Would you fly in a plane without a pilot?
A UBS poll of 8,000 airline passengers reveals that 54% would refuse to fly in a completely self-piloted plane, even if the flights were cheaper.
The study claims that autonomous aircraft could result in savings for airlines of more than $35 billion a year, made up of $31 billion, and $3 billion from eliminating the need for training courses, along with fuel savings of $1 billion, all of which would presumably mean cheaper tickets.
The autopilot is by no means a new concept in aviation, dating back to 1912, when the Sperry Corporation designed and demonstrated a system connected to a gyroscope and an altitude indicator that could automatically drive the rudder and tail, thus dramatically reducing pilot fatigue. Most airplanes fly the vast majority of the time on autopilot, mandatory on all airplanes with more than twenty seats, which can handle all phases of the flight except ground circulation and takeoff. However, the idea of completely eliminating the pilot so that technology takes over the entire process still does not seem like a good idea for just over half of passengers.
The survey predicts that this opinion will have completely changed by the middle of the century, and that the first tests will be carried out on cargo planes, which usually operate late at night. My prediction is that not only will there be pilot-less commercial flights, but that we will find it hard to understand why we ever did things differently. In 2010, Ryanair asked the aviation authorities for permission to fly with only one pilot, arguing that the second was there just to prevent the first pilot from falling asleep and inadvertently triggering the controls, but the request was denied. With the development of completely autonomous systems, the request could be reassessed: instead of talking about a co-pilot present in case of problems with the first pilot, the airplane would fly autonomously, with a pilot on hand to deal with unexpected events.
More and more companies are working on the development of fully autonomous flight systems, which are now relatively common in military aviation. Airbus has announced it will have a system by the end of 2017, while Boeing is also working on the development of similar algorithms.
In the case of drones, we have gone from remotely operated devices to a new generation capable of flying completely autonomously in less than five years. Does anybody remember the time when elevators and an operator whose only function was to press the button for each floor, but who could do nothing in the case of an emergency, and was simply there to provide peace of mind to users.
Would you fly in a completely autonomous plane? What if made flights safer and significantly cheaper?
(En español, aquí)
