockpit was empty. It held briefly on the runway, then lit off and blasted skyward. Dangdest thing I ever did see.


But for this discussion, I have three points worth making:

1) A single-pilot airliner makes no sense. If you need one human, you need two. If people won't get on a pilotless airliner (I wouldn't), they won't get on a single-pilot airliner either.

2) There is NO relationship whatsoever to what the Air Force may or may not do in the fighter world and how civilian airliners will operate. The military is the military and can operate way beyond what the civilian world would tolerate. In the same vein, I don't really see pilotless airlifters either, at least none that carry people. No one cares if a drone fighter crashes. Not the case when there are pax aboard.

3) The fact that aircraft are becoming more automated does not equate to computers someday rendering pilots obsolete. They will always need to be there no matter what the level of automation.

CAN it be done? Could have been done years ago. WILL it be done, no way.

 

[Skyline]

Queenspilot

Queenspilot,

Like I mentioned in my post I am sure that there will be people up front that you could call pilots but they will be there as a back up if there is a problem and to assure the Pax. Even now modern airliners are mostly completely flown by programed computers. Soon after lift off you don't have to touch the controls again until after roll out.

Compared to the 1940's we are already automated. If there is a problem dispatch and MX control decide what to do about it. Engineers have already designed what to do in the event of an emergency through check lists. The pilot is just a human interface. We could clean up the system by having all the data and information pass directly between aircraft and the ground. The pilots could observe the progress of the flight from a mute vantage point. They could be there to reset the circuit breakers and to step in if there is a big problem. Why they could even have bunks up front and be asleep until needed. The best part is that we could pay them like rampers.

The Passengers would never know what went on up front. Even today I am sure if the passengers at most regional airlines knew that they had a pair of early 20 somethings flying the plane that came from a 12 month academy and hired on with only 600 hours TT they would be pulling the emergency door handle. From my view I would rather have a computer flying the plane.

Skyline

 

[Swede]

This is a fascinating topic, but even ignoring pax desires, the technology is decades away purely from a reliability and redundancy standpoint. Yes a troupe of engineers today can turn a 737 into a drone, but the cobbled system would be a "one off" that could never be relied upon.

Try this: Set up a leg in a modern FMC jet with the goal of absolute MINIMUM pilot interaction. I think you'll find that you're still punching/moving/actuating dozens of interface devices:

Lights/gear/packs/bleeds/gennies
HDG/LVL CHG/VNAV parameters
LNAV mods/TSTM avoidance/RADAR
Fuel management etc etc

A huge number of these functions, in a pilotless AC, would require streams of data to a remote operator... such as the radar image. This stream would have to be doubly or triply redundant and hack proof. All of the listed interfaces would also require probably triple redundancy to be considered even remotely safe in the current or near future ATC structure.

And finally there's this: You'd still need a human to "monitor" the flight 100% of the time. If you need this guy, then stick his a$$ in the cockpit and let him be the pilot we've always had.

And by golly they need to PAY this guy a reasonable wage!!

 

[ePilot22]

Man, I've been having so much trouble posting on this board with my Commodore 64, I think I might have to upgrade. I saw an Atari 6400 on Ebay for $10...Nothing like hanging on to obsolete technology for nostalgic reasons.

Dadgum, when did the Democrat whippersnappers turn off them thar mail route beacons? Ah can't fly 'cross the mountains no more at night in mah Pitcairne Mailwing.

Ouch! Your wit is so cunning, it hurt! Thanks for contributing your constructive and intelligent thoughts on the subject. I guess there's always got to be a dumba$$ on here saying something stupid.

 

[Skyline]

Swede

Swede,

It is false to assume that airliners use state of the art avionics. Even a brand new 757 or 737 uses an FMC that was designed in the late 70's. Most other errors are pilot induced. We could remotely send inputs to the FMC and make changes en route. A pilot does not need to be there to accomplish changes or updates. If there is a loss of communication the plane could proceed as any noncom IFR flight would.

I agree that it would be nice to have a tech person up to casually oversee things. You could have a ground dispatcher and MX person monitor the plane 100% of the time. I'll bet they could keep track of 5 or more planes simultaneously.

As for a fair wage for the person who is up front I cant tell you what that would be. The way things are going these days getting paid anything at all might be good enough

SkyLine

 

[Swede]

Swede,

It is false to assume that airliners use state of the art avionics. Even a brand new 757 or 737 uses an FMC that was designed in the late 70's. Most other errors are pilot induced. We could remotely send inputs to the FMC and make changes en route. A pilot does not need to be there to accomplish changes or updates. If there is a loss of communication the plane could proceed as any noncom IFR flight would.

SkyLine

My whole point is not that it isn't possible, but that the timeline to do so is in fact decades away at a minimum. Every single input we now make to the aircraft up front would have to be remotely actuated, and this requires wireless, hackproof, triply redundant data streams.

A simple example - you drop the flaps to 15 by moving the flap lever. The actuators move the flaps. The flap position sensor moves the guage that says, yup, flaps are at 15. This is a WIRED system, and very reliable.

Now let's do it remotely. The command to move the flaps must be transmitted. The only method we have now is via radio. The MOVE THE FLAP command is initiated on the ground somewhere, tagged for the specific AC, encrypted, digitally burst. The AC recieves the signal, acknowledges, turns on a hydraulic valve. Flaps move. The position sensor recognizes FLAPS 15, encrypts, attaches an AC specific tag, and sends it to the ground station. A huge, complex loop, which would require massive redundancy to be safe.

Add split flaps and it's a new ballgame. And this example is the trivial movement of a flap. I cannot imagine the enormous bandwidth a single transport would require, and it must all be digital, error corrected, encrypted. Multiply by 1,000's of airliners airborne.

Consider ACARS, a very simple VHF-based system. NO COMM is pretty common. That would tend to suck to get a NO COMM for your pilotless datastream. How is the pilotless data sent? UHF, VHF work but are prone to interference, terrain blockage, etc. Satellite? Maybe. The only technology we have now is radio. And radio, for a pilotless transport, does not have the margin of safety necessary for the enormous bandwidth.

One last thought - your left engine is on fire. Do you really think onboard AI plus ground monitoring could possibly cope with such a dire, fluid situation? Maybe a HAL 9000 could, but real-world AI is a joke. Again, you end up with a dude on the ground handling it remotely. He may as well be up in the jet!