What's wrong with the Air Force?

[Guardian]

And I would wager flying an RPA airline is much less intensive than an RPA military plane. Fly from A to B with some wx contingencies. Killing people from an RPA I would imagine isn't as easy as that.


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[dream big]

17 minutes ago, Justonethought said:

What exactly are the airlines investing in for the next 10-20 years?  In 10 years if they can replace an FO with an algorithm they will.  The plane itself is the investment in capital, not the control of the plane.  Do you use uber?  If you do, would you use it just as much when it shows up to your door without a person and ferries you off to your destination without a driver and at 1/4 the cost?  This is a sincerely honest series of questions.  Technology is shifting the landscape awfully quickly.

If an Uber showed up to my house without a driver, I wouldn't get into it for free.  You honestly think passengers would get into a pilot-less airline? Okay even single pilot, what happens when one of those crash with 300 souls on board? Why on earth would airlines accept that capital risk? I didn't say it will never happen, just that it's not happening in our lifetime.  

[Guardian]

People would for half price


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[Karl Hungus]

1 hour ago, Justonethought said:

 Do you use uber?  If you do, would you use it just as much when it shows up to your door without a person and ferries you off to your destination without a driver and at 1/4 the cost?

You really think Uber (or FedEx, Delta, Vanguard's automated financial analyst, the Mayo Clinic's automated neurosurgeon, etc) will just lower their prices by 1/4 and pass that cost savings on to a consumer, long term?  You think the automated Wall Street robots and their shareholders will be ok with that?  LOL.

[flyusaf83]

At my base, aircrew are now required to operate the high lift trucks instead of AFE. That means I have to get pilots and navs to take a course on how to drive the stupid truck, and then have them take it on as an additional duty.  It means when I have a TDY departing or arriving on weekend, someone has to come in just to drive the damn truck.  Also, I had to assign a young copilot to watch other chicks piss in cups for a solid week, 0700-1600.  

I get sitting SOF (kind of). I get sitting Sup.  But what in the bloody hell are we doing? Aside from the insanity of having a pilot, who has millions of dollars invested in their training, not fly in order to drive a truck or watch people urinate... this kind of crap just kills morale.  My Lt copilots are all jaded.  How can you blame them? It's about unmet expectations.  They worked and sacrificed more than their peers to become military pilots. Then we have them do things an E-1 should be doing.

The Air Force is insane.  What they are doing with additional duties is like having a neurosurgeon do less surgeries so he can help the janitors (who get paid the same as the neurosurgeons).

Edited May 13, 2017 by flyusaf83

[Longhorn15]

I think a lot of the cost savings you're assuming aren't as much as some think. The cost of high bandwidth, secure and not jammable satellite time is very expensive. Remember the news about hackers getting into cars computers while they're driving? Imagine that hysteria times 1000. If the cost savings isn't there, why would they spend the money to develop a very expensive infrastructure of satellites, that customers may not go for?

It will take genuine AI to be able to replace us, and we're not there yet. Someday probably, but not yet, and as mentioned before, the FAA will slow roll this big time.


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[SocialD]

13 hours ago, Justonethought said:

 Do you use uber?  If you do, would you use it just as much when it shows up to your door without a person and ferries you off to your destination without a driver and at 1/4 the cost?  

Yes I use uber.  No, I would not use an Uber without a driver in the car.  

 

 

10 hours ago, Justonethought said:

It is not about lowering price it is about lowering operational costs. I emphasize operational.  The price can stay the same, if the cost to deliver is lowered that equals greater margin, profit, dividend, share price etc. Price is what one will pay, it is independent of cost.  This is coming from a pilot.  It doesn't matter that I am a pilot, the math is the same.

You're right, we need to ensure all our contracts say that all planes will be piloted by 2 human pilots (or 3/4 depending on length of flight). If they want us to fly single pilot, our pay would have to more than doubled and our hours worked per day would need to be slashed significantly.  

I can't see this even starting to happen for a few decades.  Have you guys every worked with the FAA?  Fuck, we've been trying to get a new arrival into our Guard base, for like 4 or 5 years and we still have no end in sight.      

[HeloDude]

13 hours ago, Karl Hungus said:

You really think Uber (or FedEx, Delta, Vanguard's automated financial analyst, the Mayo Clinic's automated neurosurgeon, etc) will just lower their prices by 1/4 and pass that cost savings on to a consumer, long term?  You think the automated Wall Street robots and their shareholders will be ok with that?  LOL.

I know, right!?  I mean, DVD players are more expensive than ever these days...

[Inertia17]

There is no way they would be able to offer flights for half the price just by removing a pilot. Call it a couple hundred dollars and hour per crew and then divide it across each passenger, you won't save any more than $20 per ticket (conservative napkin math, 150pax $500 an hour for 2 crew, 4 hour flight...$13.33 saving per seat).

Then you have incidents like QF72 (QF72). Where the autopilot is out to lunch and tries to fight the pilot. How do you think that would have gone down with no crew on board, and the pilot monitoring was in the middle of an approach on one of his 3-4 other aircraft?

RPA or single pilot ops are a fair way off, not because of technology necessarily, but the risk mitigation that has to take place to even consider it. Cargo would likely be first, and even that would be a battle with the FAA I'm guessing.

[dream big]

13 hours ago, flyusaf83 said:

At my base, aircrew are now required to operate the high lift trucks instead of AFE. That means I have to get pilots and navs to take a course on how to drive the stupid truck, and then have them take it on as an additional duty.  It means when I have a TDY departing or arriving on weekend, someone has to come in just to drive the damn truck.  Also, I had to assign a young copilot to watch other chicks piss in cups for a solid week, 0700-1600.  

I get sitting SOF (kind of). I get sitting Sup.  But what in the bloody hell are we doing? Aside from the insanity of having a pilot, who has millions of dollars invested in their training, not fly in order to drive a truck or watch people urinate... this kind of crap just kills morale.  My Lt copilots are all jaded.  How can you blame them? It's about unmet expectations.  They worked and sacrificed more than their peers to become military pilots. Then we have them do things an E-1 should be doing.

The Air Force is insane.  What they are doing with additional duties is like having a neurosurgeon do less surgeries so he can help the janitors (who get paid the same as the neurosurgeons).

Nailed it.  A lot of this boils down to having a SQ commander who has some balls to tell the shoe clerks running the base: "NO"... No, we aren't using a line flying pilot to watch a piss test.  No, we aren't participating in your g-$ morale run.  And no, we aren't going to have half the squadron sit through LRS's worthless mobility line all day when we have lines to fly.  

[Guest]

Cargo would likely be first, and even that would be a battle with the FAA I'm guessing.

I don't even see cargo happening anytime soon. Imagine instead of the RQ-170 getting hacked, jammed, lost-link, whatever, it happening to an automated MD-11 or 747 over a populated area.

Also, how well is a guy in a GCS going to be able to diagnose and handle something like a wing or fuselage fire? Shit happens and there's no replacement for having a couple pink butts in the seats to exercise judgement and ingenuity to avert crisis.


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[Inertia17]

1 minute ago, ihtfp06 said:

I don't even see cargo happening anytime soon. Imagine instead of the RQ-170 getting hacked, jammed, lost-link, whatever, it happening to an automated MD-11 or 747 over a populated area.

I definitely agree. It wouldn't be for a very long time, even for single pilot ops. But that would be the first place they would likely consider RPA/single pilot.

[Duck]

Maybe this is what senior leadership meant when they said we were all replaceable... lol


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[Guest LumberjackAxe]

Perhaps we can have this pilotless discussion when they have driverless trucks cruising down the highway. Let's start with that before we move on to Airliners. 

The technology exists, obviously, to remove drivers and pilots. But it's gonna take a generation for the public to be okay with driverless trucks and for the guvment to figure out how to regulate it. It'll take even longer for airplanes to go that way, and it has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with public perception and regulation, which I think will take a full three or four decades.

And also how strong the pilot union is. 

 

[Guardian]

Because driving a vehicle on the road is way safer than flying?


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[DirtyFlightSuit]

Automated cars (note I don't say driverless) are a much simpler solution than aviation.  Car has engine problem it can pull over and brake or coast to a stop safely, don't have that luxury with aircraft, also the types of issues that occur (blown tire, engine trouble, etc) are FAR simpler to deal with then the insane possibilities in aircraft.  Any how we've gotten way off topic, I vote this thread should be tuned into "What's right with the Air Force" it would be far simpler and shorter of a thread possibly empty.

[WTFAF]

And I would wager flying an RPA airline is much less intensive than an RPA military plane. Fly from A to B with some wx contingencies. Killing people from an RPA I would imagine isn't as easy as that.


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So they would crash slightly less often with passengers on board? Keep dreaming, but it's never gonna happen in our lifetimes.

[RTB]

1 hour ago, LumberjackAxe said:

Perhaps we can have this pilotless discussion when they have driverless trucks cruising down the highway. Let's start with that before we move on to Airliners. 

Perhaps this is my juvenile mind at work, but can you imagine how many people would be out intentionally screwing with those driverless trucks just for entertainment purposes? 

"Hey Bubba, watch this..." 

 

[nsplayr]

2 hours ago, LumberjackAxe said:

But it's gonna take a generation for the public to be okay with driverless trucks and for the guvment to figure out how to regulate it.

I'll bet ya a bottle on that one. A generation is what, 25 years generally? And what's the criteria for "public to be okay with" and "government able to regulate?"

Uber/Otto already delivered 50K cans of Budweiser using a driverless truck last October. Daimler is investing a ton of money into driverless trucks in Europe. Most experts believe significant job disruptions in the trucking industry are more like 5-10 years away.

I mean honestly, depending on the criteria for the bet, the video below kind of contradicts both of the issues you raised. The truck drove down a public highway in a populated area, with hundreds of other civilian vehicles, and the trip was done legally meaning there was coordination with the appropriate levels of government.

Granted this setup still required a man in the machine for city driving, pickup/delivery, etc., so not fundamentally different than what airline guys are doing today.

Either way, this bet should be settled waaaay before the leaving Afghanistan one 

p.s. - this thread is way off the rails...+1 for separating out automation stuff

Edited May 13, 2017 by nsplayr

[Guest LumberjackAxe]

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

I'll bet ya a bottle on that one. A generation is what, 25 years generally? And what's the criteria for "public to be okay with" and "government able to regulate?"

Uber/Otto already delivered 50K cans of Budweiser using a driverless truck last October. Daimler is investing a ton of money into driverless trucks in Europe. Most experts believe significant job disruptions in the trucking industry are more like 5-10 years away.

I mean honestly, depending on the criteria for the bet, the video below kind of contradicts both of the issues you raised. The truck drove down a public highway in a populated area, with hundreds of other civilian vehicles, and the trip was done legally meaning there was coordination with the appropriate levels of government.

Granted this setup still required a man in the machine for city driving, pickup/delivery, etc., so not fundamentally different than what airline guys are doing today.

Either way, this bet should be settled waaaay before the leaving Afghanistan one 

p.s. - this thread is way off the rails...+1 for separating out automation stuff

Whelp, I stand corrected on that one. 

 

Back to what's RIGHT with the Air Force, a few bros in my Squadron put together a "condensed" powerpoint that covered a bunch of the annual/semi-annual/deployment CBTs, sent it out in an email with a request that we simply email them confirming we reviewed the slideshow, and then they could log it in ADLS for us, thus saving us the trouble of doing said CBTs.

I'm not too sure about the finer details, or how it turned out, but I wasn't about to not participate. My knowledge on the CBT subjects still remains the same.

Edited May 13, 2017 by LumberjackAxe

[matmacwc]

We do them all as a Wing, and they are signed off for us, but anything like this is good

[Prosuper]

God Dammit!!,But it will be fun to see MX officers tell Watson to change parts that don't need changing so they look good at Wing standup. 

[pawnman]

22 hours ago, Karl Hungus said:

You really think Uber (or FedEx, Delta, Vanguard's automated financial analyst, the Mayo Clinic's automated neurosurgeon, etc) will just lower their prices by 1/4 and pass that cost savings on to a consumer, long term?  You think the automated Wall Street robots and their shareholders will be ok with that?  LOL.

I do.  It's called competition.  If I can cut my prices by 25% for the same amount of profit per customer, then I will get more customers relative to the competition.

[pawnman]

23 hours ago, dream big said:

If an Uber showed up to my house without a driver, I wouldn't get into it for free.  You honestly think passengers would get into a pilot-less airline? Okay even single pilot, what happens when one of those crash with 300 souls on board? Why on earth would airlines accept that capital risk? I didn't say it will never happen, just that it's not happening in our lifetime.  

I'd get into that car.  I'm not sure I trust planes that much yet.  A computer-driven car will never be subject to human error.  

[pawnman]

4 hours ago, Guardian said:

Because driving a vehicle on the road is way safer than flying?


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Two-dimensional space at 60 MPH is a lot easier to navigate than three-dimensional space at 400 KTS.