Unmanned & Automated Aircraft: Are We Getting Too Smart for Our Own Good?
By Scott Spangler on November 28th, 2011According to the The Daily Planet, the blog of Air & Space Smithsonian, in November troops in Afghanistan will likely be resupplied by the K-Max, an automated cargo helicopter. The video is from a test earlier this year where the unmanned helo exceeded the Navy’s requirement to carry at least 6,000 pounds of cargo per day for five days. Over that period, the K-Max delivered 33,400 pounds of cargo to different locations on a single flight, and nearly 3,500 pounds on one mission.
Not the Navy’s only unmanned aircraft project, its carrier-based stealth UAV, the X-47B, made its first flight earlier this year. I think most will agree that flying a helicopter, especially in squirrely mountain winds, and carrier ops are two of aviation’s more difficult challenges.
So what future do you see for more prosaic forms of flight now that machines are taking over from humans in military operations? And before you dismiss the question, consider this headline in the November 27 Los Angeles Times: Idea of Civilians Using Drone Aircraft May Soon Fly with FAA.
A more pressing question should be, even though we can do this, should we? Have we gotten too smart for our own good? On one hand, the technology and its capabilities are really cool. But what are the consequences, and have we considered them, especially for civilian applications? If history offers us a clue, the answer is clearly a nope.
Since the Industrial Revolutionmachines have replaced an ever increasing spectrum of human effort. This isn’t a bad thing in all circumstances. On the good side it can protect humans from dangerous or boring occupations; on the not so good side, it unemploys people. And with no way to make a living, good or otherwise, people replaced by machines cannot afford the goods and services machines make more quickly and economically.
In aviation this means that one day in the not too distant future pilots will be minimum wage earners who fly a computer screen in a cubicle at some repurposed suburban strip mall. And like their neighbors, they will not be able to partake of the flying bus services they provide to others who earn more than their minimum wage. If you doubt this, project the trend of pilot pay over the last two decades.
And it will come to pass, unless all the humans involved, especially those with power to make decisions, consider more than their own narrowly focused bottom-line and bonus needs and zoom out to see the consequences of their desires. That might happen, but given the history of human nature, any one of us has a better chance of buying a winning Powerball lottery ticket whose prize is some obscene amount.
If you doubt this, may I recommend The War Prayer, a powerful and eloquent essay on human nature by Mark Twain. To summarize, a messenger from God confronts a Sunday congregation with the “full import” of their prayer for victory in some unspecified conflict. Winners cannot exist without losers. A blessing for one is a curse for another.
“When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results that must follow it,”says the messenger. After giving graphic voice to the unspoken consequences for victory, God’s messenger beseeches the congregation, “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High awaits.”
Twain’s final sentence is, perhaps, the most succinct and often used rationalization to support self-serving self-interest: “It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.” These are words worth contemplating before making any decision that carries us all, winners and losers, into the future. –Scott Spangler
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November 29th, 2011 at 1:32 am
“on the not so good side, it unemploys people. And with no way to make a living, good or otherwise, people replaced by machines cannot afford the goods and services machines make more quickly and economically.”
Progress since the industrial revolution has been built upon the fact that when it takes fewer people to make one product, the people that used to make it, can move on to the next. Eventually that also will be automated and commoditized and so the cycle continues.
This has generally been A Good Thing. If it was decided that letting machines make pin-heads was a step too far, we’d still all be walking to work and taking our goods to market in horse and cart.
Unfortunately, taking this to its ending on the road we are on will be capitalism’s downfall.
After computers take over flying airliners, there will be so many more things that require humans to do, many of which could make our lives so much better.
And there always will continue to be so many things we could do.
But they won’t be done unless something is changed about all the wealth being tied up in a small amount of people and corporations, unwilling to take risky investments on the next big thing.
Automation is a good thing, it always is, unless we forget to move the people that used to do those jobs on to building the next technological revolution.
I for one could do with a national hydrogen power infrastructure.
November 29th, 2011 at 4:06 am
Helicopter forward air support – ammo inbound, sick and hurt outbound. Great concept, what a lot of whirling junk to have land on your tent though.
A brave move but I think I would dig my scrape a little deeper when I heard the rotors slapping in the distance. A least my mates would take their accident and have it in a safe zone… if they could.
Joking apart… of course its coming.
November 29th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
1953, Univ. of Illinois: the entire USAF sophomore ROTC class was washed out by a medic who was taken off flying status because he couldn’t vent gas from his bowels fast enough. He resented the loss of flight pay. At that time, the USAF was not offering commissions to non-flying types.
Big investment in training down the drain. Quite possible that some of those flushed had superior judgement, hand/eye coordination and reflexes despite their inferior sinus structures.
While I’m sure that most of the USAF General officers came from the pilot corps, I suspect that few are ready to pull the Gs needed for aerial combat.
Can you imagine how much better the F-16 would be at air superiority if it didn’t need such baggage as the ejection seat, oxygen system, HUD and other such paraphernalia to support an on-board pilot.
If the members of the military flying corps are insisting on their welfare payments as opposed to executing their mission, we need to change a lot of job descriptions.
November 29th, 2011 at 3:33 pm
You misquoted the Navy and the “Air & Space” article: The first paragraph should say: “…The system carried a total of 33,400 pounds of cargo during the assessment period, with nearly 3,500 pounds delivered in a single mission.”
November 29th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
How many stagecoach drivers are still employed?
November 29th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I would NEVER fly on ANY airline with such A DISGUSTING VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE- THAT WE ARE SIMPOLY THERE TO TAKE A PROFIT FROM BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO EMPLOY.
November 29th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Do you fellows watch youTube?
Old QH-50 was doing unmanned combat missions -50 years ago. So the Navy killed it and the innovation it brought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ohyFhxOiY
So today, we have $ 55 Million dollar-Manned Helicopters crashing at Sea, creating 6 widows everytime it does. Why?
I don’t see Pilots volunteering for Suicide missions like this bird over Vietnam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMSOhPWHct4
Let the drones do the dirty work, let them be automatic air ambulenses and so forth and man can have fun…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgZJh9Lg0TA
November 29th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
The growth of drone unmanned aircraft will come to a screetching halt after the first major incident that kills US citizens on US soil. As long as the fly somewhere else against undefended airspace, no one really seems to care what happens.
I do not believe they should be allowed into the same airspace that civil aviation uses, unless we agree that in the event of a fatal accident, the drone pilot is also put to death. That should make everyone a little more concerned about the safety of everyone involved.
November 29th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
While some military mission are well suited for UAVs, other like Close Air Support clearly are not. The situational awareness a pilot in the cockpit brings to these missions cannot be replaced by a computer linked to a ground controller several hundred miles away.
As a frequent flyer, I seriously doubt commercial pilots are at risk of loosing their jobs to a remote control pilot any time soon. Some question if automation has not already gone too far for these circumstances. There are simply too many variables for remote control pilot to manage in very demanding flying conditions.
November 29th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Thanks, Chasmic, for the correcting on the weight carried. I read it both ways and had a 50-percent chance of getting it right.
Interesting comments to the handwriting that’s on the wall regarding the futre of pilot careers. Whether any of us are for or against unmanned and automated military or civilian aircraft, they are coming to an airport near you.
Someone said that the evacutation of humans from airline cockpits would not happen “soon.” Defining this relative term is tricky. It wasn’t that many years ago when transports had flight engineers and navigators. Technology and GPS took their places decades ago.
November 29th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
My guess is that so long as there are passengers on board, there will also be a pilot, or at least an operator pretending to be one. I.e.: they won’t have traditional pilot skills, but are able to make decisions on where to land, etc. Passengers won’t put up with anything else for a long time to come.
As for the blowing-up-shit-and-killing-people type of flying: unmanned is the way of the future. Well, it’s already the way of today also.
November 29th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Just think of ALL the avionics technicians that will be needed to keep the system operating. In fact, that would be a requirement to be “pilot”. Why have two employees at minimum wage when you can get away with one.
If is feasible, the Oligarchy will do it. Demand? No problem. Who needs consumers when war is its own “never ending” demand.
The sky IS falling. Chicken Little LIVES !
November 29th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
I agree with most posts here, I don’t see passengers in any hurry to jump in an airliner with no pilot. Think about it realistically, I wouldn’t do it and wouldn’t place any loved ones on one.
It’s one thing to loiter over a target viewing what is going on below or many miles of border but to carry passengers unattended, no way.
And, how many drones have gone down? those things auger in all the time. Then all we need are some sick despots thinking up jamming systems just to cause chaos not to mention all the natural distortions from sun radiation to magnetic disturbances.
November 29th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
I think it’s a question of liability. Although in the future these systems will approach amazing levels of reliability, but the company’s operating the airplanes simply need someone to blame in the event of a publicized crash. If a Uav is carrying passengers and crashes the blame VERY SQUARELY falls on the aircraft and it’s designer.
November 30th, 2011 at 12:08 am
Being a pilot, I can tell you that for the last ten years, the only duty a aircrewman has had, is to taxi to the run-way, get the aircraft to rotation speed and once wheels are clear, AUTO PILOT goes on……all the way to right before touchdown. This is why the airlines have been able to go with two-tiered pay levels – the Pilots are “controlling” a UAV. Modern Avionics has brought this, today, to a Cessna 172. Now, old time pilots are wondering if the Pilots today can deal with an “upset” in flight. The Airbus Crash off the coast of Brazil answers that question. The fact is, Pilots are operating UAV interfaces with passengers onboard and have been doing it for years. If Predator can be flown several thousands of miles away in Afganistan from from CREECH AFB outside Las Vegas,what is the difference between that and a 747-400?
A Pilot today is yesterday’s Elevator Operator.
November 30th, 2011 at 2:02 am
I think it’s fine for military, non personnel operations, but you should never fully rely on an automated or semi-automated system when there is an increased risk of loss of life in an activity such as flying. If airlines think automated systems will increase their bottom line than they should consider the phobia of the majority of its customers. Many people who fly commercially have a great fear of being involved in a plane crash. I doubt those people will continue flying if they know there is no pilot physically in the flight deck. It takes customers to keep the industry moving forward. The problem with the airlines is that they forget it’s a service industry and requires listening to the customers needs.
November 30th, 2011 at 6:34 am
I could not agree more. i was a F-4 Phantom fighter pilotand most of the weapons delivery at that time was based on pilot skill with maximum utilization of “Kentucky windage.”
After nearly 20 years of flying the “pilot’s favorite fighter/transport aircraft”, the Boeing 727,I experienced one sim ride in the A-320 and headed for the exit as I immediately “Turned in my manuals.” Ace Abbott
November 30th, 2011 at 9:25 am
I don’t think this will actually occur soon, it definitely is going to happen.
When it is fully implemented it won’t be a big a deal. This type of out cry was heard when the steam engine got replaced and the result was retaining the “Fireman” as a safety precaution. I suspect it will take a very long time to get the general public to fly in a totally automated aircraft. We already have a very bad pilot job situation in the “Regionals”, and very few seem to care. The one constant in life is change, you can either accept it or get run over.
Joe
November 30th, 2011 at 11:22 am
As an airline mechanic. Planes break. Bite test don’t always tell the whole story of a malifunction.
November 30th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
If you look at the control architecture of an Airbus, the pilot is merely asking the fly-by-wire system to do a task, within the programing laws that are ALLOWED. This is key because the Pilot actually isn’t connected to the flight controls but to a computer input. The Computer then determines what OUGHT to be applied and performs the function via servo. This is no different than the accelerator on a Ford Pickup – you are entering a request to a computer and the computer is doing the work. On the 777 its the same deal – the computers are flying the plane because they do it so much more efficiently and smoothly and safely -until the air sensors get blocked and then you have a disaster. The transfer from man-controlled to machine controlled, happend, 10 years ago and we will never go back because economically we cannot. F-14’s were landing automatically on rolling pitching ship-decks, 20 years ago but the Navy treats recent F/A-18 autolands revolutionary. Oh please.
November 30th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
A few datapoints.
The Air Force Magazine http://www.airforce-magazine.com/search/resultsDateDesc.aspx?k=rpv has a number of articles on unmanned aerial vehicles – UAVs and why they are trying to re-educate players to call them Remotely Piloted Vehicles -RPVs. Partly because they are not autonomous, but mostly because they require a tremendous amount of support manpower to operate.
USAF learned that RPVs have a tremendous logistics, spares, training and mission planning trail. One of the AFA authors claim an RPV mission can require up to six months of lead time and thousands of hours of mission planning. Three years ago the demand for manpower was so great that USAF offered lucrative deals to retired weapons controllers (Now called battle managers). The need was to move to Creech AFB NV and work as RPV mission planners.
Granted, we are talking Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance tasks and not hauling freight – self-loading or otherwise, but I suspect the manpower burden is similar.
All of this parallels the introduction of mainfame computers in government and industry where the promise was reduced manpower. Reality was an increase in coders, repairmen and specialists, so the mantra morphed into ‘doing it better’ while the IT kingdoms grew into behemoths. The advent of the desktop computer diminished centralized control somewhat, but IT kingdoms are still out there.
Recently, the Air France 447 CVR revealed a crew of three unable to recognize and recover a stalled Airbus http://www.flyingmag.com/technique/accidents/technicalities-closer-look-what-happened-air-france-447
Perhaps a bit cynical, but if ‘FAA Certified” manned airliners have evolved to the point where three trained pilots cannot derive a solution it doesn’t argue in favor of keeping them aboard.
I suspect there is a lot to be learned from the military about the advantages and disadvantages of RPVs, UAVs, drones and their ilk, and the military seems eager to talk about their experience managing them. Perhaps we should ask?
December 1st, 2011 at 12:21 am
@John Clark: “until the air sensors get blocked and then you have a disaster.”
That’s not an entirely fair criticism of FBW; there are plenty of LoC accidents after pitot static failures in “traditional” aircraft.
Aeroperu 603 and Birgenair 301 (both 757s) come to mind.
In fact, has everyone ever heard of a situation like AF447 in a non-FBW aircraft where they came out OK?
December 1st, 2011 at 12:45 am
It just makes no sense. If you are going to have a pilot controlling the aircraft remotely from the ground than why not just keep him in the flight deck? Do they think that they are saving weight by removing the 400 or so pounds worth of airmen? What about all the extra equipment needed to replace the pilot. You remove one weight just to add it back in a different form? You will have to add systems on top of systems to be redundant enough for remotely controlled flight with passengers. In the airlines, I refused to turn the autopilot on at the standard 600 feet per our procedure. I always hand flew the jet to cruise before using autopilot. If you don’t use your skill than you lose your skill. Pilots FOR full automation should probably retire or find another line of work. You’re and aircraft pilot…man up and fly the thing. Pilots are becoming lazy.
December 1st, 2011 at 1:05 am
Pilot salaries may have been on the decline for airline pilots, but the UAV pilots I know are all making six figures to fly unmanned airplanes, so the logic of looking at pilot salaries to see the trend toward a UAV-like situation doesn’t hold.
It would dictate that the more precious the cargo, the less the pilot gets paid.
December 1st, 2011 at 1:16 am
@Stephen Woolf: “It just makes no sense. If you are going to have a pilot controlling the aircraft remotely from the ground than why not just keep him in the flight deck?”
The trend is for these things to become autonomous; they get a pre-programmed route and fly it. They can divert themselves around weather, ATC can control them directly for separation. (as well as own separation using ADS-B)
The operator on the ground would simply do the pre-programming and check up on them or if the aircraft tells them they need help.
One person – 6 figure salary or not – can look after many aircraft.
December 1st, 2011 at 3:31 am
Although we already see automation and remote operation in many hazardous, or simple, mundane, repetitious operations. Industry has used it for decades.So, we have to ask ourselves where and why would either autonomous or remote controlled devices be used. In this case aircraft.
So, these devices are normally replace humans in highly hostile environments such as bomb disposal, military operations, delivery of supplies into hostile environments, working in nuclear contaminated sites, deep sea operations, or off planet operations. They are also used in highly repetitive tasks where reliability and repeatability are required and free up workers from the mundane for more interesting work. These machines are very expensive so they have to do a lot of work before they save money over workers. OTOH they can produce the many thousands of pieces with the same specifications while there are continuous variations from human workers.
So where do aircraft fit into this automation cycle? They fall into the hazardous areas and delivering munitions on target, but to place them in charge of transporting humans?
Remember, none of these systems (as of yet) handle the unexpected well. Even those using AI that learn can not exceed their programming. Also upsets (or attacks) that are outside their parameters are also outside their abilities to properly respond. In this case they are much like the inexperienced student pilot that accidentally runs into IMC with loss of situational awareness.
When it comes to responsibility of life and limb for civilians, I do not expect to see either autonomous or remote controlled aircraft any time in the foreseeable future.
When it comes to pay, three things determine that. Supply and demand, Skill, or experience such as flight hours, and how expensive a mistake can you make (IE responsibility) and where hundreds of human lives are at state that can be pretty high, so even were the pilot not on board I’d expect pay to reflect a high experience and responsibility.
I’ve spent much of my life working with computers and programming.I have a degree in the field. Even with AI and aircraft that lean, I’d not trust one to handle human lives. They’d have to require that the people who programmed them make at least 3 flights a week in bad or severe weather and even then I’m not sure I’d trust one.
A pilot who sets up front and who is guaranteed to be the first one to the crash has a lot more invested in the happy conclusion of the flight than does a computer.
OTOH remember when the Air Force said we no longer need guns on fighters because missiles will be used in all future conflicts, or the ones who have retired the A-10’s multiple times?
No pilot up front? No thanks, I’ll pass and drive or take the train.
December 1st, 2011 at 6:08 am
If you don’t mind not being a pilot anymore than I guess it’s fine,but I went to flight school to learn how to fly airplanes, not sit in an office and monitor a computer.
December 1st, 2011 at 6:10 am
And the pay might be six figures now, but is only because they want to entice more pilots into the transition. Once it happens, those six figures will decline. Like sheep being led to a slaughter.
December 1st, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Regardless of how advanced we get, there needs to be a human pilot onboard any vehicle that carries human passengers and has all the potential for disaster that a downed airplane poses. One reason, a controller in a room on the ground doesn’t have as much to loose. His life is not at stake. A real human onboard will do everything possible for a safe flight, so if the pilot gets there safely, so do the passengers. Likewise, we can survey the stars by unmanned satellites but at some point a human needs to step on the new planet. It’s called expansion. What if Columbus never set foot on soil in the new world?
December 1st, 2011 at 2:02 pm
An analogous but much simpler example of automating transportation is the job of engineers on high speed trains. High speed trains would be impossible without automated signalling and switching at speeds far too fast for human reflexes. What does the engineer sitting up front really do besides have a red panic button? He’s there to reassure the passengers. Expect the same for civilian jet aircraft in perhaps two product cycles. I’ll predict a purely caretaker pilot of a completely automated commercial aircraft by no later than 2030 for freighters and maybe a little later for combination aircraft.
December 1st, 2011 at 4:09 pm
As someone who JUST joined the ranks of “pilot” yesterday with my private certificate (hey, I’m telling EVERYONE!), I’m a little disappointed to see this.
I get that pilots are people and people make mistakes. Automation will make things safer. But if you have an aircraft jetting through the sky without a pilot – can you call that Aviation? In my world, airplanes are flown by pilots, not by operators on the ground (or even in the cockpit). If your job is to push the “engage flight sequence now” button, is that really flying?
The day they mandate that into GA aircraft is the day aviation will officially be dead. And as someone said above, I’ll take the train.
December 1st, 2011 at 5:49 pm
@Alan Hedge..that’s a terrible comparison. A train doesn’t rotate in three dimensions. It’s attached to the ground far away from the enviroment that aircraft fly. How will we ever get a PIREP without a pilot in the plane? It’s very different watching something on a screen than being there. You lose a “feel” for the enviroment.
December 1st, 2011 at 5:57 pm
And how well will ADS B work when a deer or something large wanders onto a runway and there’s no pilot to see and avoid it by going around? I guess planes which experience that scenario will just have to take their chances and hope that the plane holds together after the strike. There are too many unknowns for a computer to make the decisions of Pilot In Command.
December 2nd, 2011 at 12:18 am
I think this whole thread is arguing against a non-issue. The Comanche Pilot I talked to today, isn’t leaving G.A. because of UAVs, its because of $ 6.00 AVGAS…and there are no young pilots to replace him so he is stuck with his plane. Further, UAVs have their place: I don’t see pilots volunteering for cruise-missile duty or to get into the seat of a manned-Predator for a 48-hr flight. Our UAV program, no matter that 400 aircraft were expended from 1962 to 1972 – and there wasn’t so much as an injury, got CANCELLED because Pilots wanted back on ship-Deck. Fine. Aircraft utilizations dropped 90%, if the ship was rocking too much, the heavy manned birds were too heavy to push on deck so they stayed inside their hangars and the missions didn’t get flown -dare we risk the 6-man crew? Innovation, in 1972, got the axe and look at this discussion – the same as it was back then. However now, the Chinese are droning the Brantley Helicopter they bought and they care not for this hand-wringing – they will develop their system and sell it world-wide and the USA will once again, have allowed a key technology that they created to be lost and over what, Pilots jobs?
I wonder how many jobs will be created in China when the Chinese start building 1000 VTOL UAVs a year for the Oil-industry, Police, Fire, Logging let alone basic surveillance and rescue missions? Yet again, the myopic view point of an emerging technology will stymie its growth here while those that are hungry for value-added products will run with this, expand it and we’ll be paying $ 10/gal for gasoline and we won’t understand why.
December 2nd, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Brian Says: “Ill predict a purely caretaker pilot of a completely automated commercial aircraft by no later than 2030 for freighters and maybe a little later for combination aircraft.”
Actually… some cargo aircraft will probably be single-pilot by 2020. GE Aviation has been working with the FAA on this. As well, Embraer is also actively working on single-pilot commercial aircraft, so I expect that we could very well have single-pilot regional aircraft by 2025… around the time when the next gen of RJs are expected. Same with Airbus and Boeing. By putting off all-new narrow body airliners till after the middle of the next decade they will be able to offer single-pilot narrow bodies and leave it to airlines to chose to go one or two crew (you know Ryanair will go single-pilot, for sure!)
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:40 pm
John Clarke, all of those things are fine by remote control, but taking me to my families for the holidays…if that’s what they plan on doing than I’ll take the train.
December 3rd, 2011 at 2:47 am
By coincidence, my neighbor is a Train engineer. There are three methods used, to keep the driver awake – the first is a flashing light, directed at the face of the engineer. If he doesn’t hit this large button every 20-seconds to reset it, there is the flashing…then an audible alarm and then 30 seconds after that, a message is sent to dispatch. 1 min after that, the train’s engine enters an auto-stop. I can only wonder when trains will go unmanned.
It takes today, 2 years to train a U.S. Naval helicopter pilot to fly a Seahawk and be deployable to the fleet. Essentially, the training costs are so expensive that is what drives UAVs for the military. It doesn’t have to be this way, but the Navy’s bureaucracy has created that boondoggle. Also of course, is the ability to out-fly a modern missile – its beyond human capability. A few weeks ago we lost a F-15 driver when he lost consciousness during maneuvers out in the Nevada desert.
A UAV interface is not a terrible thing – I could put any man in one of our helicopters and with that man tasking the automatic flight control system, you could be a operator, in 30 mins of instruction. Imagine that quantum leap in your personal ability to be an “aircraft operator” vs. being a “pilot-in-command”. Think about the possibilities.
December 3rd, 2011 at 6:46 am
“I’ll take the train” How many times have we heard such nonesense??
When evryone is crossing the world’s oceans via a robot because it’s the proven norm, then go ahead – take the train!
December 3rd, 2011 at 12:16 pm
@John: Thanks for validating my earlier train engineer comments.
I know it’s not the same, but seeing my teenage boys control complex simulations (i.e. play video games), 30 minutes’ training to control a UAV (and how many more minutes to control multiple ones?) may be a little quick but certainly not out of the ballpark.
Neither of my boys will ever be “Pilots in Command”, and there won’t be many jobs for them that provide the same levels of pay and benefits, but I have this feeling they are being prepared for the future, whether good or bad or whether their elders understand, or whether we like it or not.
December 3rd, 2011 at 4:05 pm
10 years ago when the effort started to minimize the Command and Control System to a Lap-top (Sikorsky’s Cypher was first), we studied what the gamers had envisioned and found that architecture could apply to reality – like decreasing range circles on the display as the UAV was tasked around a moving-map-display. Of course what is driving down this “dumbing down” of the warfighter is the need for all warfighters to be able to use the system in an emergency no matter a lack of complete training. So, the simplest system for the warfighter is what we strive for and thus the intuitiveness for the operator. However, the complexity then becomes the problem for the contractor providing the platform and he then must have Techreps on-ship or in the field to support the system because the NAVY and ARMY are not going to create schools just for a specific system – that costs too much and systems change too quickly. Look at Fire Scout…1st it was 3-bladed rotor…then 4…still didn’t work per RFP. Now the Bell 412 is being used under a “rapid-deployment” order and now NGC is going after the Brit’s trying to use their helo system as a platform. Unfortunately, this is what happens when the electronics-side is in charge of a UAV Platform – they treat the platform people – be it Sikorsky or Bell, like whores and then when the system doesn’t provide the payload as promised due to the overweight avionics systems and quadruple-redundancy, its always the platform guys with egg on their faces. Man, the Navy really fouled up with the Fire Scout program. $ 5 Billion spent, and still not accepted.
December 3rd, 2011 at 5:02 pm
@Stephen Woolf: my comments are about HOW it will happen, not whether I want it to happen or not. No need to get personal.
As a side node, there will be plenty of flying to be done for you; these airliners are not even on the serious drawing board yet. And when they do, they will be flying from major airport to major airport. That leaves plenty of business jets to go to secondary airports and Caravans to be landed out in the bush…
December 4th, 2011 at 11:02 am
@ Bas Scheffers: Single-pilot commercial aircraft are indeed on the drawing board and will be available before the end of the decade. And they will be going EVERYWHERE, not just to “major” airports.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
@John Clarke and others: It seems that all we hear about are cost overruns on complex systems (and not so complex ones like the Boeing tanker contract). Do you think there would be interest in a new thread on this site about systems development and costs?
December 4th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Per stagecoach drivers – they’re now driving greyhound buses and 18-wheel freight-liners. So there was life after the stagecoach (given they didn’t step off the stagecoach and into a modern greyhound bus – there where a number of steps along the way).
Per the minimum wage pilot in some mall – the truth is that any pilot is a specialist who requires years of training that is ongoing throughout their career. Future RPV pilots will be highly trained and well paid specialists who will not need to deal with high G-loads to fly the combat/supply/transport missions of the future.
One point I’d like to make – wonder how the airlines are going to deal with the “there’s no one in the cockpit” issue. My mother, for one, wouldn’t fly with a pilotless carrier…
December 4th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
If this has been addressed before, forgive me: For the grandmas and such who won’t board a robot, the FAA is most likely with you. I’m unaware of how certification and crew requirements are established for a particular airframe type, but I suspect that would be a major obstacle standing between granny and her first ride on an RPV. Reducing to one pilot would most likely encounter as much resistance as eliminating all flight crew because of the two-heads-are-thicker-than-one philosophy that seems to be the standard in anything but fighter and piston GA aircraft.
Perhaps there are historians who recall what the airlines and manufacturers had to go thru to get certified to fly granny without an engineer or navigator at the pointy end?
December 4th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
We flew a U.S. Navy Captain from our VTOL UAV. His name was George Walker, Commanding Officer of the USS ARNOLD J. ISBELLE (DD-869). He wanted to see Diamond Head. So, we had him sign a waiver of liability and off he went on a stretcher tied with 2x4s across the skids, under the helo. Flew for 30 mins. He said it was the smoothest bird he’d ever been on. George went on to make Admiral.
If you don’t take risks, you are certain not to succeed.
December 5th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
JTMcD – Future RPV pilots are already heading the way of the Dodo. The Navy’s X47B mentioned in the article will operate without human intervention.
tom – the FAA already has projects on “reduced crew” aircraft and the Europeans aviation authorities are also working on “robot” airliners.
A lot of people are simply not aware of the state-of-the-art in robotics and autonomous systems.
December 8th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Adds new meaning to the FAA’s well-worn: “Pilot Error” conclusion, now doesn’t it.
December 15th, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Well flying is an activity where machines will easily surpass people – flying is easily algorithmised, and machines are much better in the distributed awareness and multitasking that is in the roots of succesfull flying.
So sad as it might be, you may disagree, you may protest, but that is about it. Piloting is going to be a nice hobby in the future, but not much more.
For dangerous missions, it would be almost a crime not to accelerate the search for solutions that might move people out of harms way…