4 ms·

The private airport idea is interesting. From a pilots perspective, one of the major roadblocks to these systems being widely integrated into the current infras

The private airport idea is interesting. From a pilots perspective, one of the major roadblocks to these systems being widely integrated into the current infrastructure is managing traffic. If they’re largely operated separately from manned traffic that eliminates nearly all of those difficult problems. The comment about edge cases causes me to think about weather. I don’t think many non-pilots have a good appreciation of how much complex decision making goes into operating in and around inclement weather. Fuel constraints, airport constraints in terms of equipment, weather, and traffic, unreliable forecasting, etc. Theres a lot that goes into it and each aircraft begins making decisions that involve several people, including the on-board pilots. It seems like you can have one operator for 5-10 aircraft but then suddenly the weather rolls through and every single one of those aircraft needs individual attention and planning. Did you save much by still having an operator/craft? Or do you need more stringent weather requirements to operate these aircraft? Or do you try to have the best of both worlds and eventually the autonomous systems just crash themselves in non-populous areas absent other guidance. If these systems are largely grounded every time there’s inclement weather I can’t imagine the people who advertise “the world, on time” are going to be too keen on operating them at scale. Dispatch-ability is a major factor in these types of operations.

whiddershins 6y ago
Let’s say you have one virtual pilot for 10 planes. They won’t all be landing at the same time. So that pilot could guide each one down successively during inclement weather. I bet that would be way more fun than the bunches of sitting around that I imagine is currently part of the job.
- juliansimioni 6y ago
  [pilot here] There's a lot more to managing planes in bad weather than landing them: you can't exactly fly through a thunderstorm. Furthermore, sometimes go/no-go decisions have to be made a long way out. If it looks like there might be lots of thunderstorms near your destination, it's sometimes prudent to divert immediately rather than risk being near an airport with weather too bad to land AND low fuel. A great example is a youtube video by stevo1kinevo: he's flying a TBM 850 (fast turboprop) from Florida to Boston International. While checking the weather enroute he decides the chance of storms near Boston is too high, and with the complexity of getting in and out of a major airport, he decides well in advance to divert to an airport on Long Island. This sort of stuff happens all the time and is the very definition of good airmanship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    On the ground operator can also make those calls? Really, it's like fleet-specific air traffic controller + rc pilot.
    - juliansimioni 6y ago
      Yeah, definitely. And thinking about it more I'm sure there are some air traffic controllers that manage 10+ airplanes fine (although they aren't as involved as the pilots, so a remote operator would have a higher workload). I bet a fleet of commercial autonomous aircraft operation out of private facilities would also have a lot more common procedures (all their airspeeds, climb/descent rates, etc would all be the same), so it might even be easier.
      - whiddershins 6y ago
        Also maybe they could pool resources? Like pilots in an area where everything is fine leave their planes on full auto and go take over another plane from another pilot? Edit: Or maybe, expect the planes to be fully auto, then have a bank of pilots available to take over any plane that is having troubles.
  - jzwinck 6y ago
    > you can't exactly fly through a thunderstorm. You can't, but can a UAV? I'm curious how much more tolerant of bad weather a plane can be if there are no people inside. Are storms often strong enough to knock a plane out of the sky?
    - ghayes 6y ago
      Flying by instruments, I wonder how high the risk truly is. One of the bigger concerns might be an instrument failure, like the failure of the airspeed sensors on Air France 447.
      - bfuclusion 6y ago
- bronco21016 6y ago
  The sitting around can be boring but there’s little that’s more fun than turning off the autopilot and hand flying an Expressway Visual 31 at La Guardia in gusty winds with traffic departing runway 4. Do it at a workstation in a desk chair with none of the “stress” of the situation and I’m going to find another career. The combination of skills needed and the threat of life and limb just make stuff like that exciting in a visceral way that would never be possible with an RC plane. As to your argument, yes the load would have to be balanced across flights at various stages. You’d be surprised how many planes are all in a very similar boat though when they’re all converging on a hub in SE USA and a summer thunderstorm comes booming through. Spend an evening watching MEM on FlightAware and LiveATC as FedEx does their thing. What seems like the whole fleet comes marching in through a very narrow window of time.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    I don’t think that the same population who currently flies would be the ones who would fly pilotless planes from desks. I’ve flow personally for 22 years. Other than simulator-based training, I have no interest in flying a flight simulator. Why do that when the real thing is available and so much more compelling as you describe? No way I’d fly from a desk either, but that doesn’t mean that someone else wouldn’t be happy to have that job.
    - bronco21016 6y ago
      Agreed, it’s not in the interest of my career. I was more just commenting about the GP’s thought that it might be more fun to get to only intervene for landing. Ten simulator landings will never outweigh one real landing, even if the price is butts in seats for 10 hours.

whiddershins 6y ago

Let’s say you have one virtual pilot for 10 planes. They won’t all be landing at the same time. So that pilot could guide each one down successively during inclement weather. I bet that would be way more fun than the bunches of sitting around that I imagine is currently part of the job.

juliansimioni 6y ago
[pilot here] There's a lot more to managing planes in bad weather than landing them: you can't exactly fly through a thunderstorm. Furthermore, sometimes go/no-go decisions have to be made a long way out. If it looks like there might be lots of thunderstorms near your destination, it's sometimes prudent to divert immediately rather than risk being near an airport with weather too bad to land AND low fuel. A great example is a youtube video by stevo1kinevo: he's flying a TBM 850 (fast turboprop) from Florida to Boston International. While checking the weather enroute he decides the chance of storms near Boston is too high, and with the complexity of getting in and out of a major airport, he decides well in advance to divert to an airport on Long Island. This sort of stuff happens all the time and is the very definition of good airmanship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  On the ground operator can also make those calls? Really, it's like fleet-specific air traffic controller + rc pilot.
  - juliansimioni 6y ago
    Yeah, definitely. And thinking about it more I'm sure there are some air traffic controllers that manage 10+ airplanes fine (although they aren't as involved as the pilots, so a remote operator would have a higher workload). I bet a fleet of commercial autonomous aircraft operation out of private facilities would also have a lot more common procedures (all their airspeeds, climb/descent rates, etc would all be the same), so it might even be easier.
    - whiddershins 6y ago
      Also maybe they could pool resources? Like pilots in an area where everything is fine leave their planes on full auto and go take over another plane from another pilot? Edit: Or maybe, expect the planes to be fully auto, then have a bank of pilots available to take over any plane that is having troubles.
- jzwinck 6y ago
  > you can't exactly fly through a thunderstorm. You can't, but can a UAV? I'm curious how much more tolerant of bad weather a plane can be if there are no people inside. Are storms often strong enough to knock a plane out of the sky?
  - ghayes 6y ago
    Flying by instruments, I wonder how high the risk truly is. One of the bigger concerns might be an instrument failure, like the failure of the airspeed sensors on Air France 447.
    - bfuclusion 6y ago
bronco21016 6y ago
The sitting around can be boring but there’s little that’s more fun than turning off the autopilot and hand flying an Expressway Visual 31 at La Guardia in gusty winds with traffic departing runway 4. Do it at a workstation in a desk chair with none of the “stress” of the situation and I’m going to find another career. The combination of skills needed and the threat of life and limb just make stuff like that exciting in a visceral way that would never be possible with an RC plane. As to your argument, yes the load would have to be balanced across flights at various stages. You’d be surprised how many planes are all in a very similar boat though when they’re all converging on a hub in SE USA and a summer thunderstorm comes booming through. Spend an evening watching MEM on FlightAware and LiveATC as FedEx does their thing. What seems like the whole fleet comes marching in through a very narrow window of time.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I don’t think that the same population who currently flies would be the ones who would fly pilotless planes from desks. I’ve flow personally for 22 years. Other than simulator-based training, I have no interest in flying a flight simulator. Why do that when the real thing is available and so much more compelling as you describe? No way I’d fly from a desk either, but that doesn’t mean that someone else wouldn’t be happy to have that job.
  - bronco21016 6y ago
    Agreed, it’s not in the interest of my career. I was more just commenting about the GP’s thought that it might be more fun to get to only intervene for landing. Ten simulator landings will never outweigh one real landing, even if the price is butts in seats for 10 hours.