Single pilot airline flights

I'll never say never, but it will take a while for the average passenger to be comfortable with a single pilot. We used to have a small commuter service airline that normally flew two-crew, but would occasionally fly single pilot if a FO wasn't available. We would get complaints regularly when it happened, passengers were not comfortable with it. Even in the charter world, many customers will pay the extra for a second pilot for the piece of mind.

I'd also be curious to see what the insurance underwriters would say to having 50+ pax single passenger. Lot of liability if the sole pilot is incapacitated, or even just distracted. There is a reason CRM is so important.

I'll also add, just look at how much political push there was to increase the requirements for First Officers, to ATP standards. If the FO is so dispensable, then why can't a 250 hour commercial rated pilot be allowed to do it?
 
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. One pilot ops buys you nothing. You need to demonstrate 0 pilot ops. You can only remove the pilot from the flight deck if you can prove that you can successfully (and more safely, and more economically) complete a flight with no pilots in the plane. Until you can do that, I think this is dead in the water.

Also, the Navigators & FEs going away is a poor argument from people who know nothing about the jobs they did. I've flown with honest-to-goodness human navigators, and I was an FE for years. Those two jobs are ripe to be taken over by a computer. The nav job was mostly math computations. Take a cell shot, do some math, plot your course. Do more math, tell the pilots to turn 2 degrees left. Repeat.

The FE job was even simpler. "When this light goes out, flip this switch." "If this light comes on, turn that knob."

Neither of those two job required much in the way of esoteric thought. All they were was data processors and, in the case of the FE, a human servo. Perfect jobs to be replaced by computers. Now the front two guys/gals... that's a different story.
 
They said there would NEVER be 2 pilot airplanes. they also said there would never be long over water flights without navigators. Autonomous cars, autonomous planes will also take place. Just a matter of how soon and how fast. The "multi pilot licensed " crew is being pushed in some parts of the world. One pilot and one computer/radio operator. I suppose they could also read check lists.
 
Majority of passengers can care less if it’s 1,2, or 3 people in the cockpit. All they care about I’d getting A to B and cost. I see and hear all the time the airlines treat passenger like compete garbage, but the passenger will fly again. 10 years ago people would fly spirit because they were so low budget and charged for every possible. Now all the airlines are doing it.
 
TommyG said:
Majority of passengers can care less if it’s 1,2, or 3 people in the cockpit. All they care about I’d getting A to B and cost. I see and hear all the time the airlines treat passenger like compete garbage, but the passenger will fly again. 10 years ago people would fly spirit because they were so low budget and charged for every possible. Now all the airlines are doing it.
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I agree, passengers don't care if a robot is flying the airplane. Safety is assumed, at least in the U.S. no matter which airline or how many pilots are sitting up front. Cost and service are what distinguishes one airline from another.

But building that safety reord takes a while. As far as I know, there aren't any UPS or Fedex jets flying single pilot. That needs to happen first before airlines can consider it. How long that will take, I don't know, but I am guessing 20-30 years.
 
sarangan said:
I agree, passengers don't care if a robot is flying the airplane. Safety is assumed, at least in the U.S. no matter which airline or how many pilots are sitting up front. Cost and service are what distinguishes one airline from another.

But building that safety reord takes a while. As far as I know, there aren't any UPS or Fedex jets flying single pilot. That needs to happen first before airlines can consider it. How long that will take, I don't know, but I am guessing 20-30 years.
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UPS and FedEx are currently buying new 777/747/767s right off the showroom floor. All two pilot aircraft. And given that cargo carriers usually fly their airplanes well past where a passenger carrier will fly theirs (see 727s and DC-10s well into the 2000s, MD-11 and A300s still flying) I really don't see cargo adopting this any time soon.
 
Sluggo63 said:
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. One pilot ops buys you nothing. You need to demonstrate 0 pilot ops. You can only remove the pilot from the flight deck if you can prove that you can successfully (and more safely, and more economically) complete a flight with no pilots in the plane. Until you can do that, I think this is dead in the water.

Also, the Navigators & FEs going away is a poor argument from people who know nothing about the jobs they did. I've flown with honest-to-goodness human navigators, and I was an FE for years. Those two jobs are ripe to be taken over by a computer. The nav job was mostly math computations. Take a cell shot, do some math, plot your course. Do more math, tell the pilots to turn 2 degrees left. Repeat.

The FE job was even simpler. "When this light goes out, flip this switch." "If this light comes on, turn that knob."

Neither of those two job required much in the way of esoteric thought. All they were was data processors and, in the case of the FE, a human servo. Perfect jobs to be replaced by computers. Now the front two guys/gals... that's a different story.
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2 degrees. Reminds me of a story I heard. Navigator tells Pilot turn 2 degrees right. Pilot says I can’t do turns that small. Navigator says what can you do. Pilot says 5. Navigator says fine, turn 7 degrees left and then turn 5 degrees right.
 
luvflyin said:
2 degrees. Reminds of a story I heard about. Navigator tells Pilot turn 2 degrees right. Pilot says I can’t do turns that small. Navigator says what can you do. Pilot says 5. Navigator says fine, turn 7 degrees left and then turn 5 degrees right.
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Yeah, that was a very popular Nav/Pilot joke. Honestly, (some) Navs would give 1 degree heading changes. If their calculations came to heading 137 and we were flying 136, they'd want to fix it... now. I would just tap the heading left/heading right button and call it good. They did love their precision.

When I started flying tankers, all we had was the old orange monochrome radar. It was really used for received aircraft beacon codes and ground mapping, and wasn't great for weather, unless the nav was really good at it. It looked like this (the orange circle in the middle).
KC-135 Nav Station.jpg

Lots of navs would use a hood for it especially during daylight since it was so hard to see in bright light.
KC-135 Nav Hood.jpg

I remember one flight over the midwest where our nav had his head buried in the scope. We were looking at clear blue skies ahead without a care in the world, when the nav started asking us to "come left 30 degrees." The other pilot and I were perplexed, and made sure that's what he wanted. "Yes." Why? We were showing on course. "For weather!" Weird... "hey nav, why don't you take a peak out the window." He looks up out of the scope and sees blue skies. He then sheepishly admits he was trying to vector us around St. Louis.
 
Sluggo63 said:
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. One pilot ops buys you nothing. You need to demonstrate 0 pilot ops. You can only remove the pilot from the flight deck if you can prove that you can successfully (and more safely, and more economically) complete a flight with no pilots in the plane. Until you can do that, I think this is dead in the water.

Also, the Navigators & FEs going away is a poor argument from people who know nothing about the jobs they did. I've flown with honest-to-goodness human navigators, and I was an FE for years. Those two jobs are ripe to be taken over by a computer. The nav job was mostly math computations. Take a cell shot, do some math, plot your course. Do more math, tell the pilots to turn 2 degrees left. Repeat.

The FE job was even simpler. "When this light goes out, flip this switch." "If this light comes on, turn that knob."

Neither of those two job required much in the way of esoteric thought. All they were was data processors and, in the case of the FE, a human servo. Perfect jobs to be replaced by computers. Now the front two guys/gals... that's a different story.
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You can keep saying it, but one pilot ops is just around the corner.
 
Been there. Done that in 1988. I was flying SK 76's when a Single Pilot version was STC'ed. It even included a feature that if the pilot's audio panel fried, he could plug into the (unused) co-pilot's and talk away. Hes not there and not using it anyway. The FAA would only permit single pilot for Part 91, not 135. Oh well.
I'm most grateful that the FAA took that course because that type had a cockpit more than five feet wide. You had to slip out of the shoulder harness to reach the radar. VFR traffic patterns were always scary when single pilot. Right traffic OK, but you're blind in left turns.
Aircraft with more than a four hour endurance would require installation of relief tubes. I could go on.
 
Clip4 said:
You can keep saying it, but one pilot ops is just around the corner.
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Define "just around the corner."

Single pilot ops are here. I fly my GA airplane single pilot all the time. For Part 121 commercial service, I think the sidewalk to your corner is a lot farther than you think.

Edit: and like I said, single pilot buys you nothing if you can't do zero pilot ops. Everything is redundant in a large airliner (except apparently an AOA sensor on a 737 Max 8... which we saw how that turned out), including the pilot. The second pilot is there for (among other things) redundancy if the first pilot "fails." You have to prove an equivalent level of safety with the single pilot inop. Nothing I've seen has shown me that level is safety is "just around the corner."
 
Maxnr said:
Aircraft with more than a four hour endurance would require installation of relief tubes.
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Or you could just live in a perpetual state of dehydration like I did in the good ol’ days of single Pilot Baron & King Air ops.:rolleyes:
 
I can see them getting 97%/98% of the way there relatively soon but those last few percentage points are going to be very difficult. Just ask Musk about that.

Biggest area, that I think will be problematic, is the threat/error management. Who catches all the errors that the other pilot, on a two-pilot crew, is catching now? Who verifies FMS entries?

How does a single-pilot manage communications during an emergency when he needs to communicate with ATC, Dispatch/MOC, Flight attendants, and passengers while flying the airplane and running the applicable checklists? This process worked best with three. The F/O would fly and communicate with ATC. The Captain and FE worked the problem and checklists together and the Captain communicated with Dispatch/MOC, F/As, and passengers. In a two-pilot crew, the F/O generally still flies and handles ATC but that leaves the Captain doing the rest without any backup unless the F/O diverts his attention away from his primary roles of flying and ATC. (That didn't end well for EAL401)

You'll also need to have an airplane that can fully handle any emergency for at least the first several minutes as the single pilot will have to get up from the control seat periodically. That will include notifying ATC, evaluating terrain, and managing emergency descents in conjunction with other emergencies. i.e. Uncontained engine failure resulting in a rapid loss of pressurization (SWA1380).

Anyone who thinks we're ready to rely on a ground-based pilot has never tired to use inflight wifi or wondered why there's an "ACARS NO COM" message at cruise altitude of central Indiana.

Oh, and that single pilot is going to be a very busy guy during preflight.

I've had people telling me that this was coming "soon" since the very early 1990s. As someone who does this job day in and day out, I don't see it happening in anything that could be classified as "soon".
 
Sluggo63 said:
Define "just around the corner."

Single pilot ops are here. I fly my GA airplane single pilot all the time. For Part 121 commercial service, I think the sidewalk to your corner is a lot farther than you think.

Edit: and like I said, single pilot buys you nothing if you can't do zero pilot ops. Everything is redundant in a large airliner (except apparently an AOA sensor on a 737 Max 8... which we saw how that turned out), including the pilot. The second pilot is there for (among other things) redundancy if the first pilot "fails." You have to prove an equivalent level of safety with the single pilot inop. Nothing I've seen has shown me that level is safety is "just around the corner."
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All Technology is moving very quickly. 2030 will be the beginning of the end for first officers.
 
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Clip4 said:
All Technology is moving very quickly. 2030 will be the beginning of the end for first officers.
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Eight years for a clean sheet Part 121, single-pilot aircraft to be certified not just by the FAA, but every regulatory agency that owns the airspace that that aircraft will fly in? I’ll take that bet.
I’ll bet that in 2030 we’ll still have 3- and 4-man crews flying augmented ops transoceanic.
 
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I’ve spent many years flying all over the world in a cargo plane. Much of the time in the middle of the night, sometimes in horrible weather. I can’t even imagine what it would be like flying alone with body clock out of phase and an emergency occurs like the FedEx 767 gear up incident at LAX. I agree with Sluggo63, not happening anytime soon.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Eight years for a clean sheet Part 121, single-pilot aircraft to be certified not just by the FAA, but every regulatory agency that owns the airspace that that aircraft will fly in? I’ll take that bet.
I’ll be that in 2030 we’ll still have 3- and 4-man crews flying augmented ops transoceanic.
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Doesn’t need to be clean-sheet…they can just modify the 737! :rolleyes:
 
Sluggo63 said:
Eight years for a clean sheet Part 121, single-pilot aircraft to be certified not just by the FAA, but every regulatory agency that owns the airspace that that aircraft will fly in? I’ll take that bet.
I’ll be that in 2030 we’ll still have 3- and 4-man crews flying augmented ops transoceanic.
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I agree you will on transoceanic flights.
 
Single pilot? No toilet breaks or the plane is on autopilot with no one at the helm?!? Then the pilot gets locked out of the cockpit while at the toilet.
 
luvflyin said:
2 degrees. Reminds me of a story I heard. Navigator tells Pilot turn 2 degrees right. Pilot says I can’t do turns that small. Navigator says what can you do. Pilot says 5. Navigator says fine, turn 7 degrees left and then turn 5 degrees right.
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Ugh, that's math.
 
Sluggo63 said:
...He then sheepishly admits he was trying to vector us around St. Louis.
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I don't know what it's like nowadays, but when I was learning to fly near St. Louis in the 1970s, even on an otherwise clear day the smog puddled over the city like a malevolent brown blob.
 
As mentioned previously, reducing the number of humans in the 121 cockpit will require enhanced automation and remote operation/monitoring. Starting with Cargo 121, I could see them starting with removing relief crew on long haul and having one pilot resting at a time in cruise, with the awake pilot augmented by ground monitoring. Eventually it will spread to passenger ops, and then eventually shorter flights replacing the FO.

Who knows, maybe the FO will initially serve as a cabin crewmember before they’re done away with completely? Start and end the flight in the cockpit, but spend the cruise portion spilling sodas on passengers…
 
Tech types love to fantasize about single pilot/no pilot ops for some reason. It's been a continuing theme in online aviation social media for decades. Why the obsession with putting an entire class of workers into unemployment? I'm not sure. Industry can't even fully automate fast food workers profitably at the moment.
 
Narwhal said:
Tech types love to fantasize about single pilot/no pilot ops for some reason. It's been a continuing theme in online aviation social media for decades. Why the obsession with putting an entire class of workers into unemployment? I'm not sure. Industry can't even fully automate fast food workers profitably at the moment.
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It's not just aviation, it's everywhere. They've been working on self driving trucks for years and John deere just announced they'd start delivering a self- driving tractor this fall. I don't understand the fetish with eliminating all humans from everything. I guess we're all just supposed to "learn to code". Meanwhile as labor gets replaced by capital, it gets harder & harder for an individual to break into an industry, while those with deep pockets take over more & more of the market.

The march of technology is inevitable however, so I don't know what the answer is. I sometimes wonder if the Amish weren't right all along.
 
I wonder if the main deterrent for single-pilot 121 is not wanting to be the first airline to get sued when something goes wrong, and has to defend against a "because only one pilot" theory and a three-comma judgement.

The tech fetish is easy to understand. It's sort of the old saw about if your only tool is a hammer -- people who spent their lives building decision trees and automating the mundane look around for other things that code can do more predictably. No coder ever thinks about that disaster scenario that requires creativity to get out of, and which can't really be coded for. It will be us ML/AI wogs next who think we can train a model better than the human apparatus. Auto-drive is just the tip of that iceberg. Someone, somewhere, is training a model that can deal with physics inputs and is simulating a few giga-crashes per second trying to find that perfect digital pilot replacement. And I hope that guy is adding sensor failure/random entropy into his mix for all of our sakes. :D
 
schmookeeg said:
I wonder if the main deterrent for single-pilot 121 is not wanting to be the first airline to get sued when something goes wrong, and has to defend against a "because only one pilot" theory and a three-comma judgement.
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While there may be some truth to that I suspect it has much to do with the cost of first certification and the reluctance to get into a protracted battle with the FAA over the cert basis (in addition to fundamental technology maturation). OTOH; if history is an indicator, the first company to do it will help tailor that basis to their technology and capabilities and rule the field, at least for a short time.

schmookeeg said:
No coder ever thinks about that disaster scenario that requires creativity to get out of, and which can't really be coded for.
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IF they don't (and some do, IME), the ops experts that need to be on staff to have a chance of cert do. That's "do," not "will."

schmookeeg said:
Someone, somewhere, is training a model that can deal with physics inputs and is simulating a few giga-crashes per second trying to find that perfect digital pilot replacement. And I hope that guy is adding sensor failure/random entropy into his mix for all of our sakes. :D
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Both aspects of modeling and simulation in this quote are already part of the design and cert process for highly-augmented airplanes. They continue and are expanding, for their sakes as much as yours.

Nauga,
who knows it's cloudy outside
 
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schmookeeg said:
The tech fetish is easy to understand. It's sort of the old saw about if your only tool is a hammer -- people who spent their lives building decision trees and automating the mundane look around for other things that code can do more predictably.
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In this case there is not just the technology push you mention, but a strong pull from the operations side. No major aerospace manufacturer will incorporate and no major aircraft operator accept technology purely for technology's sake - it will become a reality when it becomes more cost effective to incorporate it than to continue as we do today...assuming a certifiable solution is found. The major airframers wouldn't be researching, or sponsoring research, if the operators weren't asking for it.

Nauga,
and the realities of big business
 
schmookeeg said:
No coder ever thinks about that disaster scenario that requires creativity to get out of, and which can't really be coded for.
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I find the terminology in one of my AFMs interesting…the avionics will flag any “foreseen malfunction”. I tend to read this as any malfunction that they thought of and got coded without going over budget. :rolleyes:

As one tech writer told me, you never actually finish a project, you just get to where you’re done.
 
As a child in the 1980s, a lot of aviation literature said that the next generation of aircraft would be pilot-less, and my childhood dreams of being a pilot were crushed. 40 years later, I still see the same headlines.
 
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