Who's Really Flying The Plane?

[Wandering Dog]

It may not be our generation, but if people grow up with automation, they will accept it. The folks on here saying "it ain't gonna happen, human beings can't fly, boy" will be long dead by then, we probably will too. But there is no reason to train human beings if you can manufacture all the aviators on the planet for 1/10^10 of the cost. Its science.

Edited March 29, 2012 by BigBlue

[Darth]

Don't forget these guys...

[Guest]

Future federal air marshals

[brabus]

Perhaps the pilot-types feel differently because they are the ones in control of the jet

I don't give a shit about job possibilities in the future, It has nothing to do with that...there is no way in hell I would put my wife and kid on a plane with no pilot, ever. And I guarantee you 98% of the population feels the same. This won't happen even if just for the simple fact the airlines know it would be company suicide to venture down this road.

[pawnman]

I don't give a shit about job possibilities in the future, It has nothing to do with that...there is no way in hell I would put my wife and kid on a plane with no pilot, ever. And I guarantee you 98% of the population feels the same. This won't happen even if just for the simple fact the airlines know it would be company suicide to venture down this road.

Would you put them in a cab with no driver? How about a train with no driver?

It's going to happen...you can be the holdout if you want. It's not going to be saving $5 a ticket, it's going to be substantial savings. And with guys like the JetBlue pilot, the guys who overflew Minneapolis by 100 miles, and (beating a dead horse) 9-11 in the public eye, people will start to wonder if computers aren't more emotionally stable.

[Danny Noonin]

It's not going to be saving $5 a ticket, it's going to be substantial savings.

Just how much do you think the guys up front cost per ticket?

[pawnman]

Just how much do you think the guys up front cost per ticket?

A lot, when you consider you are paying their salary, training costs, health insurance, retirement benefits, and you have to adhere to crew rest requirements...something computers don't have.

[WheelzUp]

Would you put them in a cab with no driver? How about a train with no driver?

It's going to happen...you can be the holdout if you want. It's not going to be saving $5 a ticket, it's going to be substantial savings. And with guys like the JetBlue pilot, the guys who overflew Minneapolis by 100 miles, and (beating a dead horse) 9-11 in the public eye, people will start to wonder if computers aren't more emotionally stable.

You continue to refer to 9-11 as if a computer is incapable of such horrible acts. Just why do you think cyber command was created? For every innovation in unmanned system operation, there is yet another innovation with the goal of exploiting that technology. The world is an ugly place dude. Like us or not......pilots are gonna be around a while.....and for good reason.

[SurelySerious]

A lot, when you consider you are paying their salary, training costs, health insurance, retirement benefits, and you have to adhere to crew rest requirements...something computers don't have.

Whether it's pilots in the airplane or not, you still have the airplane, maintenance, and fuel roughly the same... which are orders of magnitude bigger cost than the pilots. What you will probably add in, and which maybe you haven't considered, is some amount of satellite bandwith, which isn't cheap.

[Danny Noonin]

A lot, when you consider you are paying their salary, training costs, health insurance, retirement benefits, and you have to adhere to crIw rest requirements...something computers don't have.

You're clueless.

Crew rest? How much do you think the pilots are getting paid while in "crew rest?". I'll tell you. Zero. They don't get paid unless the airplane is in motion.

Let's say for ease of math the dudes up front are averaging $150 per hour. In reality, the captain is probably making a few bucks more than that and the F.O. significantly less. And let's say there are 150 passengers in back (737-ish airplane, i.e. not even a big jet) That would mean each passenger is paying $1 per hour of flight for each pilot's pay. In reality it's less than that.

By the way, airline benefits suuuuccccckkkkk. It would be generous to say that tacks on 20%. So now were up to a buck-twenty per passenger, per pilot, per hour.

Training costs? You know that's done 100% in the sim, right?

So I guess you're right. That's significant savings that would completely change the economics of the airline industry.

Edited March 30, 2012 by Danny Noonin

[sputnik]

A lot, when you consider you are paying their salary, training costs, health insurance, retirement benefits, and you have to adhere to crew rest requirements...something computers don't have.

Wait, I'm old, what's a trunk monkey? A nav or a window licker? I've seen the commercials and they're great but the monkeys, while subserviant, always seemed a bit bad ass. Which is something the majority of navs and window lickers I've known (small sample set) haven't been.

Another question, I don't ride subways much, but I've never been on one that didn't have a driver, where are there unmanned subways? Nearest thing I've seen are airport trams, which are on a one way round trip track, felt fine about it. Subways/trains, wouldn't feel so good about.

Pawn--you start with a conclusion, then find arguments to meet it. With costs specifically I'll bring up minor example of block 30 Global Hawk vs U2. I think it's pretty obvious the U2 ain't cheap to operate. And yet even those in the AF/DoD who backed GH as a replacement admitted publically that GH couldn't compete cost-wise. I find the UAV-UAS-RPV-RPA-WTF line of renaming things as annoying as everyone else, but I think the point was correct that there's still a pilot in the loop. The fact that the pilot isn't in the cockpit doesn't change any of the cost requirements you listed.

Pilot error, you paint with a broad brush there. What was the error related to? Quite often it's failure to recover/maintain control when an automated system failed. Others have already pointed out that no one tracks when a pilot recoverd a plane after automation failed. In your "pilot error" numbers fwhich you neither quote nor cite references for, have you corrected for automation failures? While the media often simplifies mishaps to "pilot error" if you delve into safety stats it's usually listed as "human error," which encompasses a lot more people than the pilot left holding the bag. Mx, engineers, programmers. None of those errors will be mitigated by taking the pilot out of the cockpit.

9-11--That doesn't even make sense. The problem was they took control of an aircraft. Cutting throats was [horrible] details. Taking pilots off the aircraft doesn't mean someone unfriendly can't take control of it. All it means is that hijackers don't have to commit suicide during the act. Iran and the UAV they swiped should put your mind at ease.

You have an amazing faith in automation--must have had crazy luck with computers in your life. I won't get into my two decade love affair with Microsoft but my glass jet has crapped out midway over Atlantic on a moonless night in the middle of nowhere. It autorestarted, but everything pre-programmed had dumped. I've had to force restart my nifty iphone too. In both cases without a human there to restart/reprogram/stick actuate till the automation came back it was useless.

I actually do believe unmanned systems are the future. The open questions are, unmanned for what missions and how far away is "the future?" Take a look at Fedex, the profits they make, what they pay their crews, and the aircraft they fly. They'll go unmanned when it makes sense profit-wise. Tell me when that will be. They still pay pilots pretty good coin to sit sideways as flight engineers. Probably gunna happen. Ain't gunna be tomorrow.

Edited March 30, 2012 by sputnik

[Infamous]

A lot, when you consider you are paying their salary, training costs, health insurance, retirement benefits, and you have to adhere to crew rest requirements...something computers don't have.

What retirement

[pawnman]

I'm talking about AUTOMATING airlines, which is NOT turning them into giant UAVs. Computers would taxi, takeoff, fly, land, and taxi back. The airlines may keep one or two guys on shift to take over from the computers remotely, but I'm not talking about taking the pilots out of the cockpit and putting them in a ground station. I'm talking about taking the pilots out of the loop entirely.

Noonin, if your work conditions are that bad, maybe you should call the FAA about the breaches in the regs. Given the focus on pilot fatigue in recent memory, I'm sure they'd be happy to investigate your story.

Yes, the training is all done in a sim...how much do the sims cost to install, maintain, and schedule? How much does it cost to pay the pilots for the time they spend in training, the trainers, the computer programmers to write scenarios for the sim, etc?

You can claim the pilots are the smallest part of the ticket price, but what does every airline do when they are in financial trouble? Slash jobs, benefits, wages, and hours. They don't sell off planes. As soon as airlines have the capacity, they'll replace the guys up front with HAL.

[Danny Noonin]

Noonin..., did you really just make up a bunch of shit, do some second grade math with it, and use the result as the basis for your argument? LOL. C'mon man! I hope you're not doing your own taxes.

http://www.airlinefi...ine_summary.pdf

Make up shit?

Ok, let's do the actual math using my actual pay as an example: I make $109 on widebodies and I'm not even close to new. The airplane I fly seats 210 people. It typically runs at an 85% load factor, meaning it averages 178 paying passengers. That means for my salary, each passenger pays 61 cents per hour of flight. So for the 3 hour flight from Philly to Orlando, each person paid me $1.83 out of their $350 ticket. Is that second grade math enough for you, chachi?

What exactly were you trying to say with the financial numbers? That pilot salaries overall total up to be a lot? Ummm. Okay. Obviously depends on your persective I suppose. A lot compared to what? Compared to 61 cents per hour of safety observer up front? Compared to the lost revenue when people won't fly in the back of a UAV?

What about a lot compared to developing entire new classes of aircraft, buying entirely new fleets of airplanes, developing entirely new technologies to support the bandwith required to control thousands of passenger UAVs airborne at any given time? To developing automated air traffic control systems to link with your UAV control systems to deconflict traffic? The FAA won't even upgrade the piece of shit we have now. A lot compared to installing some sort of automatic guidance system on the ground of every airport in the world to allow automated precision taxiing, ramp deconfliction (ever flown out of JFK?), and parking at the gate? A lot compared to the electronic protection systems we'd have to develop to prevent someone from jamming the link and crashing the planes as an easy 9/11, part deaux? A lot compared to the insurance premiums airlines would have to pay to operate UAVs on top of the high-cost insurance they currently carry? Think of the first lawsuit after the first passenger UAV crash. Billions. So how exactly are pilot salaries expensive in the big scheme of things again?

So I ask you--in all seriousness--when folks go to book their flights on Travelocity to go see grandma for spring break, do you think they'll pick the $350 UAV ticket or the $351.83 ticket with Sully up front for when shit goes south?

I'm talking about AUTOMATING airlines, which is NOT turning them into giant UAVs. Computers would taxi, takeoff, fly, land, and taxi back. The airlines may keep one or two guys on shift to take over from the computers remotely, but I'm not talking about taking the pilots out of the cockpit and putting them in a ground station. I'm talking about taking the pilots out of the loop entirely.

How is that not a UAV? It may not be how we operate preds, but how is an aircraft without a pilot in it not a UAV? Semantics maybe.

Noonin, if your work conditions are that bad, maybe you should call the FAA about the breaches in the regs. Given the focus on pilot fatigue in recent memory, I'm sure they'd be happy to investigate your story.

What choo talkin' bout Willis?

Where did I ever say anything about pilot working conditions, fatigue or breaches in regs? What's to investigate?

[TreeA10]

So I ask you--in all seriousness--when folks go to book their flights on Travelocity to go see grandma for spring break, do you think they'll pick the $350 UAV ticket or the $351.83 ticket with Sully up front for when shit goes south?

They'll pick the UAV to save $1.83 and then complain that there was no one there to help them put their luggage in the overhead, the food was bad, the flight was delayed, they had to pay extra for checked luggage, the plane was dirty, and the in-flight entertainment system didn't work right.

When I see the move to more high tech computer controlled systems, i.e. the F-35 or commercial UAV applications, I keep thinking of Stuxnet. Saying "this can't be hacked" is an open challenge to the numerous Mountain Dew and Cheeto fueled basement dwelling morons to try.

[Danny Noonin]

You can claim the pilots are the smallest part of the ticket price, but what does every airline do when they are in financial trouble? Slash jobs, benefits, wages, and hours. They don't sell off planes.

Actually, they do sell planes when they can--generally the older, less fuel efficient ones. But when the economy is crappy, no one tends to be buying, so they park them in the desert then bring them out when/if they need them later on.

As for slashing jobs, benefits, wages, etc, of course they do. It's a cost somewhat within their control. They don't control fuel prices, the cost of parts, etc, so labor contracts are something they can change in bankruptcy or under the threat of furlough. This goes not just for pilot costs, but flight attendents, customer service reps, maintainers, management, etc. What's your point here?

[pawnman]

Actually, they do sell planes when they can--generally the older, less fuel efficient ones. But when the economy is crappy, no one tends to be buying, so they park them in the desert then bring them out when/if they need them later on. As for slashing jobs, benefits, wages, etc, of course they do. It's a cost somewhat within their control. They don't control fuel prices, the cost of parts, etc, so labor contracts are something they can change in bankruptcy or under the threat of furlough. This goes not just for pilot costs, but flight attendents, customer service reps, maintainers, management, etc. What's your point here?

You're making my point. Labor costs are something well within the airline's ability to control, and if they can make that cost zero, they will. You can't fly people around without fuel or jets, but in the not-too-distant future, you can do it without pilots. How many airlines have navs on-board? That's right, they eliminated that position as soon as technology made it possible to do so. To think that any other position on the plane is immune to advancing technology is naive at best. Hell, they'll probably replace the stewardesses with motorized drink carts or vending machines near the toilets, and replace the ticket agents with a kiosk (already in progress).

I'm not saying that there are no challenges to this technology, or that every airline will adopt it tomorrow. I'm saying that at some point, those challenges are going to be overcome, and it will be adopted.

[Guest]

Noonin..., did you really just make up a bunch of shit, do some second grade math with it, and use the result as the basis for your argument? LOL. C'mon man! I hope you're not doing your own taxes.

http://www.airlinefi...ine_summary.pdf

You can't just point to the vault and tell the student he's wrong and he can find all the right answers in there.

Looks like you want to do a little financial analysis. Great, let's do it. You threw the data out there, you start with what you think it means to you.

I threw a bar napkin $5/ticket number using the same math in my cranium Noonin is pointing out. Seems like we're both pretty close to one another.

I also argue people would be willing to pay ten times that much per ticket to have a pilot on board.

I don't think anyone is saying it will be tomorrow, but that time will come eventually. The reluctance of the public to accept the idea will be the easiest to overcome. Most kids born today will never be without a portable computer, the internet, and an increasing reliance on technology and automation. When you tell your grandkids you remember life before the Internet, you will blow their mind. Our frame of reference is vastly different than what our kids will have.

That goes both ways. I only retired a couple years ago and 69% of the guys around here think the things I did when I was new in the USAF are made up stories and bullshit.

My kids will prefer to have a pilot. Gawddammit!

There are still 50-60 year old people I fly today who tell me, "This is the first time I've ever been on an airplane" because they have always been reluctant to accept the idea that flying in a piloted aircraft was safe.

Wait, what?

Are you trying to say they'd be some sort of globe trotting jet setters if there had never been pilots in airplanes?

Their fear does not stem from pilots. It stems from being in a metal tube six miles above the earth going 800 feet per second.

The flying public has no idea what a "pilot's" qualifications are, they just know that there's a couple of them up front.

They don't need to know what the qualifications are because they trust the airline has screened and qualified those pilots.

Pilots are among the most trusted people on earth. If that trust is lost the airlines are fucked.

The threshold where we cross the point of a person "piloting" the aircraft or the aircraft flying fully automated with a glorified flight attendant present in the seat may be unknown to the public.

Dude, put down the bong.

You are a member of a union that will be sure to let them know.

As for FedEx, an old article from Wired:

I know you like Weird. What I hate to break to you is that people interviewed by that magazine speak to the audience.

Fred's comments to Weird are not going to match exactly what he says when he is interviewed by Rolling Stone or Bloomberg but they'll be closer to Rolling Stone than Bloomberg.

You choose which comments from any of those three interviews you want to believe are closest to what he really thinks.

[Danny Noonin]

but the business owner side of me can see it from a different perspective backed up with the numbers in the link you didn't bother to read. However, I can understand that you may be intimidated by the level of math required to compute them.

I read your link and I did the math, thank you. 5% for United. 7% for Delta. 6% for American. 9% for Southwest. What's your point? That labor costs money? That labor is a significant expense? Again, it's all relative.

You and pawn seem to suggest that by taking pilots out of the cockpit, it will result in enormous cost savings and would be worth it. What you apparently choose not to consider are the astronomical start up costs to develop the technology and infrastructure to support your plan. Those costs are unbelievable and are absolutely unaffordable from the government's end (air traffic control system revolution), the airline industry's end, and the manufacturers' end. Who is fronting the money for that? Boeing? Are they going to spend hoards of their own money to develop pilotless airplanes that someone may or may not even buy? And don't forget the lost revenue due to the mentality of the flying public who will stay at home or take Obama's high speed rail network instead of flying in the back of a UAV.

You saw what happened after 9/11 when 4 airplanes crashed out of thousands flown that day. Folks didn't fly for years because they were scared. Never mind the fact that the pilot's were packing 40 cal and wouldn't open up the door to hijackers ever again. The public was scared and proved it with their wallets. You are underestimating the power of fear.

How do you develop enough trust in your proposed technological revolution to get the public to accept that they are safe on board a pilotless airplane? Can the airlines afford to run half-full, money losing flights to prove the safety of those machines to build up the public trust? How long would that take? How much money would they lose in the process? What shareholders are going to let that happen?

What happens after the very first glitch that happens with a pilotless airplane? It doesn't have to be a crash. It just has to be something that went wrong that makes the nightly news. Folks will never get on board one again.

Edited March 30, 2012 by Danny Noonin

[Guest]

Noonin..., did you really just make up a bunch of shit, do some second grade math with it, and use the result as the basis for your argument? LOL.

So much bait, so little time. I can't just point to the facts?

All the other stuff? Standard line by line debate for debate's sake. You don't believe airlines will eventually become automated. Noted.

Copout. Noted.

[pawnman]

I read your link and I did the math, thank you. 5% for United. 7% for Delta. 6% for American. 9% for Southwest. What's your point? That labor costs money? That labor is a significant expense? Again, it's all relative.

You and pawn seem to suggest that by taking pilots out of the cockpit, it will result in enormous cost savings and would be worth it. What you apparently choose not to consider are the astronomical start up costs to develop the technology and infrastructure to support your plan. Those costs are unbelievable and are absolutely unaffordable from the government's end (air traffic control system revolution) or the airline industry's end (low margins, little cash to invest). Who is fronting the money for that? Boeing? Are they going to spend hoards of their own money to develop pilotless airplanes that someone may or may not even buy? And don't forget the lost revenue due to the mentality of the flying public who will stay at home or take Obama's high speed rail network instead of flying in the back of a UAV.

You saw what happened after 9/11 when 4 airplanes crashed out of thousands flown that day. Folks didn't fly for years because they were scared. Never mind the fact that the pilot's were packing .40 cal and wouldn't open up the door to hijackers ever again. The public was scared and proved it with their wallets. You are underestimating the power of fear.

How do you develop enough trust in your proposed technological revolution to get the public to accept that they are safe on board a pilotless airplane? Can the airlines afford to run half-full, money losing flights to prove the safety of those machines to build up the public trust? How long would that take? How much money would they lose in the process? What shareholders are going to let that happen?

What happens after the very first glitch that happens with a pilotless airplane? It doesn't have to be a crash. It just has to be something that went wrong that makes the nightly news. Folks will never get on board one again.

Because no one has ever gotten on board an airline with a human who wigged out. Like the JetBlue guy, or the guys who overflew Minneapolis. You are really underestimating the amount of faith that the younger generations have in technology.

You are also talking like it would take a whole redesign of an aircraft to enable this sort of thing. I think that it's going to take one, maybe two black boxes tied to the current autopilot systems.

[Danny Noonin]

You are also talking like it would take a whole redesign of an aircraft to enable this sort of thing. I think that it's going to take one, maybe two black boxes tied to the current autopilot systems.

What flips the switches in the cockpit? An inflatable dude like in Airplane?

You do know that there are physical switches up front, right? Switches that control generators, cabin temp, bleed air, etc. Do the black boxes have hands? Who shuts things off in an emergency? Who pulls the fire bottle when a motor is burning? You get the idea. It WOULD require a full redesign.

You have not thought this through.

Edited March 30, 2012 by Danny Noonin

[M2]

The future is now, gentlemen...

[HiFlyer]

By the way, while you may save some money by not having pilots to pay, you will have to replace them with a crew of flight qualified IT people to monitor the flights and make appropriate changes to flight plan routes (when you have to divert for weather or change altitude) or deal with little onboard equipment failures. Those will have to be highly trained and FAA certified, and will likely require average salaries equal to those of a cockpit crew. That will to some extent cut into any savings from a reduction in flight crews. Plus, we have numerous cases of lost, damaged, and destroyed UAVs (GHs, Preds, Reapers, etc) due to communications and equipment failure. Pilots almost always bring their aircraft back in those situations (I did on numerous occasions in the U-2 when the INS/autopilot or the Comm links failed)...unoccupied aircraft frequently don't have that luxury. Maybe for cargo airlift (FedEx) where you can bill the shipper for whatever it costs, but not for passenger service for a VERY long time!

Also, when we started the GH program in the 90s, one of the big things all the GH proponants were always preaching was the large personnel reduction from the U-2's manning numbers. When I was a U-2 location commander, they were telling me my 220-man unit could be reduced to half that size. Sorry...didn't happen. Sure, they could reduce my pilot and physiological support staffing to zero (saving 3 pilots and 5 PSD techs), but they then had to man the GH's control van (7 or 8 people with more or less the same rank structure) so the net savings was, you got it...ZERO! Also, the decision to base the aircraft at a coulple of central locations saved a little infrastructure money, but (using Guam to Korea as an example) to fly a U-2 for an 8 hour mission required 9 hours; to fly the same mission from Guam requires about 24 hours...8 to get there, 8 on station, and 8 to get back to Guam. So, even if you could contrive to say the flying hour cost was 15% less, you had to fly three times as many hours to do the mission. Not much O&S savings there!

By the way, I'm not saying the GH is not a useful capability, I'm only that saying you can't exchange it with the U-2 without serious mission compromises, and that "unmanned" is a totally misleading term for the GH as well as any "unoccupied" airframe. You will wind up with other types of expensive manpower requirements which will equal or exceed the cost of the pilots. I personally think we ought to keep some of both, at least until we develop what we really need...that which some of us called "Global Truck"; a long duration platform with sensors at least equal to the U-2's, and built so the sensors can be changed in a short time, not built into the structure of the aircraft so you can't replace and update them regularly. In the ISR business, the platform is only an elevator...the business is in the sensors!

[guineapigfury]

I think a "cost" we're overlooking here is the payout on the lawsuit/insurance when the first passenger UAV shits the bed and takes 200 people into the ground.