Pilotless Planes Could Save Airlines $35 Billion Per Year, But Passengers Aren't Willing To Fly In Them Yet (fortune.com) 313
An anonymous reader shares a report from Fortune: Autopilot is hardly a rarity in the world of commercial air travel. But when it comes to a fully automated flight, most people say "hard pass," at least for now. The pilotless plane could save airlines as much as $35 billion per year, according to a new survey from UBS, reducing the cost of highly skilled employees ($31 billion), related training ($3 billion), and fuel ($1 billion). The deployment of autonomous technology could result in significant fare cuts, an estimated one-tenth of the total in the U.S. And yet 54% of passengers refuse to board a remote-controlled plane, according to the survey of 8,000 air passengers. That sentiment will change over time, the investment bank notes. By the middle of the century, the majority may be willing. But UBS said passengers won't do it today, even if ticket prices were lower -- a big hurdle to airlines, which the bank estimates could see profits double by using the technology. Much like the automotive industry, most passengers don't realize that there are quite a few autonomous systems already in place on today's aircraft -- including those that land the plane.
Lower the price and they will come (Score:2)
I'd probably do it for the novelty of it, but for everyone else, lower the price. When they realize that they're paying more for an inferior product (or simply as a security blanket), they'll come to their senses.
Re: Lower the price and they will come (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the point. Why should it mean increased profit for airlines rather than lower prices for passengers?
I'd have thought the first step would be to relieve the need for a copilot?
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"This is the point. Why should it mean increased profit for airlines rather than lower prices for passengers?"
Why not both? Without having to pay pilots, hey could lower the prices for passengers and still make a profit. Might need to spend a bit more on the insurance but that's the breaks.
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There are people that consistently fly the cheapest airlines, despite there being other options because they can't afford anything else. Flying for work was an eye opening experience into how the 'other half' lives.
Start up a pilotless airline that flies some core routes and consumers will beat a path to your door. And while you're at it hire some industrial engineers to improve loading and unloading times.
Re:Lower the price and they will come (Score:5, Insightful)
Lower the prices, then slowly raise them back up again while dropping the option for tickets on human piloted planes.
Re:Lower the price and they will come (Score:5, Interesting)
If you got rid of the pilot and co pilot, you would barely see a blip in your ticket price.
Let's do the math.
2 pilots @ $200k each == $400k
Training etc for those pilots @ $200k each == $400k
1 trip per day assuming 3 weeks vacation a year: 5 * (52 - 3) == 245
Cost of pilot per trip: $800k / 245 == $3.27k
There are approximately 200 seats on a 737, so that's $3.27k / 200 == $16 per ticket potential savings
Now for an airline, that might make sense on a large scale because they'll reap millions a year in savings, but for consumers it's barely a blip on the radar.
These are with conservative estimates. The salary I took was the highest in the range on glassdoor, I'm assuming all their fancy simulator time doubles their salaries, and most pilots fly short haul flights so they rack up multiple flights a day. Wikipedia confirms the number of seats for a 737, but of course if you have a cabin of first class passengers there are less seats, but still it wouldn't matter.
Additionally, insurance companies will likely charge increased premiums for a pilotless craft, so at the end of day the savings will be considerably less.
The only time you would conceivably see a savings big enough to care would be with a transcontinental flight where you might have four or more pilots (because they sleep in shifts and rotate out). But, compared to the ticket price, I suspect the savings will be marginal.
I suspect there would also be additional overhead as pilots have other functions than flying. For instance, determining if a reroute is necessary or if a passenger is fit to fly.
Additional training and delegation of these duties would most likely raise the cost of other crew.
So, in the end, this is a non issue. Until AI auto pilot comes in a cheap as in uber quad copter that will taxi you where you want on demand, we won't see AI in the sky
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.glassdoor.com/Sala... [glassdoor.com]
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I mentioned I was overestimating. The point is if, given very aggressive projections, there's still not a large move to the ticket price, getting rid of pilots doesn't help consumers at all
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Your estimate of pilot's salaries is way high, I think. Many of the smaller regional jets have pilots that earn 20-40K$/year, but those planes have something like 50 passengers. The ones earning the big bucks are a dying breed. You als need to account for the various benefits of course.
Few airline pilots will be earning US$200,000 p/a, but you've got to add in externalities, taxes, duties, support staff, overtime/expenses. Sure this wont add up to US$200K but that's also the point the GP was trying to make, even at a vastly over-inflated cost, getting rid of the pilots will not make air travel any cheaper or cost effective.
I think it's a good thing that planes have such capable safety systems, but knowing how these systems work I wouldn't want to fly in a pilotless plane. An Airbus con
Re: Lower the price and they will come (Score:5, Informative)
Welcome to modern aviation, where Dairy Queen is a better paying job until you have a decade of seniority at your current employer. New rules that went into effect after the Colgan 3407 crash mandate that airline first officers (co-pilots) must have a minimum of 1500 flight hours to be hired. That's 6 times the pre-2013 minimum of 250 hours, and the limit was imposed overnight. Those 1500 flight hours have to be earned somewhere.
The general career path for someone wanting to fly for a major airline is PPL (private pilot), a few years working as a CFI (flight instructor) to build time, getting a CPL (commercial pilot) license, flying commuter / cargo to get to 1500 hours, getting hired at a regional as a first officer, upgrading to captain, getting hired at a major airline as a first officer, upgrading to captain. That journey can take 15-20 years (there is no "pilot shortage" any more than there's a shortage of American IT workers), and you won't be earning very much along the way.
Pilots are desperate to get to 1500 hours so they can apply for a position at a regional airline and get their career ladder started. Commuter carriers know this and take full advantage of pilots. There are operations out there where you actually pay the company for a job in the cockpit.
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You're right, the pay is shit. Just less than five years ago, you could break into the regional airlines making the kingly sum of $14,000/year.
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Now for an airline, that might make sense on a large scale because they'll reap millions a year in savings, but for consumers it's barely a blip on the radar.
The article isn't talking about consumers.
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If you got rid of the pilot and co pilot, you would barely see a blip in your ticket price.
Let's do the math.
2 pilots @ $200k each == $400k
Training etc for those pilots @ $200k each == $400k
1 trip per day assuming 3 weeks vacation a year: 5 * (52 - 3) == 245
Cost of pilot per trip: $800k / 245 == $3.27k
There are approximately 200 seats on a 737, so that's $3.27k / 200 == $16 per ticket potential savings
Now for an airline, that might make sense on a large scale because they'll reap millions a year in savings, but for consumers it's barely a blip on the radar.
These are with conservative estimates. The salary I took was the highest in the range on glassdoor, I'm assuming all their fancy simulator time doubles their salaries, and most pilots fly short haul flights so they rack up multiple flights a day. Wikipedia confirms the number of seats for a 737, but of course if you have a cabin of first class passengers there are less seats, but still it wouldn't matter.
Additionally, insurance companies will likely charge increased premiums for a pilotless craft, so at the end of day the savings will be considerably less.
The only time you would conceivably see a savings big enough to care would be with a transcontinental flight where you might have four or more pilots (because they sleep in shifts and rotate out). But, compared to the ticket price, I suspect the savings will be marginal.
I suspect there would also be additional overhead as pilots have other functions than flying. For instance, determining if a reroute is necessary or if a passenger is fit to fly.
Additional training and delegation of these duties would most likely raise the cost of other crew.
So, in the end, this is a non issue. Until AI auto pilot comes in a cheap as in uber quad copter that will taxi you where you want on demand, we won't see AI in the sky
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.glassdoor.com/Sala... [glassdoor.com]
Small costs add up
The argument that it only saves $x can be said of every other cost saving measure but taken together they amount to quite a bit of money.
There are about 10 million flights per year in the US. Save $3.27k per flight and that is $32.7 Billion. That's real money and pretty close to what the article suggests.
Rerouting is not a difficult task for a computer, or a person on the ground to deal with. Other members of the flight crew are quite able to determine if a passenger is fit to fly, assu
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What if Kimmie J. U. hacks into bunches of them and we all fall down one day?
We already have that risk with fly-by-wire planes. Proper design can mitigate. You don't allow any remotely loaded instruction to tell a plane to fly into a mountain.
The regular control interface is higher-level than direct control of thrust and flaps.
Perhaps it's like nuclear power: statistically safer over the long-run than most alternatives, but the results of problems are high profile and have an emotional twist to them.
It is already like nuclear. Safer per km than car travel, but people fear it more because worst case is very bad.
But auto-pilot will not make the worst case any worse.
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Forget programming mistakes... What about unplanned faults or bad preflight data gets fed into it? If the automation hasn't been designed to deal with some specific issue or has bad data that happens what does the automation do? Who knows, but crashing becomes a much bigger risk in these cases.
Remember, automation only knows how to deal with the stuff that was planned for... If anything else happens, it's more likely to do the wrong thing than the right thing.
bad airplane sensors can kill (Score:2)
bad airplane sensors can kill also they can ice over and fuck up mid flight as well.
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All of these problems can be tested in a simulator. A computer will behave the same with a real error as it did with a simulated error. A human will not, because the human will be expecting errors in the simulator, since testing for emergencies is one of the main purposes of simulation training, but many be bored, drowsy, distracted, stressed, or confused when a real fault occurs four hours into an otherwise routine flight.
Re:bad airplane sensors can kill (Score:4, Informative)
I fly the airbus A320. The plane was developed 30 years ago and they are still finding software bugs in it. Every now and then some combination of conditions happens that nobody planned for and it's up to the pilots to fix it. Without pilots, the number of crashes would have been astronomical. Computers fail all the time.
Re:bad airplane sensors can kill (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's what I think people don't yet grasp with automating passenger-carrying aircraft. How many times has a circuit breaker popped and you couldn't reset a system? I've flown autopilots that were so sensitive that just the suggestion of turbulence was enough for them to transfer control to the human. Others could fly through Class 5 whitewater. Systems fail. Regularly. Systems fail in ways not predicted by manufacturers. I'd love to know if a computer could have landed a DC-10 in Sioux City, IA without knowing (or expecting) the failure that occurred in that accident. What does a computer do when there's a complete hydraulic failure in an aircraft that "will never have a complete hydraulic failure"? The big question is, how do you program a computer to handle a nearly infinite number of contingencies? I know AI will be the answer, but even AI must learn. If it hasn't seen a problem before, do you want it learning something new with 300 meat missiles in the back?
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You know what's wrong with that statistic? Not that it's not true, but that it is misleading. In commercial aviation, crashes are vanishingly rare events. You are more likely to die on the way to the airport by a couple orders of magnitude than in a airplane accident. Pilots are SAFE, really really safe.
What statistic you need to make any reasonable comparison here is how many times pilots have "taken over" from the automation to avoid a crash and compare that to how many times pilots have "taken over"
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I take it you're not a pilot. My QRH is used so much it is falling apart.
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I imagine such systems would first be tested on cargo flights where there's no passengers to get killed. Sure, bugs happen, but humans are not perfect either. The system could get as reliable as a human, if not more so simply by experience building such systems over time and regression testing with prior rough-areas on simulators.
Thus, bugs may cause one-off problems every now and then, but hacking could crash thousands of planes at once because it could be triggered all once, before there's time to study
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"Most aircraft accidents are human error, so relative risk is likely lower."
That assumes that autopilot is at least as good as a human pilot in every situation.
What the concern many have is what happens when the autopilot fails? It's just absurd to think that such a complex program will never meet a real world situation it wasn't designed for. Or suffer damage to itself. Or have erroneous sensors. Or be hacked.
"The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake
Fleshy backup system (Score:4, Insightful)
Technology can and does fail, due to bugs or intrusion. I want a human as a backup. Backup systems are usually a good thing, especially when you are thousands of feet high.
Re:Fleshy backup system (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. I'm well aware that most modern flight is highly automated. But knowing there's a human in the pilot's seat to take care of anything unforeseen is incredibly important.
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I'm torn. The fleshy backup is great, but it also often messes things up. I am curious if the backup actually prevents more crashes than the number it causes.
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Re:Fleshy backup system (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side, most air accidents are due to human error these days. Often it's due to not following procedure or poor communication making the pilots get confused and take the wrong action. So having a backup human might actually make things worse, when they get confused and take over unnecessarily.
there is pilot error after automation fails (Score:2)
there is pilot error cases that happen after automation fails and they are that use to more Manual flight.
look at Asiana Airlines Flight 214 Over-reliance on automation and lack of systems understanding by the pilots were cited as major factors contributing to the accident
Air France Flight 447 the Pitot tubes filed and that killed automation
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However, if you do have a heavily automated system that fails, how much capacity to save the situation does the pilot have? I can imagine that in a lot of scenarios if things are so unbelievably borked that the automated system can't do anything, the pilot isn't going to have much more luck.
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Before Fly-by-Wire, the pilots could exert tremendous control, averting a few disasters. Putting AI through simulators doesn't enthrall me, because situations can be highly dynamic, second to second, and I don't believe they'll invest the computing power to simulate critical decisions that can execute successfully within a short time frame.
Although humans are hackable, they're less reliably hackable than firmware. One ugly logic step in a human can be successfully overridden by a copilot. But unless their a
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even with Fly by wire when stuff like the Pitot tubes filed and the system goes to alt law a real pilot can still fly but an fully automation system may have no idea on where it is. Also a real pilot can try to make the crash lading as safe as they can.
Think crashing land on lake shore drive (that really happened) is a lot better then maybe going wild and maybe hitting the sears tower (the new name sucks) or some other building.
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For a while, I wondered if it was real flesh-and-blood pilots, defending their own gigs, but when you watch a movie like Sulley, the thought of an AI landing in the East River or Hudson doesn't seem like the sort of mission that would turn out the same way.
A long time from now, yes. Not this decade, perhaps not this century. For every entrepreneurial engineer, there is a bored 17 year old kid with a lot of guts and bad judgment.
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AI could have more rapidly assessed the situation and made the optimal choice more quickly, possibly in time to land at an airport. The process of people thinking at slow speed, communicating with ATC at slow speed with low clarity and finally making decisions was part of the problem with that flight. Computers in the plane detecting the emergency, responding at high speed and simultaneously sending complete status to ATC that can instantly start rerouting other traffic and instantly figuring out the best
Re:Fleshy backup system dengerous (Score:2)
A major source of accidents is the half smart semi-automation currently used on large aircraft. A classic is Autothrottle which cause the Air Asia crash, plus another in India resulting in total loss a few years ago.
On a small plane (like I fly) you control the throttle manually, making small adjustments to maintain the desired airspeed, and keeping ones "head out of the cockpit" to look were we are going and judge the angle.
With autothrottle, the pilot tells the computer the desired speed, and the compute
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Individual pilots are indeed responsible for accidents, there is no doubt of this. Whether fatal stupidity or a suicidal nature, human error is a problem. You can add low pay and long hours, and a lot of other excuses.
And I've been flights where only pilot brilliance means I'm alive. Without going anecdotal, I'll trust humans more than machines. Humans are still in charge, not a coder fighting a simulator for score points. I can't trust an ATM, why should I trust a 100% autopilot?
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Trusting things that are like us is a human flaw.
Partly why people are so easy to scam, we trust other humans because they look and talk like us.
Relative safety is something that can be analyzed, trust is not required.
Pilot's don't need brilliance, they need to respond precisely as they've been trained to respond. They don't teach brilliance in the simulator or in flight training, for good reason. Brilliant pilots are probably a greater menace to passengers because they are convinced they are brilliant pi
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Sorry, when I hear the phrase "major cause" I do not expect to hear things like one here and another there.
I don't know how many flights there are every day but there must be tens of thousands at least. Some percentage of those must have technical hitches that are corrected by the human crew. For example, I imagine the autopilot must occasionally disengage for some minor glitch and is either re-engaged by the humans or the humans then fly the plane.
With no human pilot on board, minor incidents like that wou
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Most technical failures do not result in loss of flight controls even on fly-by-wire aircraft.
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Military drones are flown by human pilots. They are just not sitting in the cockpit.
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Mostly because the pilots insisted on only pilots flying the drones.
Not because of the inability of drones to be flown by non-pilots with equal success.
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I knew airliners had inflatable escape ramps, but I didn't know they had escape goats too.
LOL fare cuts (Score:3, Informative)
We all know the airlines will use this technology to replace the pilots, but they'll keep the fares the same, sell a few more seats in the cockpit, and then kill your dog just for laughs.
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Exactly. Airlines are the same people who've put forth ideas like having everyone stand on the flight so they can pack in more people and weighing you and charging extra per pound. Their creative ability to invent new fees while forcing you to sit in a chair slightly smaller than a McDonald's napkin is legendary.
Anybody who believes they'll reduce their fares for any reason is a naive child.
The flip side of this... (Score:2)
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What is the cost of a crash? (Score:5, Insightful)
The cost of one crash where they were judged negligent could bankrupt just about any airline, so there is more to this than the cost of salaries.
Let me quote one incident (Score:4, Insightful)
Qantas Flight 32 [wikipedia.org].
Autopilot is great when everything goes smoothly. But the moment things go pear shaped, it's not so good. Qantas actually ran the incident in their simulators after the event; pretty much everybody who tried to complete it ended up with a hull loss (aka: the plane crashed.) It was pure luck that they had one of their most experienced flight crew on board, who managed to land the craft with no loss of life.
That's the reason why I'm not comfortable with fully automated (no human pilot on board) flights. Yes, flights these days are mostly automated. But the pilots are trained to the Nth degree to handle matters when things go wrong, and that's why they're paid the big bucks. It's not like trains or automobiles, where if something goes wrong, you can just pull over and get out of the vehicle, after all...
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Gotta say, that's a pretty convincing argument. This article puts some flesh on that story:
http://lifehacker.com/the-power-of-mental-models-how-flight-32-avoided-disas-1765022753 [lifehacker.com]
Hard to imagine that plane being landed safely by autopilot or remote control.
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It was pure luck that they had one of their most experienced flight crew on board, who managed to land the craft with no loss of life.
So put all those process into the script and suddenly every flight now has that same chances, not just one.
I agree a human should be around just in case, but don't think that machines can't be taught to know as much as humans.
Pilotless planes wouldn't keep me from flying (Score:2)
I have exactly zero problem with the idea.
What keeps me from flying is my unwillingness to put up with the TSA.
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I just solved that by inventing the Grope-A-Matic.
Never goning to happen. (Score:5, Interesting)
But they WILL get rid of the co-pilot. Aircraft are all about the back up systems, and the human pilot is a good one. That's why they have the co-pilot now. They won't get rid of all people in the cockpit.
Instead they will have one pilot as an emergency back up, with the computer doing the flying 90% of the time.
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Instead they will have one pilot as an emergency back up, with the computer doing the flying 90% of the time.
Pilots are humans. Humans have medical issues at unpredictable times. What do you do for your 10% of times that the computer is not capable of doing the flying when the pilot has a medical issue?
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We've already seen loss of the crew positions of engineer and navigator. It used to take four people to fly a large passenger plane. First to happen was the combination of engineer and navigator as engines became more reliable and automated. When computers took over much of the navigation then the deck crew shrunk again to two.
If there are people on board then people will want to see a person in charge. FAA rules require so many crew members to assist evacuation in the event of a crash. I can't imagine
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Never is a long time.
Not going to make flying cheaper (Score:2)
31 billion divided by how many airlines? I think the quotient is going to be less than the amount of money an airline would fritter away on stupidity, and that's before talking about who would actually be the beneficiaries of that savings.
Autonomous systems, not always that great (Score:2)
...there are quite a few autonomous systems already in place on today's aircraft -- including those that land the plane.
After a recent hard landing that made quite a few people inhale loudly–– If it was an autonomous system that was responsible for that landing I'll happy keep paying to have an experienced human land the plane I'm flying in.
And if that was a human, well, he or she needs more time in the simulator.
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These days, commercial airline pilots have to conduct a minimum number of *manual* landings a year to keep certification - most commercial airline flying is done under one form of automation or another.
You have systems that automatically line you up on the runway, take off, deal with engine out scenarios on take off, fly your entire route from A to B with automated routing updates from ATC on the way, automatically enter the holding pattern at the other end, automatically land, and automatically brake to be
there is a lot of stuff that an auto pilot can't d (Score:2)
there is a lot of stuff that an auto pilot can't do.
How well will a remote command center work with satellite ping times? + the time needed to get a hand on the issue.
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Think less remote-control and more autonomous. It will happen in stages-- first things to reduce the cockpit workload for the pilot and co-pilot, next elimination of the co-pilot, next elimination of the reserve pilot on long flights, and ultimately making the purser the human backup.
Water Landings? (Score:4, Insightful)
When a plane can land on the Hudson River without a pilot and without a loss of life, I'll be the first to buy a ticket.
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When a plane can land on the Hudson River without a pilot and without a loss of life, I'll be the first to buy a ticket.
An auto-pilot could probably do that. Making the decision to do so and that it would the best course of action is another matter. Remember, they're talking about "auto-pilots" not "ai-pilots".
Re:Water Landings? (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to mitigate the risk of an extremely rare type of accident that a machine might not be able to handle, by increasing the risk of more common accidents caused by human error.
You are much more likely to be killed by the pilot than saved by them.
The computer would not have crashed at all (Score:2)
Almost correct.
The computer would have seen the geese, and not hit them in the first place. The weather was clear, and a large flock of geese is easy to see in plenty of time to avoid. Computer vision is good enough to detect an object like that, with two cameras maybe on the wing tips the geese would stand out very clearly using basic stereo vision.
Having hit the geese, Sullenberger quickly realized that he had lost both engines close to the ground. But he then pissed about for a full 30 seconds before
AI cannot follow tower instructions (Score:2)
I'm a native English speaker and I can't understand a damn word in most Youtube aviation videos. Seriously, go watch one with radio chatter and see if you can make out what they're saying. It's like listening to Greek.
So unless they make the control tower AI also, or have the air traffic controllers issue computer-friendly text instructions, there is no way a computer will be able to fly all by itself.
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What if the auto-plane needs to land at an airport that doesn't have the equipment or training? See my point?
Re:AI cannot follow tower instructions (Score:5, Insightful)
ATC and the tower will be automated too.
We got rid of lighthouse keepers long ago, if there had been an internet back then I'm sure we would have heard plenty of people telling how it would be a terrible idea to replace humans with automated lighthouses.
We humans like to think we are really exceptional thinkers who couldn't possibly be replaced by a machine. We're mostly wrong. Heck, even human trolls were mostly replaced by bots during the last election.
How many will we kill with such foolsihness? (Score:4, Insightful)
Automation in the cockpit is great, except when something happens that wasn't expected, then, not having a pilot who has experience and skill is a death sentence. In fact, some would argue that we have already automated too much of the work pilots are doing, leaving them with few chances to actually practice their flying skills, increasing the danger should something unexpected actually happen.
How many times will we blithely assume that we can just automate complex tasks like flying passengers around? In the grand scheme of things labor costs of pilots is literally a drop in the bucket compared to fuel, logistics and maintenance. Are we going to do away with the cabin crew and their salary costs too? I mean they are only there to pass out peanuts and drinks (or the odd overpriced meal) to passengers. Why are THEY there? Oh wait, you say they have a safety component to their job? You don't say, and Pilots don't?
Personally, give me two happy pilots, well paid, well rested and well practiced who have actual flying skills sitting up front. I feel safer having to people who are likely going to be the first to die if we crash. I suspect they will put their best effort into saving us, given the situation.
Like my father, who worked for United Airlines for more than three decades said... "Pilots don't get paid for what they do, they get paid for what they can do when necessary." Stop trying to be cheap and pay up...
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Human error is a risk, yes, but it can be managed. I want pilots up front for a reason. Take a look at UAL 232 that crashed in Souix City Iowa on July 19, 1989 after an uncontained engine failure at cruse that severed all the hydraulics systems. Three pilots crash LANDED a DC-10 without the benefit of any controls except throttles saving 185 people. Those people should have died by all accounts, but the skill of the pilots and a bit of luck saved them.
Then there was the recent double bird strike that lea
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How many are killed without such foolishness?
Flying has become so safe that pilot suicide is one of the major causes of major crashes. The other is pilot gross stupidity, often related to the use of partial automation with Auto throttle.
Luggage and cargo (Score:4, Insightful)
This could probably easily be done for FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc. Also, check your bags and they get put onto an auto-cargo jet while you get on a luxury cruiser with a pilot who parties with you. I'm into the future if this it.
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Absolutely, I much prefer humans to turn the planes into lawn darts.
New commercial pilots do cargo. Experienced pilots do passenger long-haul. When the AI outperforms the newbies, I'd reckon it's fair game. Given that we've been doing autonomous flights w/carrier landings [youtube.com] and mid-air refueling [youtube.com] I'd say we're probably there.
They will come around! (Score:2)
HALF PRICE TICKETS because *mumble mumble autonomous mumble mumble*
If you would just sign this stack of releases and waivers, we can go ahead and *send* this plane off the ground.
54% refuse to board? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then 54% are ignorant about the operations of a modern commercial airliner.
The onboard computer systems already control the mechanical operation of the flaps, the rudder, ailerons, the stabalizers, the landing gear, the ventilation, hell, pretty much everything. A pilot's primary responsibility is managing and executing the decision-making. Yes, they can take manual control, but why, when the computer is much faster, more accurate, and more efficient? Just watch this video and hear a commercial pilot talk about how autopilot alone works [youtube.com]. All the pilot does is input all the data into the autopilot, setting the course heading, the speed, and the altitude, and autopilot does the rest.
Pilot operations of commercial aircraft are very procedural, and it can very easily be converted into an algorithm managed by a computer. At the very least, it would not surprise me if, in the next 20 years, the FAA determines it's safe for computer automation to reduce the number of required pilots in an airplane from two to one.
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In 2011, LOT Polish Airlines Flight 16 managed to belly flop onto the runaway without landing gears after repeated attempts were made to extend the faulty landing gears. A big part of the lack of major injuries was in the pilot's skill of handling the aircraft and adapting to the unexpected circumstances. It is likely that one day we'll have remote controlled planes or self-flying planes that can adapt to the unexpected better than a human being, but I'm very skeptical that can occur in my lifetime. Investo
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Then 54% are ignorant about the operations of a modern commercial airliner.
I suppose the other 46% of airline passengers are aerospace engineers? Who knows anything about technical operation of commercial airliners?
The onboard computer systems already control the mechanical operation of the flaps, the rudder, ailerons, the stabalizers, the landing gear, the ventilation, hell, pretty much everything. A pilot's primary responsibility is managing and executing the decision-making. Yes, they can take manual control, but why, when the computer is much faster, more accurate, and more efficient?
Full automation has a very long tail. It's on a relative basis easy to get it right most of the time. The challenge is getting it right all the time. Few have the requisite knowledge and experience to even reason about what that might entail.
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Then 54% are ignorant about the operations of a modern commercial airliner.
Not really. On any ordinary day I expect the plane can take off, follow the flight path and land without any problems. It's the extraordinary days I worry about.
A pilot's primary responsibility is managing and executing the decision-making.
Which is why there's three big issues I see:
1. Loss of propulsion
2. Loss of communication
3. Loss of navigation
If the plane is losing power, how does it try to make an emergency landing? If it can't contact the tower, what will it do? If it doesn't know where it is, how does it locate a landing site? The first one is real hard, you must know a lot mo
i want a pilot who is afraid to die (Score:2)
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50% of people aren't stupid, apparently (Score:2)
Much like the automotive industry, most passengers don't realize that there are quite a few autonomous systems already in place on today's aircraft -- including those that land the plane.
Yes, but: They're not perfect, and that's why you need skilled, experienced pilots in the cockpit, ready to take over when something goes wrong. Do any of you think, for instance, that any autopilot system on any aircraft could have done what Chesley Sullenberger did? Or would it just fall apart, and maybe everyone on that plane (and many on the ground) would have died that day? That's why we need human pilots -- and human drivers. Until we have human-level or better 'AI', n
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I'm with you on planes, not so much on cars. With a car 'just stop here' is almost always a safe failure mode, and a significant percentage of the drivers out there are complete morons who have no business walking around unaided, let alone piloting a full ton of fiberglass and sheet metal.
I'm of the opinion we would do MUCH better with driverless cars because so many drivers are so damn bad that even with the inevitable failures of the AI, we'd kill far less people on the roads than we do now.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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If saving money is the goal... Here is an idea... (Score:2)
Why not just leave the fuel on the ground too? That will save a bundle!
We could dump seat belts, that seat back flotation device, emergency exits, fire extinguishers, evacuation slides and heck the seats too. All those things cost money. Who needs to maintain aircraft anyway? Do away with the mechanics and toss out all those spare parts in the inventory... Yea, that's the ticket.... Oh wait.. Tickets, we can do away with those too.... Selling those and collecting the money costs money you know...
One of my favorite TV programs is "Air Disasters". (Score:2)
Something seems off... (Score:2)
$35B/year - and this: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai... [cbsnews.com] says there are just under 1B air passengers per year - saying that the pilot is costing each and every passenger ~$30 in salary, $3 in training and $1 in additional fuel costs - per trip.
Sorry, that just isn't happening, especially on SouthWest and the other small jets.
Next career (Score:2)
Pilot and Dog (Score:5, Funny)
Earl Wiener, 55, a University of Miami professor of management science, telling the Airline Pilots Association (in jest) about 21st century aircraft:
"The crew will consist of one pilot and a dog. The pilot will nurture and feed the dog. the dog will be there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.
-- Fortune, Sept. 26, 1988
Wanna Bet? (Score:2)
I bet if I could buy a bunch of autopiloted jumbo jets and I offered flights at less than half what my competitors charged I could fill them up. A lot of people wouldn't buy but enough would. Eventually it'd take over the skies.
Data is not there (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone that works in the area of providing data for air navigation I can unreservedly say that the data to support completely automated flight from off-blocks to on-blocks, is simply not there yet. Aviation is chock full or rules, exceptions, regulations, grey areas, short term changes, and unexpected events; all currently best dealt with using a Mk 1 Brain (two in most cases). Not to say it couldn't happen for a good chunk of regular passenger/freight transport between major, 1st world, domestic centres in the fullness of time. Aviation change moves on timescales of a decade or more, not months.
Ultimately though, it is naive in the extreme to think you are going to save billions by not hiring pilots. All that experience has to get into aircraft and ground systems to make this work. That will not be happening as a matter of charity. What you save in pilots you lose in equipment costs, airway navigation and landing charges.
35 Billion? Get your waders on (Score:2)
Speak for yourself headline writer (Score:2)
I am VERY willing to fly in a pilotless plane. Even if it cost more I'd prefer it... less chance of mistake or takeover.
But I'm willing to go a step beyond - I'm willing to even fly in a PASSENGERLESS plane. Get rid of all the other passengers and I'll happily board. just say when.
80% of commercial airline crashes, human error (Score:3)
That's according to Boeing.
Flying high speed aircraft with meatbags behind the controls will someday disappear.
Anyone want to know how SpaceX controls their very high speed rockets? Answer, entirely with computers. People are too slow, make too many mistakes and are best suited for sitting back in their seats and letting the software run the ship.
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. You would not need the hub system, flights would be arranged based on need.
This would be an amazing improvement to air travel. Pick your dates, pick the airports you're willing to fly out of and let an algorithm determine where flights are needed and where they can serve the most people.
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