Would you fly on a flight with no human pilot?

[Captain Halliday]

I was completing a survey on aviation which included specific questions about the motivations for flying with low cost carriers.

It asked if respondents would fly with a LCC that operated with either one pilot, or no pilot. And if so, how much cheaper the ticket would have to be.

While I understand modern aircraft can mange most of the flight autonomously, I’m very comfortable paying a little extra to have two people up the front just in case human intervention is required.

Would you fly a single pilot LCC, or indeed a flight without a pilot?

I didn’t get screenshots of the single pilot questions, but the “no human pilot” questions are below.

 

[JohnK]

I'm not even sure I understand why this is even a valid question. Cost savings?

I'm not into driverless cars and definitely not into aircraft without pilots.

 

[eastwest101]

I think aircraft manufacturers and possibly airlines may look at trying to implement single pilot flights, due to the shortfall in qualified pilots, maybe the backup would be another pilot operating the aircraft remotely from the ground to cover the issue of incapacitation of the pilot on board. They have absolutely no chance of implementing pilotless aircraft (that can't have human intervention) from a regulatory or customer acceptance point of view.

I think its more likely that the push for single jet engine commercial aircraft might be attempted, probably starting with smaller aircraft with restrictions about routing and flying over-water etc if the price of fuel does go up a lot.

 

[Limewood]

and once driverless cars are on the road expect third party insurance to skyrocket.

 

[AviatorInsight]

Hmm...I was thinking about this just the other day. They are a VERY long way off from ever implementing this. Sure, I understand that a lot of people think we do nothing "because the autopilot does everything", but what the technology has allowed is from heavy jet crews (think B747 classic) and even narrow jet crew (B727) to go from 3 operating crew to 2. This means we are now spreading that same load over 2 people. Sure the autopilot is great but it's still garbage in is garbage out. The other day into MEL we were following a heavy onto the ILS. The heavy decided to slow up to final approach speed at 10nm. We got told by ATC to follow suit. Just after we dropped the gear, we got vectored off the ILS only to re-intercepted at 5nm. The autopilot couldn't do what I wanted it to do quick enough, so I disconnected it and just hand flew the approach. To do it single pilot would be incredibly hard. Fatigue would definitely need to be re-looked at.

Now lets look at no pilot at all. Could it all be done remotely when everything is going well? I don't see why not. But what happens when a flight attendant has a passenger that needs urgent medical attention? How will the computer react to that? Will it decide to land at the nearest airport that it can but it's not necessarily suitable?

For me, I think it'll be the operational decision making of the whole process that will prove to be the hardest. If it does come down to current pilots becoming drone pilots, you can probably bet that us with real world experience won't be 'flying' them.

 

[SuzieQ68]

Most definitely NOT!

I am more than happy to pay extra to have two pilots in the coughpit. So many things can go wrong and (as much as technology is improving), this is one industry whereby human involvement is a must for me. I would absolutely avoid airlines that brought this in.

 

[TomVexille]

At the moment. No. And I'm in the two pilot camp.

 

[Forg]

and once driverless cars are on the road expect third party insurance to skyrocket.

Why? People make all sorts of stupid mistakes that computers don’t.
Flying an aircraft with passengers is taken about a squillionty times more seriously by the people who do it & the bodies controlling it than driving cars; so I can’t see it being anywhere NEAR a time when flying without people upfront will be more accident-free.
But even in this very very early stage of driverless cars, the few dumb prototypes that’re out there on the roads have a way better record per distance travelled than humans do!

 

[darktiger]

Most definitely would.

I'm fortunate enough to have a semi-self autonomous car. Initially when I bought the vehicle I thought it would be a bit of a gimmick, but I liked having the peace of mind knowing that it had safety systems in the unlikely event that I misjudged a situation. Over my 2 years of ownership I can recount 3 instances where the car detected a vehicle in front of me braking without my knowledge (as their brake lights weren't working) and braked automatically avoiding a potential crash. I believe when unmanned flights become available, I would have enough faith in the systems to fly on them.