Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers

A computer can only do so many algorithms. Let's say a situation happens and the computer/AI is there to slove the problem and it does.... but what happens when the problem is outside of the box and the algorithm doesn't know what to do. This is where is can turn catastrophic. This is where pilots come in to play and think outside the box plus their fighting for their lives so they will do everything to get home to their families and their passengers also.

20 years it will start with cargo flights.

Another 10 years after maybe commercial flights.

If an accident happens like where two planes go down due to MCAS designed by boeing. This probably set it back years for automation.

Look at Sully landing on the Hudson can a computer do that?

Miracle on the Hudson that was down to skill and knowledge and a brilliant Captain and First Office.

The FAA will not allow this, they wont even allow 1 person only in the cockpit. If it takes 3-5 years in flight school, there's a low possibility that they can replace pilots that need to learn for 5 years.

Within the upcoming years, robots might be developed enough to completely fly planes. Actually, some planes already can. The issue with this is that many people will likely never trust a robot to control something that is thousands of feet in the air because if something were to happen, there would be no professionals to manage the issue or take control if the computer fails.

The amount of things pilots have to do in order to ensure safe flights is astounding, not to mention that if something were to go wrong, what would the robot even do?

That's an airplane! It flies upto 40000ft no one can trust a machine flying airplane, carrying 200+ passengers without pilot... Even auto pilot is in under control of pilot, they are watching it!

we already have autopilots and they havent been replaced, yes, there is automation, but when the automation is already here and there's still demand for pilots, why would it go away

I'm a commercial pilot, I work in the industry for the last 20 years.
Capacity to AI takeover already exist but passanger trust will take longer to be achieved.

consider that nothing manufactured by humans are perfect, with such a reality, you cannot assume that a robot/ai could do it's job flawlessly. there are ethical decisions in emergencies that must be made in the cockpit that an ai simply cannot do. furthermore, redundancy is a core value in aviation, and until human manufacturing is perfect (arguably wont ever be), a pilot will always be needed in the cockpit as a form of redundancy in case the manufactured systems malfunction.

ask yourself this question, how would you feel if the most beloved person to you was on a plane controlled by a robot that could be hacked, glitch, or malfunction

There are many airlines that want soft, silky landings and not slammy, hard, ai- landings

AI is advancing rapidly and is on track to replace pilots within 10 years.

Unlikely for a long time. First of all, there’s the technology which is there. Currently, automation has to be set and monitored by the pilots. It is extremely accurate and does fly the plane better than a person can, but it has limitations.

Most emergencies or abnormal events are known about and there are checklists to deal with them, but not every situation is the same or black and white. My specialty is flying airplanes, not computer science, but I find it hard to imagine current AI being able to properly handle a plane in an emergency, especially if it is a new situation.

There is also public opinion. I don’t like the idea because it takes a lot of jobs away, and I know many others don’t like the idea of a couple of hundred people being flown in an airplane completely controlled by AI.

The FAA is also notoriously slow with changing and adapting the rules. They have plenty of rules that are outdated and strange policies, but most of it is in the interest of safety. They prohibit people from flying unless they meet specific physical and mental health criteria. To my knowledge, pilots aren’t allowed to have any form of mental illness, and can’t take antidepressants or other similar things which could easily be treated.

The point I’m making here is that they’re slow to change and this big change would certainly take a while.

Airbus already has an airplane that can fly all phases of flight by itself.

People aren’t trustworthy of artificial intelligence it could take 50 years+ for them to start being used alone and you’d still need a pilot just in case

I think it will be partially automated before fully, but that will have an impact on how many jobs there are by about half. If things can be automated enough to remove the co-pilot, then that will happen first. Then single pilots will be flying from home just like the military flies drones now. Over time, with the increase in AI that can make decisions in real time about outside factors, the planes will become fully automated.

Everything moves very, very slowly in the world of aviation. We still use technology from the 90s. There is no way it will be automated in my lifetime.

The average lifespan of an airliner is 20 years. Even if they started producing fully automated aircraft tomorrow, most of the planes would be manned for many, many years to come.

FAA requires 2 pilots in the cockpit at all times and they're not really aiming towards automating flying without pilots since they're the ones making the decisions in an emergency.

Because humans will probably be better at decision making and certificaton for full AI control will likely take a long time.

Although the actual flight operation can be managed by AI, there is always the chance that the AI will fail at controlling the plane. Also there is always different situations for landing and takeoff, AI won't always be able to predict and maneuver the next move.