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Boeing Studies Planes Without Pilots, Plans Experiments Next Year (seattletimes.com)
"Boeing has begun researching the possibility of commercial-passenger jets that will fly without pilots, using artificial intelligence guiding automated controls to make decisions in flight," reports Seattle Times. The company is planning experimental flights, without passengers, for next year. From the report: "The basic building blocks of the technology are clearly available," said Mike Sinnett, former chief systems engineer on the 787 Dreamliner and now vice president at Boeing responsible for innovative future technologies, at a briefing before the Paris Air Show. "There's going to be a transition from the requirement to have a skilled aviator operate the airplane to having a system that operates the vehicle autonomously, if we can do that with the same level of safety," Sinnett said. Sinnett said Boeing's research is driven by the pilot shortage worldwide that is only going to become more acute. In the next two decades, Boeing forecasts a demand for about 40,000 new commercial jets, roughly doubling the world fleet.
no warning.
Are the pilots still on government support?
maybe automated-trains should be a proven tech first.
I would think this would be a near no-brainer for cargo flights. Probably less so for passenger flights.
I would consider flying a robo-flight if they installed an authentic HAL 9000 eye on the cockpit door, if for no other reason just to see it.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
If you have a pilot at all, they need to actually fly the plane, or they will deskill. No half-smart AutoThrotle that can cause crashes like the Air Asia one.
And then we need a smart AI system to monitor the pilot and warn them if they are doing something stupid. Like trying to land the plane miles short of the runway.
If the pilot does not respond the autopilot can disconnect the controls.
It used to be said that you need a pilot and a dog. The pilot to feed the dog, and the dog to bite the pilot if they touch the controls. But the Autopilot can the job of the dog as well. Maybe electric wires in the seat.
[AutoThrotle -- when flying a small plane, one constantly monitors air speed on descent. But large planes have autothrotles that are like cruise control and do this for the pilot. But if they autothrotle is set to the wrong mode, then nothing is monitoring the air speeed. which has led to several crashes.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Now imagine there were no humans who could pilot the thing on board. When that eventually happens, and it will happen, people will become far too afraid to fly in AI only flights.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
The men's room in our local supermarket is located, ironically, next to the fresh meat department.
The pressure in my bowels said it was dump time so; I parked my still empty cart outside the Men's Room door.
The pungent odor of antiseptic smacked me in the face the minute I pushed the door open. `Whew!' I mused as I entered, 'someone sure over did it.' As public restrooms go, this one was clean.
Two commode stalls were located at the rear of the narrow room. Three urinals' were installed on the wall to the left of the entrance two at adult height and one a little lower for kids. Two paper hand towel dispensers with hand basins and metal mirrors were on the wall opposite the urinals.
The walls of the stalls were covered with the usual erotic graffiti and there was a large, about three inches in diameter, hole in the partition. 'Jesus,' I mused while cleaning the seat with toilet paper,' a guy would need a pretty big cock to fill that hole."
The first dump hit the minute the cheeks of my ass hit the seat, followed by a heavy stream of piss. A feeling of relief flowed over my body and my dick felt like I was having a climax. I slowly relaxed letting Mother Nature take its course.
While I was reading some of the poetic graffiti and scrawled, almost, unintelligible phone number to call for hot sex and other variations of male on male sex, my cock slowly stiffened and I was slowly stroking it when, I heard the bathroom's door open.
Looking through the crack between the stalls door and the frame, a boy wearing tight cutoff denim shorts and a "Mets" tee shirt came in and headed for one of the adult urinals. He was thin but not skinny, had brown hair and looked to be maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. At first, he stood close to the urinal preventing his cock from being seen. While I really would have liked to see how much he had, it did not bother me since I was not into boys. Nevertheless, while I was watching him through the crack, he turned his head and looked in my direction. Hesitating for a moment, he looked toward the entrance door and then stepped back giving me a full view of his hard cock.
I do not go for boys but this boy was a stud, and I was horny. Pushing my pants and briefs down to the floor, I unlocked the door to the stall and cracked it while looking through the crack. Just when it looked like he would come my way, the bathroom door opened and a man with a small boy entered. I quickly closed the stall door and the boy stepped up to the urinal and acted as if he was taking a piss. Glancing in my direction, he zipped his fly shut and, flushing the urinal; he went to the hand basin and started washing his hands.
The man was helping the young boy take a piss. After fixing the youngsters pants, he glanced at the boy washing his hands and then he moved to one of the adult urinals and pissed while the boy was drying his hands.
The man with the kid finished pissing and without washing his or the kids hands they left. The boy waited for a moment, looking at the door, before coming into the empty stall. Quickly dropping his shorts as he sat down, I saw he was not wearing any underwear. Pulling his shirt up, he showed his flat stomach and a developing chest as he leaned back against the flushometer and started slowly stroking his thick at least seven-inch circumcised cock. An ample patch of dark brown hair surrounded the base and his walnut sized nuts hung feely. We were sneaking looks at each other as we jerked of until the boy leaned closer to the hole and whispered, "Do you want to suck my cock?
Inhaling deeply, I said, "Stick it through the hole."
"You ain't going to hurt me are you?" he asked softly.
"Jesus Christ, no, "I replied nervously.
I glanced through the crack to see if everything was all right before turning back to the cock hole. One of the most beautiful cocks was sliding through the hole, its girth almost filling the hole. When I took it in my mouth, I heard the boy gasp and then he said, "Oh shit, man that feels goo
Let me know when these AIs can land a plane on the Hudson River after a massive bird strike.
Automated trains have been around since 1967. Though I didn't know ours is the longest ALRT in the world. The first part of Skytrain was criteria 1986.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
But we won't need the copilot on most flights, and the pilot will only need to be in the seat during takeoff and landing, while wearing a radio earpiece the rest of the time. Should free up pilots for the other flights.
Surely we don't need pilots.
And don't call me Shirley.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You can't kill a pilot if it's not alive.... guess the jihadis will have to find some other way to express their love of Allah.
It's always easy to automate most of a problem, but edge cases tend to be really hard to solve. Yes, the autopilot can fly the plane 99.9% of the time, but the pilots are there for the 0.1% when it can't.
Clearly this is an opportunity to install front row seats with panoramic view...
Oh my!
The pilot of an aircraft has many legal, emergency, and crew leadership duties which go beyond the actual piloting of the aircraft.
Being a pilot has been described as long periods of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror.
The pilot shortage is a red herring, like any other occupation, if you pay people commensurate to their educational investment, skills, knowledge, experience, and continue their training. The airlines have had a pretty good ride up until now because they piggy-backed on the military as a pipeline.
this is your warning.
While I'm not ready to go all in on AI controlled planes yet (or let's call them something else like Expert Systems, they aren't real AIs) I think starting to test is very valid. We are able to design systems with very good decision making capabilities these days. It is conceivable that we will soon be able to make them on par with humans, even for extreme cases like 1549.
It is certainly an area worth putting R&D in to.
You realize the HAL 9000 murdered all its crew and passengers? ;-)
What windscreens or windows? Everyone will get a display that can be configured to show forward, side, rear, etc cameras. Windscreens/windows add complexity and cost.
I wonder how AIs react to hijacker demands?
In the minds of many fly-by-wire was also removing the pilots, having the computer fly the aircraft. However after decades of use in military aviation the general public accepted it for passenger aviation. The complete removal of pilots will likely follow a similar adoption, it will need to have a highly successful decades long history of use in military aviation first.
Plus, even with removal of human pilots from the aircraft there may be the capability to remotely pilot the aircraft.
I will never fly on a plane if the pilot isn't also on-board with me. He may not be able to as good a job as the computer and may cost more than a ground-based drone pilot, but in an emergency I know he'll do his damndest to try to save both our lives.
It won't fly.
*chuckles*
No Unions!
Jajajajajajajajajajajajajaja
The thing is... a computer can "work a checklist" way faster than two cooperating pilots can. Good.
So we get rid of the "we need time to work the checklists". The plane just radios to the airport: "I have an engine problem, MAYDAY I want to land back on runway 05, in 13 minutes, 23 seconds."
But in un-prepared emergencies, some pilots have taken the right decisions for a safe landing. For example that plane in hawaii that blew its top. It landed way overspeed because of control problems when slowing down.
So in the "normal" cases you get a bit better, but in the exceptional cases, things get a bit worse.
Let autonomous cargo planes fly for a couple of years, and watch the performance data. Once they exceed the average human pilot in hazardous situations (crosswind landings, engine out, unexpected traffic, etc.), making the switch will be a no-brainer.
On a plane without pilot I would pay extra to have a front seat and enjoy the view during the whole flight.
Oh good. In the past there have been incidents when the computers apparently took over an aircraft and locked out the pilots.
http://www.smh.com.au/good-wee...
Now there won't be any pilots to be locked out, so the aircraft can just destroy itself in its own preferred way.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
World wide airlines have no problem employing pilots. However, in the US companies pay them like busdrivers with worse working hours. As companies mainly compete over price, there are only a few options to stay afloat. The easiest is to reduce salaries. This work especially well when there is no market wide union negotiating salaries where every airline is bound to pay.
We really want computers to fully control planes?
Read this story:
http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/the-untold-story-of-qf72-what-happens-when-psycho-automation-leaves-pilots-powerless-20170510-gw26ae.html
WIkipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72
I would not get on a plane without a pilot and co-pilot.
so... drones?
The main role of a pilot is to handle failure of some parts of the aircraft. There is a huge number of stories where the pilots have been incredibly creative and have found ways to save desperate situations. IMHO, if the pilot does not risk his life, he may be less inspired.
For years now, they have been saying that the cockpit of the future will consist of a pilot and a dog. The pilot is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries to touch the controls.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
I'm glad there's no passengers on the plane, but that still risks everyone on the ground under the flight path.
Yea, I can see this ending well.. Oh, by the way, do home owners have accidental jet crash insurance yet? If so, how much more, and more, will they pay for it?
save $10! $50 gets you 1 carryon bag and 1 pilot for your flight ($60 if purchased separately)
9/11 on this subject?
When it is finally relevant?
Now, I am not an alarmist or back the "war on terror" ie "license to do what ever". But this is actually a solution that does not kill people.
Regarding implementation.
First of, this system would first replace the two pilots rule.
After millions of hours of training and testing it would move to cargo flights.
THEN to passenger flights.
It must be self contained.