3 ms·

Probably somewhere in between. Automation will keep getting better. And, with the recent pilot shortage, probably make it safer for lower time pilots to opera

Probably somewhere in between. Automation will keep getting better. And, with the recent pilot shortage, probably make it safer for lower time pilots to operate. For example, some aircraft are now self-diagnosing during abnormal procedures. When something breaks, it'll bring up the appropriate checklist on the screen. Maybe some kind of augmented reality that lets you land in true 0 visibility, or automation that lets us reduce spacing on approach. Think things that improve safety, reliability, and ops tempo, therefore profits. But, the stakes are just too high to ever remove a human override, though, imo.

anoncake 7y ago
The more automated planes get, the less often a pilot gets to actually fly. Automation is more likely to fail in uncommon situations that an inexperienced pilot cannot deal with anyway. Even if a pilot is not completely useless and we value a human life at infinity, at some point having a pilot on board is not worth it. If a pilot can save the plane in less than 1/<number of passengers and non-pilot crew> of situations that would have ended in a fatal crash without them, we lose more pilots than we save non-pilots. Also, it's possible that an autopilot can handle a situation but the pilot erroneously overrides it and crashes.