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As a pilot who flies "modern" aircraft, this didn't feel much different than the training & procedures we use today. I wonder if future spacecraft pilots will
by dpifke 8y ago
As a pilot who flies "modern" aircraft, this didn't feel much different than the training & procedures we use today.
I wonder if future spacecraft pilots will be saying the same thing in 75 years when "old SpaceX training videos" surface, or if everything will be automated by then and pilots will have gone the way of lighthouse keepers.
- maxxxxx 8y ago"if everything will be automated by then and pilots will have gone the way of lighthouse keepers" I would expect so. The areas where humans do better will get smaller and smaller.
- CamperBob2 8y agoWhich might become a bit of a self-fulfilling statement. When I grew up in the 80s, lots of boys and more than a few girls had 'Top Gun' posters on their walls. Everybody wanted to be Tom Cruise. I doubt very much that's the case nowadays. What does the future of both civil and military aviation look like, now that becoming a pilot looks like a poor long-term career choice? We may end up being forced to develop self-flying aircraft, not necessarily because it's the right thing to do but simply because everyone expected it to happen and planned accordingly.
- maxxxxx 8y agoThere may be something to this but objectively humans will be a hindrance in airplanes soon. They are too slow, can't multitask, need life-support systems, can't handle acceleration. A self-flying plane or even remote controlled plane will be superior in every aspect.
- CamperBob2 8y agoYeah, I wouldn't argue with any of that, but the timing is the interesting part.
- sandworm101 8y ago>> military aviation look like, now that becoming a pilot looks like a poor long-term career choice? Military flying isn't like civilian flying. There are plenty of jobs where the machines are nowhere near a replacement, where nobody is even hinting that the humans will be replaced. SAR, tactical helicopter ops, mountain flying, special operations ... these are things that no machine is anywhere near understanding. Anyone here seriously believe that navy seals will be dropped off on some remote rooftop, blades feet from power lines, by a computer-flown helicopter?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 8y agoWhat you describe is the difference between a career that a lot of people can aspire to and a highly-specialized job that has traditionally relied on being able to draw the best of the best from a wide talent pool. There will always be a need for a few ridiculously good men and women in military aviation. But going into aviation thinking you'll end up in that position is like trying out for high-school basketball under the likely misapprehension that you're the next Michael Jordan.
- a3n 8y ago> a highly-specialized job that has traditionally relied on being able to draw the best of the best from a wide talent pool. Where will that wide talent pool come from, when most of the non-best of the best flying jobs are automated?
- CamperBob2 8y agoExactly the problem. I have no idea. Ender's Game?
- cstross 8y agoHistorically, the Royal Air Force used to go around recruitment fairs with a bunch of (analog) machines designed to test the hand/eye coordination of possible trainees -- use a couple of geared wheels to keep the dot on the moving target, for example. They gave up on this about a decade ago, because the average applicant for an air cadet slot now had better reflexes and hand-eye coordination than second world war fighter aces. (They might fail on the physical fitness requirement, but the average kid today is insanely good at keeping the gunsights on the target using a joystick compared to the average kid in the 1940s.)
- mattrp 8y agoI’m often reminded of that scene in the right stuff where Glenn and Co demand a window... and a hatch. The “conspiracy” against pilots isn’t a new one! :)
- Gibbon1 8y agoI remember reading in a biography that the first test 'pilots' were dismayed that the rockets didn't have a throttle.