Unmanned aircrafts

[0707]

Unmanned aircrafts are being more and more used for military purposes will be unmanned aircraft technology be used on civil transportation such as commercial cargos or passenger planes?

would you fly in an Unmanned aircraft?

 

[Beggar]

Will they be used for commercial flights? No, never.

The advantage to military ROVs is that the pilots are not put at risk and there are design advantages conferred by not having to accommodate a pilot on the aircraft.

There is no advantage to an ROV for a commercial airliner.

Also recognize that the pilot's union is very strong and very wealthy and would fight any move in that direction; it's unlikely that you could ever get the FAA to buy off on it even if it were a good idea.

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[aardvarkdw]

I don't know, I could see it in a few years. There has been talk of computer controlled cars for many years. Another thing to think about is video games. I know 10 year old kids that can fly an airplane or drive a car on a video game better than many people can drive for real. I think it is entirely possible that companies might make use of these skills if they can get the public to buy off on it. A controller remotly operates a plane for take off and once it is at cruising altitude it is handed over to the autopilot, the controller can then operate another plane untill it is time for the first plane to land. One controller could operate several planes not to mention the benefit of coordinating traffic control with operation.

That being said, I agree with Beggar. There would be a lot of oposition from not only the pilot's union but from the public as well. It's an interesting dream though.

David

 

[scotty7]

Already the systems of modern aircraft e.g. the Boeing 777 make the pilot virtually redundant once it knows where it is going, although pilots often take control anyway. However, the pilot earns his money when things go wrong. Which is rarely, but pretty fundamental when it does. Remote operation probably wouldn't work in these circumstances, and there is still a lot to be said for "seat of the pants" flying - feeling what the aircraft is doing, as opposed to what it is telling you it is doing.

 

[MadMango]

I suspect we could see short-range automated cargo flights, but I'm sure FedEx, UPS, DHL and others have their own pilot's unions as well. These would probably be restricted to flights over low population areas. People don't like bombs flying over their houses.

[green]"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."[/green]

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[0707]

It is better to see bombs flying over the houses than see bombs falling over the houses.

 

[KENAT]

It may be a possibility for cargo flights that don't go over populated areas but in anywhere near the short term I don't see it happening for passenger or cargo in populated areas.

As noted for most of the flight the pilots aren't flying the aircraft anyway, it's on some kind of auto pilot. Also arguably with the fly by wire aircraft even when he's moving the stick the pilot isn't 'flying' the A/C.

When FBW was originally proposed for passenger A/C I believe there were objections. Given that these were overcome maybe we will see remotely piloted commercial A/C sooner rather than we imagine.

As regards flying a plane re computer games. I find driving a real car or flying a real plane easier than most games or even some simulators, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I understand the talk about pilot's unions and such, but think about military pilots, they're being phased out already.

I don't know how long it will take but I'm sure that we'll see unmanned passenger flights eventually, pretty sure we'll also get unmanned vehicular traffic with loads of jokes about the awful old days when you had to actively driver yourself.

In the shorter-term, as has been said auto-pilots already do a large amount of work, particularly inbetween landing and take-off. I think scotty7 has it exactly right though when he says that the pilot proves his worth when things do go wrong.

I've changed my mind from my first sentence - is there any economic reason to get rid of pilots? For the military it makes sense, lives are on the line every flight, for commercial I can't see that the pilot's salary makes that much difference to the bottom line of a given flight. Does it?

 

[aardvarkdw]

Exactly my point KENAT. Essentially with all the new simulator style computer games out there we are producing "trained" UAV pilots without the current cost both in time and equipment.

David

 

[CajunCenturion]

There's a big difference between flying a simulator and flying for real. First, no matter what happens in a simulator, you're going to walk away, so you're far more likely to do something that will get the aircraft into trouble.

You can't "feel" the aircraft in a simulator. When you're approach weather, even though an auto-pilot maintains aircraft stability, the pilot still can feel the turbulence, and can feel the effect weather is having on the airplane. A pilot can feel that it's a little bumpy at this altitude so request an altitude change.

What happens if the airplane is on auto-pilot, executing a GPS based approach and while on final, there is outside electronic signal interference? There may be nothing wrong with the GPS satelites, nor with the onboard equipment, but if the signal is broken, then what?

I would also be concerned about the ability to handle aircraft emergencies, not just in your aircraft, but in response to emergencies is nearby aircraft that require you to go into holding patterns, or even execute a missed approach.

I'm confident that the technology can do things just fine, and perhaps even better, under normal situations. But how well can the technology react to the unforseen situations.



Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[EOIT]

I could see this having greater potential for trans-oceanic cargo flights. The length of those flights and the reduced population below the planes would probably be the most practical.

Just my two cents.

Regards,

EOIT

 

[GregLocock]

"What happens if the airplane is on auto-pilot, executing a GPS based approach and while on final, there is outside electronic signal interference? There may be nothing wrong with the GPS satelites, nor with the onboard equipment, but if the signal is broken, then what?"

That's where your system FMEA gets tested. If your software is properly written it will handle that sort of error. If not, then, not. I amgaine you'd have several layers of redundancy in the approach system. Automated landing systems existed long before GPS.

Like it or not, automated drivers are coming. You can already take a ride in a train with no driver.



Cheers

Greg Locock

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[bvanhiel]

What happens if the airplane is on auto-pilot, executing a GPS based approach and while on final, there is outside electronic signal interference? There may be nothing wrong with the GPS satelites, nor with the onboard equipment, but if the signal is broken, then what?

A ccomputer should do the exact same thing a human pilot does. Abort the landing and fly the missed approach procedure.

I agree with scotty7's statement that a human pilot is necessary when things go wrong. It would have to be a pretty sophisticated machine to be able to pick out the best place to attempt an off-airport landing. We haven't yet built a machine that can exercise that level of judgement.

I don't, however, agree with scotty7's statement about "seat of the pants" flying. Most accidents in instrument conditions are caused by pilots responding to "seat of the pants" instincts rather than relying on what the instruments say.

-b

 

[Comcokid]

No doubt, in the far future we will have pilotless passenger planes. The cockpit of planes used to have three people (goodbye flight engineer). At some point, I would expect there to be one (goodbye copilot).

The big problem is the reilability of such systems. Airbus designed their aircraft to be semi-automatic which led to a lot of crashes when the pilot needed to abort a landing and didn't reconfigure the flight mode (flip a switch). The pilot and automatic controls would fight each other resulting in a crash. One video taped example happened at a airshow in Mulhouse-Habsheim France in 1988 where a very senior Airbus test pilot was at the controls as the plane flew into a forest. Airbus has always blamed the pilots in such cases although it is really an example of bad systems design and human-factor engineering.

Just a few weeks ago, a brand new Embraer business jet collided with a brand new 737 in Brazil (each plane was less than 30 days old). Both planes were equipped with the latest in collision avoidance equipment. Neither plane had a collision warning. The Gol 737 crashed with 154 lives lost. However, the skilled Embraer pilot managed to make an emergency landing saving the seven in his badly damaged jet. Again, this was not a failure of the pilots, but of of the systems in place. It remains to be fully determined, but it looks like a failure of the air traffic control compounded by a failure of the collision avoidance equipment. I doubt an automated pilotless system could have quickly adopted to the changed flight charcteristics of the plane, and spotted a uncharted airstrip in the Amazon jungle to make a safe emergency landing. And even a automated system will still be subject to the directions of air traffic control.

Maybe they should automated air traffic control first.

 

[Beggar]

What would be the motivation to develop an ROV airliner and the system to support it?

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[KENAT]

aardvarkdw

While never the biggest gamer I had been playing games including sims for a long time before I flew a real plane. The Real plane was a lot easier to land, wasn't 'easy' but in a real aircraft I have as many successful landings as take offs.

My odds on the syms I've tried aren't nearly as good! Maybe it's not just that the real plane is easier but also that your life relying on it focuses the mind somewhat as others on Eng Tips are always keen to point out.

If a military UAV has trouble at most it will just try to divert to an unpopulated/non critical area before crashing. Arguably a cargo plane could do the same thing. A passenger plane however doesn't have this option and that's where the problem lies.

 

[jmw]

Of course, we already have trains without drivers.... at the airports mostly.

In military flight, there are significant advantages to RPVs, a major factor being they can be significantly cheaper and smaller. A piloted aircraft on phot recon, for example, is as big and heavy as it is because of the pilot and all the safety systems around him from armour to ejector seats etc. RPVs are expendable and can risk enemy fire.
Dropping the crew from commercial flights, passenger or freight doesn't seem to provide the same level of advantages since the plane would still need to be the size it is to carry the same passengers or freight.

Technically it could be done, is it more or less risky? or is it going to be perceived as more risky? I suspect that the latter would be a transient fear.... witness the trains scenario... people are more accustomed to modern technology today than ever before.

The only question is would these be fully automated or remotely piloted? In either case I like AardvarkVW's thought about one pilot handling the landings of several different planes.... by the way, does it matter if the plane crashes because the pilot or the computer was victim of an instrument failure? The difference would be if, as Comcokid says, the pilot can make a difference in enough cases to justify his place.... if the money difference were enough then i guess that sooner or later like it or not that's what we'd get... pilotless planes. But is there enough financial advantage? Taking the pilot out would probably necessitate a significant increase in multiple redundnat systems based around different technologies (one fails the others shouldn't).
On the other hand, how many coputers would let their kids fly the plane (Russian pilot: crash wiped out all) or would have heart attacks, drink too much etc. Pilot error may often be a cop out but equally, pilot error also happens.
In the end, it probably will come down to cost.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[monkeydog]

Too Late

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10675-airliner-flown-without-pilot-in-uav-test.html

 

[Schipperus]

I'd like to fly a pilotless airplane.

Especially landing isn't always fun, not all pilots can land soft and balanced. If you really want to fly yourself, take a chessna, and make sure your passengers have life-insurance.

IJsbrand

 

[jmw]

Monkeydog,
interesting link.

But, all they really did was fly a large old remote controlled plane which we all know has been done before, the pilot was on board but in the back and there was an emergency crew in the cockpit just in case.

This was a test of military technology and really doesn't address the issue of remotely piloted or fully automatic passenger/freight aircraft. I don't think there is a technology issue of any magnitude just one of financial advantage and getting the public to swallow it and we all know the public will ultimately do waht is expected of them.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com