The furure of employment for pilots?

John Baker

John Baker

Final Approach
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John Baker
The biggest single thing that keeps flight school classrooms full is enthusiastic young people who envision becoming an ATP someday.

The day is rapidly approaching when most commercial flights will be roboticly flown, probably starting with cargo planes. I'm talking within the next twenty or so years.

What will become of GA aviation when that happens. Empty flight schools, and all the supporting industries. Will they even need control towers anymore?

GA will probably be dominated by older guys like myself, who have a little extra cash, just wanting to learn something new, and hopefully, have a little fun.

Will there be enough of them to sustain an industry? Every year that goes by, the regulations increase. In 1970, the FARs publication was barely an inch thick, what will it be like in another forty years? Will anybody even want to go to the trouble?

I guess the real question is, will GA aviation survive after the computers take over such mundane duties as shuttling millions of people back and fourth across the country every year?

It is going to happen, I have no doubt about that. Robots do not get tired, they don't make mistakes, they don't need retirement packages. You can bet airline companies are already looking at this technology.

John
 
John Baker said:
Robots do not get tired, they don't make mistakes
Click to expand...
Nope -- but robots were built by humans -- and humans make mistakes. As a result the robot *will* make mistakes. You don't write something without bugs.
 
> It is going to happen, I have no doubt about that. Robots do not
> get tired, they don't make mistakes,

Hardware wears out

Software doesn't wear out. But it's beyond the state of practice
to produce code without defects. iow - software is fielded already
broken.

Even if the software works exactly as specified, it's also beyond
the state of practice to produce the specifications without error.
 
And even though it may be possible today to build a remotely piloted airliner (and that could take care of crew fatigue issues), you're going to have a hard if not impossible time convincing the public to ride in them.

There's resistance to things like the detroit peoplemover, a robotic train with no operator on board. And that's been running for decades.

So I'd expect to see a requirement for human crews for a long time after it is technically possible to replace them.... even for cargo.
 
It is clear that UAV technological advances are coming. Technically Advanced Aircraft have already changed (not eliminated) the traditional pilot workload. The next space shuttle will be pilotless. As the public learns about pilots over flying destination airports, or mistakenly landing on taxi ways, or being arrested for flying drunk, it seems their opinion may be more favorable towards flying in fully automated systems. While a pilot may be sitting up front, his duties will be significantly different. (Maybe sitting alone on the starboard side of the cockpit.)
 
John Baker said:
The biggest single thing that keeps flight school classrooms full is enthusiastic young people who envision becoming an ATP someday.
Click to expand...

Don't forget to add A) easy to get/hard to pay off debt, and/or B) stupid, over indulgent parents.
 
Just a few points to add to those already made.

The ATC system would have to be totally overhauled. Doable of course but not trivial.

Airport ground handling would have to be worked out. The solutions range from trivial (a fleet of tugs) to quite complex (automated ground navigation).

Storm avoidance is a major problem. There's no need to go through a thunderstorm just because a robot is driving. As far as I know the robotic aircraft either have limited time in the troposphere (Global Hawk) or are remotely guided with video feedback.
 
Many years ago, (35) Captain Kirk and his crew used these amazing little communicators. They clipped to their belts. All they had to do was flip them open and they could talk each other, even over great distances. In those days, telephones were big, by comparison, analog contraptions that sat on desks or hung on walls.

Those communicators looked very much like todays flip open cell phones.

My brash statements in my original post was considering what technologies might be like, and the state of their dependability, twenty or so years from now. Will people even be involved in the actual assembly of computers? It is very possible robots will be building most everything by then, or perhaps slightly further into our future.

As far as robotic flight, it is already here, just ask some of the folks who live in the middle east. At first they were nothing more than model airplanes with cameras used for surveillance. In just a few years, they have become complex aircraft flying and executing missions that are controlled from the other side of the earth.

Like I said, this technology will more than likely first be employed moving cargo. At first, the aircraft will be flown by ground control centers, but will eventually become independent of them. The flying public will compare the safety records of the cargo planes and the piloted planes. It is going to happen.

In just my lifetime, advances in technology, science, medicine, etc. have been unbelievable. What is common or cutting edge today, was even beyond science fiction when I was a kid. Someone getting a new face, that is downright amazing, even today.

Our technological advances are much like a snowball that keeps getting bigger and bigger as it rolls down a hill. We started out small, with that famous calculator from Texas Instruments. That was around just forty years ago. They sold in the hundreds of dollars back then. Now they are a little more than a trinket found in a cereal box.

Computers in the hands of the general public were just a novelty or a toy thirty years ago.

Todays technologies will look just as primitive in twenty or thirty years.

John
 
I think we've got a long way to go before we get to pilotless passenger airplanes. Even with cargo airplanes, wait until the first one crashes in a neighborhood because of some electronic glitch and see what the uproar is like, even if it would have crashed anyway with live pilots. Then you've got the emergencies when the pilots saved the day. The ones that immediately come to mind are the landing in the Hudson and the crash at Sioux City. Could a computerized airplane have done either one of those things?
 
How would an crewless automated plane handle something like a passenger medical emergency?


Trapper John
 
Trapper John said:
How would an crewless automated plane handle something like a passenger medical emergency?


Trapper John
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Perhaps with the flying publics demand for cheaper and cheaper seats, that will become just another risk of flying. Perhaps with todays advances in medicine, in thirty years, it will be a non issue.

Without the huge demand for cheaper air fares, what I am proposing would be just nonsense. It is the flying public who will vote with their dollars on just how they will travel.

It is also feasible that some genius will start running his airline like a real business, and start charging what should be charged to operate an airline. Right now, the customers are dictating the prices, simply because they know they can.

Know one knows for sure what the future holds in store for us. All of this is just speculation, something else for us to bat around.

John
 
John Baker said:
Without the huge demand for cheaper air fares, what I am proposing would be just nonsense.
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I think expense is probably the weakest argument for pilotless airplanes. Look at the technology and infrastructure that would need to be developed. I don't know if you would be cutting down on labor anyway. You wouldn't need the two pilots but you would probably need many more computer technicians.

John Baker said:
Right now, the customers are dictating the prices, simply because they know they can.
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Isn't that how the free market works?
 
Everskyward said:
I think expense is probably the weakest argument for pilotless airplanes. Look at the technology and infrastructure that would need to be developed. I don't know if you would be cutting down on labor anyway. You wouldn't need the two pilots but you would probably need many more computer technicians.

Isn't that how the free market works?
Click to expand...

The free market works on one word, profit. It makes no sense to purchase a thousand items from a factory at one dollar each, then sell them for fifty cents.

A business must take all its operating expenses, from cost of goods, and all other overhead, including labor, into a method of taking in more than it spends. This is the exact opposite of how government works.

You can not run any business successfully if your cash intake is less than your costs. It would be better to take the money and put it in a savings account, and let it be managed by more competent people than yourself.

John
 
John Baker said:
The free market works on one word, profit.
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Here I thought the word was "competition".

One airline can't suddenly start charging more than everyone else because very few people would buy tickets. There have been a number of tries at higher cost, better service airlines with not too much success. The market has spoken. That is reality.
 
Its not a free market, thats why that doesn't work. Airlines get boosts from the govt.
 
John Baker said:
Perhaps with the flying publics demand for cheaper and cheaper seats, that will become just another risk of flying.
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It can only go so far. At some point the public is going to have to accept that they will have to pay the price or STAY HOME.
 
Airlines are an important part of our infrastructure, just like highways, water, electricity, trains, and whatever else this, or any country, thinks is necessary for it's economic and strategic survival.

You can bet, if all the airlines started shutting down, the government would step in, just like it did the bankers.

All the airlines are going to have to get together and get some sort of legislation passed regarding just how low they can sell fares. Price wars in any business do nothing but destroy the entire industry.

The public assumes that whatever you sell something for, you are making a profit, or you would not do it. Once they pay the lower price, they will not want to pay more. If Wall Mart can sell a TV for $49.95, then everyone should be able to sell the same TV for the same price, otherwise, they must be rip offs.

The free enterprise system does depend on profit. That is the bottom line.

John
 
John Baker said:
You can bet, if all the airlines started shutting down, the government would step in, just like it did the bankers.
Click to expand...

Well they won't ALL shut down. There will be one or two left standing and when that happens they will be able to set a price where they can finally make a profit.

All the airlines are going to have to get together and get some sort of legislation passed regarding just how low they can sell fares.
Click to expand...

I don't see that happening. Cooperation between airlines just does not happen.

Price wars in any business do nothing but destroy the entire industry.
Click to expand...

That is true. But I truly believe each airline wants to be the last one standing. That is why there are fare wars. An airline will set a low fare, many times below cost, to try to undercut the next guy. It is a race to see who can last the longest with the capital they have. When there are only a couple left they can pretty much set the price at what the market will bear.

The free enterprise system does depend on profit. That is the bottom line.

John
Click to expand...

Yup.

Say what you will, but I believe that most of the issues that the airlines currently have are due to deregulation. I think those that promoted deregulation in the late 70's would have thought twice about it if they knew it would end up the way it is now.

But that is MY opinion.
 
What is the likely outcome for GA in all of this? Will there be fewer pilots, or will the demand for them grow?

John
 
John Baker said:
What is the likely outcome for GA in all of this? Will there be fewer pilots, or will the demand for them grow?

John
Click to expand...

Demand has been flat for years.

The utility justification has been squeezed out by insurance premiums and ever-tighter scheduling demands.

The price justification was dropped when the airlines started price wars.

The fun quotient has many more competitors today than 30-40 years ago.

The chique-ness factor has faded (not many movies made promoting aviation heroes -- even in Amelia, the heroine meets her tragic end in an airplane).

I'm not sure how to revive GA, quite frankly. I think it had a golden era that it is trying to revive when the particular combination of economics, social expectations, and cultural demands that made aviation participation widespread cannot be artificially resurrected.

:dunno:
 
John Baker said:
What is the likely outcome for GA in all of this? Will there be fewer pilots, or will the demand for them grow?

John
Click to expand...

Sadly, GA has been circling the drain for sometime. New starts are at some of the lowest numbers in years and the aging pilot population is on the increase.

I am afraid it may go the way of the dinosours.....
 
John Baker said:
Many years ago, (35) Captain Kirk and his crew used these amazing little communicators. They clipped to their belts. All they had to do was flip them open and they could talk each other, even over great distances. In those days, telephones were big, by comparison, analog contraptions that sat on desks or hung on walls.

Those communicators looked very much like todays flip open cell phones.

My brash statements in my original post was considering what technologies might be like, and the state of their dependability, twenty or so years from now. Will people even be involved in the actual assembly of computers? It is very possible robots will be building most everything by then, or perhaps slightly further into our future.
Click to expand...

Kirk's communicator was't very far fetched at the time, with the miniaturization progress being made in that decade (not ironically due in no small part to the US space program) and the existence of portable communicators albeit slightly more bulky ones with shorter range) those flip-phone predecessors weren't much of a stretch engineering wise.

Now the Transportor and the food synthesizer, are examples of true science "fiction" and for some reason haven't appeared on the local dime store (aka Walmart) shelves.

As far as robotic flight, it is already here, just ask some of the folks who live in the middle east. At first they were nothing more than model airplanes with cameras used for surveillance. In just a few years, they have become complex aircraft flying and executing missions that are controlled from the other side of the earth.

Like I said, this technology will more than likely first be employed moving cargo. At first, the aircraft will be flown by ground control centers, but will eventually become independent of them. The flying public will compare the safety records of the cargo planes and the piloted planes. It is going to happen.

In just my lifetime, advances in technology, science, medicine, etc. have been unbelievable. What is common or cutting edge today, was even beyond science fiction when I was a kid. Someone getting a new face, that is downright amazing, even today.

Our technological advances are much like a snowball that keeps getting bigger and bigger as it rolls down a hill. We started out small, with that famous calculator from Texas Instruments. That was around just forty years ago. They sold in the hundreds of dollars back then. Now they are a little more than a trinket found in a cereal box.

Computers in the hands of the general public were just a novelty or a toy thirty years ago.

Todays technologies will look just as primitive in twenty or thirty years.

John
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I could be wrong, but I don't see UAVs expanding beyond military roles (with the possible similar application in domestic law enforcement) and even there, we're mostly talking about remotely piloted aircraft (RPVs), not autonomous ones. For one thing the public will be unlikely to accept RPVs or UAVs even if there was strong evidence supporting the notion that they were safer. Joe America want's to have someone responsible and accountable for jockeying those big aluminum tubes around the country and I don't see any way that will change in the forseeable future. At the very least, people need someone (rather than something) to blame when something goes wrong. And I don't see any advantage to the airlines in replacing breathing human pilots with electronics. Sure the pilots require some wages but the cost of developing and certifying the first airliner sized RPV amortized over it's lifetime will probably exceed the crew's pay by a long shot, especially since it's clear that pilot pay is on a downward slide and with RPVs you still have pilots to pay, they just aren't up there in the cockpit.

Finally, the technology
 
John Baker said:
The public assumes that whatever you sell something for, you are making a profit, or you would not do it.
Click to expand...
The public doesn't care if you are making a profit or not. They only look at the price. When you buy a ticket on the airline do you even know whether that airline is profitable or not? I think at this point many more airlines are in the red than in the black.

John Baker said:
Once they pay the lower price, they will not want to pay more.
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That's true, why should they want to pay more? Sometimes it's necessary to pay more and so be it, but I can't see someone wanting to pay more. The next time you buy a ticket are you going to say, "Wait, I don't think that's a fair price, let me give you $100 more."?

John Baker said:
If Wall Mart can sell a TV for $49.95, then everyone should be able to sell the same TV for the same price, otherwise, they must be rip offs.
Click to expand...
If there is no difference in quality why should someone buy a $499.95 TV instead of a $49.95 TV?

I have flown on probably 5 different domestic carriers in the past 5 years. Looking at it objectively I can't really tell that there is a huge difference in service. It's like hotels. I've stayed in a large variety of hotels and I can't say that I prefer one brand name over another.
 
Everskyward said:
I have flown on probably 5 different domestic carriers in the past 5 years. Looking at it objectively I can't really tell that there is a huge difference in service. It's like hotels. I've stayed in a large variety of hotels and I can't say that I prefer one brand name over another.
Click to expand...

Here's the primary reason I prefer SWA -- No Big Deal if you have a change in schedule.

As far as hotels -- IMHO the Hilton properties are the most consistent chain coast to coast (you know what to expect no matter where you are).

Sadly I've been Irridium Hilton, Marriot and Priority (Holiday Inn Express) in the past few years.:frown3:
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Huh???
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I just thought that would be a less confrontational response. There is nothing worse than a forum with everyone at each others throats. When it happens, then the participants meet each other face to face, they usually realize it never should have happened in the first place.

John
 
John: How's your flight lessons coming along? That's gotta be the most important thing for your personal goals in light of all the hassle you've had?
 
I'm going up with another instructor in a few days to get a second opinion. I haven't flown in two weeks. I feel like I'm doing just fine overall though.

John
 
I often think about this, too (UAV or ROV airliners, and the effect this could have on GA, especially at the roots)... I'll make no predictions, but I'll tell you one thing with certainty: you won't see me aboard an airliner with no flight crew. Despite often being the weak link, the humans at the controls have an edge a computer, or a remote operator cannot have: a vested interest in the safe outcome of the flight. I put more stock in that than precision or redundancy.

But that's only part of my personal reasons. Aside from the arguably illogical point about safety, I just don't see why this particular task is better suited to machines. By logical extension, it could be argued that all activities could be better-performed by machines, provided the technology reaches the necessary level... heck, robots would be even more efficient at simply being human, when you think about it. Someday the technology may exist to allow a person's consciousness to be "uploaded" into a super-efficient, possibly everlasting simulacrum of some kind... and you can be sure lots of people will opt for that.
But how would this be better, from any sane human's perspective? Where should it stop?

I think one of the most glorious aspects of human behavior is our ability to extend ourselves with technology, but it sours when it is an end unto itself and not a means of enhancing being human.
 
rottydaddy said:
But how would this be better, from any sane human's perspective? Where should it stop?

I think one of the most glorious aspects of human behavior is our ability to extend ourselves with technology, but it sours when it is an end unto itself and not a means of enhancing being human.
Click to expand...

Read Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society.

He has the answer -- and it ain't good. :frown3:

If you're not a reader -- his argument is that "technique" has its own logic that is outside human constraint. The only way to stop it is human conscious effort.
 
Trapper John said:
How would an crewless automated plane handle something like a passenger medical emergency?
Click to expand...

An onboard TSA type pushes a button behind a locked panel and the computers divert to the nearest airport with medical assistance.

The real question is how will the computer handle a commuter has a major problem such as fuel starvation or fill in the blank going to land somewhere now situation over forested mountainous New England on a hazy day with no airport or approachable road within gliding range. I'm thinking the software will get all the pax killed even though there are several very suitable tear up the plane and walk away hay fields available in a valley because it's unable to do what a 10 hour post solo student is capable of doing.
 
Would a computer have chosen the Hudson river as a landing sight in the case of 1549?

Probably would have tried to return to the airport or been stuck in a decision loop until impact.
 
OK, we first saw the 'cell phone' / communicator, on "Star Trek". However if I recall the Enterprise still had a PILOT... 'Nuff Said. DaveR
 
Ddayle said:
OK, we first saw the 'cell phone' / communicator, on "Star Trek". However if I recall the Enterprise still had a PILOT... 'Nuff Said. DaveR
Click to expand...

The Enterprise also had a flight engineer (Scotty). What's flying today in paeenger service besides 747s that still have a FE?


Trapper John
 
shywon said:
Would a computer have chosen the Hudson river as a landing sight in the case of 1549?

Probably would have tried to return to the airport or been stuck in a decision loop until impact.
Click to expand...

When the computer controlled flight results in disaster there will be a lot of teeth gnashing, media calls for investigation, congress persons looking for the spotlight, lawyers making tons of money, and ultimately little will change. Just like today. :mad2:

I am reminded that when I was but a wee tyke in the 50's various magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science published articles about cars of the future. They said things like "In the year 2000 you will get into your car and speak your destination and the car will take you there". In the 50's I couldn't imagine life in 2000 and since I didn't drive yet I had little appreciation of the complexities of driving nor knowledge of bureaucracy and its affect on people's lives and the progress of civilization.
 
Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, I couldn't get enough of those two magazines when I was a kid in the 1950s. I wonder if they were geared to kids more than adults. Like when you go back to your home town and drive by that huge schoolhouse you remember and discover it is a dinky little building.

I always thought I was up there with the scientists and engineers when I was reading those things at ten or eleven years old. Many of their predictions actually came true, like the world is in fact round, and we would travel in space. Well, a few of us, anyway.

And the Buck Rogers movies with his rocket sounding suspiciously like mom's vacuum cleaner, as it made it's way to Mars.

John
 
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