Single/No pilot ops closer than thought?

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Dave Taylor
http://www.eaa326.org/Newsletters/eaa326-4-2010.pdf

Steve Chealander, member of the NTSB (National
Transportation Safety Board ), 2007-2009, is a retired American
Airlines captain. He gave a safety presentation at recurrent
training about two years ago. He opened the floor for questions;
and one guy asked facetiously when we are going to one-pilot
cockpits. Chealander said that is not funny. He said FedEx and
UPS are now (two years ago) working on the procedures for onepilot
long-haul over-water operations. The pilot would be at the
controls for take off and landing, then go the bunk for cruise
while the guy back in Memphis would take over for the cruise.
One-pilot passenger flights will take a bit longer to get
approved. 12 years ago I was Director of Operations for the
Alaska Air Guard. I went to a high-level conference, and this
three-star gave a presentation that said the exact same thing the
major said. The only limitation on fighter aircraft now is the
pilot. We have the technology to do everything from the ground;
and it will be a huge cost savings. No search and rescue, no lifesupport
systems, no backlash when we lose a plane. So this
article is right on the money.
I attended a flight safety presentation last evening from a
retired USAF Major ( test pilot ) from Edwards AFB, Bill
Koukourikas---now serving there as a civilian. During the course
of his presentation, his statement: No future attack military
aircraft within the next 15 years will have pilots in the cockpit.
The last tactical aircraft with a pilot in the cockpit will be the F-
35. He also indicated that within the next 10 or so years all UPS
and FedEx cargo flights will be with pilot-less aircraft. This
prediction coming from their test shop at Edwards.
All drone testing, development etc. is taking place just south
of Edwards in the Palmdale area. Sounds like a continuation of
the Skunk Works developments of Lockheed, which previously
took place in that area. Simply amazing. Hey, are we a dying
breed or what?? Guess you'll have to invite your computer to
"have a beer" after the day's flying is done.
 
hal-400.jpg
 
the army believes it's a given

http://www.flightglobal.com/article...shift-to-nearly-all-unmanned-aircraft-by.html

Only the utility and medical evacuation roles will remain predominantly the domain of manned aircraft. Even the manned aircraft that remain in the inventory, including Boeing AH-64 Apaches and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks, will likely be modified to also serve as unmanned, or optionally piloted vehicles (OPVs).

"Over the next 25 years," the roadmap states, "the army aviation force mix shifts from being almost entirely manned to consisting of mostly unmanned and OPV."

The roadmap also confirms that army aviation's leadership have embraced the cargo re-supply mission for unmanned aircraft. Then around 2020, the army foresees one-fourth of all re-supply missions conducted by unmanned or optionally-piloted aircraft.
 
Any real conflict I think the fighter with the pilot will have the drop on the UCAV, everything else being equal.
 
steingar said:
Any real conflict I think the fighter with the pilot will have the drop on the UCAV, everything else being equal.
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Probably not if the RPV (remotely piloted vehicle, which is what they're really talking about) can take 20-30G's of turn. That's the real advantage in air-to-air combat. It's not primarly an eyeballs and boom and zoom game any more. It's more about the sensor suite (and external data feeds - see the F-22 avionics, for example) and the weapons. The sensors see much, much farther, with better field of view than any human. And this is not a computer against human, it's a human pilot who doesn't have to take the strain of the accelerations vs. one who does.

As much as it pains me to say it, it's coming. I read the Army and Air Force plans for UAVs and I think the Army is right on the money. The Air Force is (IMO) pretty far out there. Use UAVs for transporting supplies, performing observation and executing ground attack. Anythin transporting humans will be poiloted by humans for much longer just due to physcology.

Anyway, that's my $.02.
John
 
jsstevens said:
Probably not if the RPV (remotely piloted vehicle, which is what they're really talking about) can take 20-30G's of turn. That's the real advantage in air-to-air combat. <snip>
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True, BUT if it takes 2 seconds for it to decide to make the 20-30G turn due to communication lag between the aircraft and the pilot then it might be shot down before it gets to make the turn.

One can argue that the aircraft may be intelligent enough to initiate the turn on its own, basically becoming a UAV as opposed to RPV. Then the battle basically comes down to My Programmer is better than your Programmer, assuming the aircraft are relatively equal.

Brian
 
The FAA has been working a program to phase out manned control towers at class D airports. They are looking into remote control towers.
 
brcase said:
True, BUT if it takes 2 seconds for it to decide to make the 20-30G turn due to communication lag between the aircraft and the pilot then it might be shot down before it gets to make the turn.

One can argue that the aircraft may be intelligent enough to initiate the turn on its own, basically becoming a UAV as opposed to RPV. Then the battle basically comes down to My Programmer is better than your Programmer, assuming the aircraft are relatively equal.

Brian
Click to expand...

Assuming that the RPVs are actually piloted by a human, albeit remotely, where is your 2 second delay coming from?

My biggest concern is the potential for hijacking RPVs. Just think what a terrorist could do with one of those.
 
gismo said:
Assuming that the RPVs are actually piloted by a human, albeit remotely, where is your 2 second delay coming from?

My biggest concern is the potential for hijacking RPVs. Just think what a terrorist could do with one of those.
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There actually is a significant delay between inputs and the RPV receiving the command for aircraft flown in the middle east but controlled in the CONUS. That's why they are controlled by "local" operators for landing and take off operations. The time lag is just to great for the precise corrections needed.

Current signals are highly encrypted making it extremely / nearly impossible to hack. Any terrorist whith the resources to even think about trying such a thing would probably find it much easier to purchase or build even more destructive weapons.
 
maddog52 said:
There actually is a significant delay between inputs and the RPV receiving the command for aircraft flown in the middle east but controlled in the CONUS. That's why they are controlled by "local" operators for landing and take off operations. The time lag is just to great for the precise corrections needed.
Click to expand...

I can see how the typical delay of a satellite link (around 250 ms for a single hop and something like 500-700ms round trip between NA and the mideast) would interfere with the precise control needed to land a UAV but given that 250 ms is a pretty typical human reaction time (eye to hand) it doesn't seem like an extra half second would be a big factor in ACM. But then again I don't know to what level the operator of a UAV is involved when "dogfighting" with other aircraft. I'd think it would be more a matter of "directing" the flight rather than directly operating the flight controls and weapon systems, e.g "turn left 30 degrees, fire a missile when target is acquired" command.

Current signals are highly encrypted making it extremely / nearly impossible to hack. Any terrorist whith the resources to even think about trying such a thing would probably find it much easier to purchase or build even more destructive weapons.
Click to expand...
I assumed that serious encryption was involved but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a determined foe.
 
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gismo said:
I can see how the typical delay of a satellite link (around 250 ms for a single hop and something like 500-700ms round trip between NA and the mideast) would interfere with the precise control needed to land a UAV but given that 250 ms is a pretty typical human reaction time (eye to hand) it doesn't seem like an extra half second would be a big factor in ACM.
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I was about to ask what the latency was, thanks for answering. But with things we have today, like predictive displays on flight directors, how hard would it be to build something like that into a UAV control system/display many miles away?
 
maddog52 said:
Current signals are highly encrypted making it extremely / nearly impossible to hack. Any terrorist whith the resources to even think about trying such a thing would probably find it much easier to purchase or build even more destructive weapons.
Click to expand...

I saw a raft of stories in the media how the Taliban has learned how to decrypt the video coming off the UAVs using a bit for freeware they found on the net.
 
Rotor&Wing said:
The FAA has been working a program to phase out manned control towers at class D airports. They are looking into remote control towers.
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Wow getting a progressive taxi is gonna be hard. Well perhpas not with all the video. But its just so darn hard to replace perpherial vision the view from multiple cameras is just so unnatural to me.
 
AdamZ said:
Wow getting a progressive taxi is gonna be hard. Well perhpas not with all the video. But its just so darn hard to replace perpherial vision the view from multiple cameras is just so unnatural to me.
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Sounds like Ops at all controlled fields will require ADS-B.
 
Rotor&Wing said:
The FAA has been working a program to phase out manned control towers at class D airports. They are looking into remote control towers.
Click to expand...

They just simply need to phase out class D designation and close down the control towers for those airports that don't have enough traffic to justify a manned control tower period. Those airports would do just fine letting them revert to class E.
 
Cameras don't have peripheral vision. The pilot of a UCAV can't fly by the seat of the pants. The aircraft in a dog fight with the pilot will win.
 
steingar said:
Cameras don't have peripheral vision. The pilot of a UCAV can't fly by the seat of the pants. The aircraft in a dog fight with the pilot will win.
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As technology and sensors advance there simply is no way that the human is going to have the advantage. Air-to-air combat is something that could easily be programmed.

The computer can calculate a WHOLE lot in a fraction of a second. It can pull as many G's as the airframe can take. I sure the hell wouldn't want to try and dog-fight against a UAV 15 years from now.
 
The physical and technological capability is probably there. The military will do it.

Outside the military, the impediment is political and perception. It will be possible and safe to have single pilot or no pilot air carrier ops LONG before it ever happens (if it ever happens).
Statistically it is safe to eliminate the class 3 medical, but decades of work has been fruitless. Maintenance and certification regs are counterproductive to safety, but they haven't changed. Being physically or technically able to do something is not the same as politically being able to do something.

Lastly, if I were the USAF, I would keep a mix of UAVs and probably OPVs. In the leadup to Vietnam, everyone KNEW that guns would never be needed again. Riiiiight.
Curtis LeMay was almost successful in eliminating non-nuclear strike capability, because it was OBVIOUS that nuclear deterrence would prevent conventional conflict.
We have not had a good history of accurately predicting revolutionary military changes. I would maintain a mix of human/non-human aircraft until combat experience shows what actually works as opposed to what he think will work.
 
When warfighting becomes machine against machine, then we might as well put the leaders of both countries in a ring and let them wrestle it out.
Imagine what pay per view might bring in!
 
gismo said:
Assuming that the RPVs are actually piloted by a human, albeit remotely, where is your 2 second delay coming from?

My biggest concern is the potential for hijacking RPVs. Just think what a terrorist could do with one of those.
Click to expand...

If it's a satellite link, latency. I hate talking on the sat phone to someone who doesn't understand how to. The majority of the work will have to be autonomous, which is doable right now.
 
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steingar said:
Cameras don't have peripheral vision. The pilot of a UCAV can't fly by the seat of the pants. The aircraft in a dog fight with the pilot will win.
Click to expand...

???? Cameras have 360* spherical vision, ever heard of Mosaic? You can eliminate all blind spots. I know a few guys who could make it work autonomously even. AAV or RPV, either way, will allow for a much greater combat effectiveness. With no pilot to protect the units can be built very inexpensively and multi mission. Think about it. All it has to carry is a sensor package and computer which can be done in under 20 lbs, coms gear, having both HF and omni directional satellite antenna adds another 10 lbs and an explosive load. Depending on the mission range and type you build them in a few sizes in order to hold the fuel required. You can even build them be the weapon and delivery system, an advanced cruise missile if you will. You can build 10,000 of them for the price of 1 F-22.
 
silver-eagle said:
When warfighting becomes machine against machine, then we might as well put the leaders of both countries in a ring and let them wrestle it out.
Imagine what pay per view might bring in!
Click to expand...

I'm all for it, PPV hell, think of the tax burden reduction!!!
 
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