NASA/Rockwell Studies Single Pilot
12-26-2014, 11:48 PM
#1
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NASA/Rockwell Studies Single Pilot
Interesting article.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/single-pilot-cockpits-floated-in-nasa-study-1418611930
Facing potential shortages of airline pilots and dramatic advances in automation, industry and government researchers have begun the most serious look yet at the idea of enabling jetliners to be flown by a single pilot.
All large commercial jets for passenger and cargo service world-wide now fly with at least two pilots in the cockpit. A new study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Rockwell Collins Inc. will focus on the provocative idea that co-pilots could remain on the ground, remotely assisting solo aviators on the flight deck during the busiest parts of flights, said John Borghese, Rockwell’s vice president of its Advanced Technology Center.
Whether the concept will eventually come to fruition depends on political viability and social acceptability as well as technical feasibility. The researchers aren’t endorsing the idea or devising specific plans for single-pilot operation of large commercial jets. Rather, they seek to analyze changes in technology and operations that could make the concept feasible in the future—even if that means as far off as 2030.
From self-operating elevators introduced well over a half-century ago to advanced plans for driverless cars today, human mobility has become increasingly automated. The NASA study reflects not only technological ambition but more practical concerns: Many airline industry officials are worried that the world-wide pool of pilots will dwindle over the next two decades while air-travel volume doubles.
Reducing the size of cockpit crews for big cargo or passenger planes—or eventually perhaps even eliminating pilots entirely—have been topics of theoretical discussion among aerospace industry officials and researchers for many years. The NASA initiative is significant because it raises the concept’s profile, and signals that NASA officials are convinced the general notion isn’t too far-fetched to merit further research.
The roughly $4 million, four-year contract was awarded to Rockwell earlier this year but the first phase will be announced on Tuesday. The nearly half-decade study will include running simulations, determining where technology is needed and even potentially undertaking live flight trials. NASA officials say they anticipate Rockwell’s efforts will spark additional studies by an array of other companies and experts.
Under the concept the researchers are studying, aviators on the ground could be assigned to assist solo cockpit pilots on multiple flights, virtually co-piloting during the busiest times through crowded airspace, approach-and-landing maneuvers, or if something goes wrong. “It’s a reasonably new area” to study how the notion may apply to large jets, according to Parimal Kopardekar, the program’s manager based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in northern California. When pilots need a midair rest or bathroom break, those on the ground even may “need to baby-sit the vehicle,” he said.
Such a dramatic shift won’t happen any time soon, and there is virtual consensus that reduced crews for passenger planes won’t be considered until they are introduced first in the cargo arena. That is unlikely to gain traction much before the end of the next decade, according to experts and airline officials.
Jets today are designed to have two pilots behind the controls, and retrofitting existing aircraft “may be too expensive and may be too difficult” to obtain regulatory approval, according to NASA’s Mr. Kopardekar. Industry officials say all-new aircraft would be needed with cockpits designed from the start with a single pilot in mind.
The international aviation system has reached unmatched levels of safety and reliability, in part because of greater automation and a widely accepted global standard for cockpit behavior and cooperation.
Early investigations of single-pilot flying alone in a simulator with a co-pilot assisting from a virtual ground station found that separation led to frequent confusion about what the other aviator was doing.
Boeing Co. and Airbus Group NV designed jets in the 1970s with increasing automation that eliminated a third crew member, who used to be responsible for monitoring navigation and the various aircraft systems.
Steady advances in cockpit automation and enhanced capabilities of unmanned aircraft have transformed the technologies required for reduced-pilot airline operations. “Fundamentally, it’s not an engineering question anymore,” according to Richard Healing, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. “The real debate is over how regulators and public opinion will react to previously unthinkable changes.”
About a decade ago, FedEx Corp. informally broached the idea of reducing its cargo-jet flight crews from three to two on long overwater routes of more than eight hours. Flights of that duration require a relief pilot. To reduce risks to people on the ground, proponents argued such flights could take off from coastal airports with runways ending over water and land on the same type of strips.
The company abandoned the idea, government officials said at the time, largely due to union opposition, compounded by extensive institutional and regulatory hurdles. Labor leaders naturally bristled when the issue came up, though many continue to believe the pendulum is inexorably swinging in the direction of reduced crews and ultimately, cargo planes entirely controlled from the ground. The Air Line Pilots Association declined to comment and FedEx didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The early industry discussion was aimed at cutting costs, but Rockwell’s latest study is partly inspired by an anticipated shortage of pilots. Boeing projects a need for 533,000 new commercial airline pilots over the next 20 years as the number of miles flown doubles, and the plane maker has warned that personnel availability might fall short.
Analysts, labor groups and academics contend any pilot shortage results from the industry’s unwillingness to sufficiently pay pilots. Boeing declined to comment on the NASA study with Rockwell.
While experts almost universally believe some moves in this direction are inevitable, they disagree over how long they may take and the extent of the stumbling blocks.
“This is not an incremental change,” said David Woods, a professor of cognitive systems and resilience engineering at Ohio State University. Reducing crews goes beyond bolting on technology and further automating flight decks, he stressed. “This is a major step change. It has big implications for how we train pilots.”
Prof. Woods said as flying becomes more automated, transitioning from routine flying to dealing with potential emergencies in the air and on the ground becomes increasingly difficult.
Experts say these challenges may be surmountable, but not without significantly rethinking current design principles. The worst-case-scenario of pilot incapacitation during stormy weather or mechanical failure, for instance, offers a daunting challenge.
“You need to have a very assured way of getting that aircraft down to the ground with no help from the pilot on board,” said Mr. Borghese. “Right now I cannot imagine a harder problem.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/single-pilot-cockpits-floated-in-nasa-study-1418611930
Facing potential shortages of airline pilots and dramatic advances in automation, industry and government researchers have begun the most serious look yet at the idea of enabling jetliners to be flown by a single pilot.
All large commercial jets for passenger and cargo service world-wide now fly with at least two pilots in the cockpit. A new study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Rockwell Collins Inc. will focus on the provocative idea that co-pilots could remain on the ground, remotely assisting solo aviators on the flight deck during the busiest parts of flights, said John Borghese, Rockwell’s vice president of its Advanced Technology Center.
Whether the concept will eventually come to fruition depends on political viability and social acceptability as well as technical feasibility. The researchers aren’t endorsing the idea or devising specific plans for single-pilot operation of large commercial jets. Rather, they seek to analyze changes in technology and operations that could make the concept feasible in the future—even if that means as far off as 2030.
From self-operating elevators introduced well over a half-century ago to advanced plans for driverless cars today, human mobility has become increasingly automated. The NASA study reflects not only technological ambition but more practical concerns: Many airline industry officials are worried that the world-wide pool of pilots will dwindle over the next two decades while air-travel volume doubles.
Reducing the size of cockpit crews for big cargo or passenger planes—or eventually perhaps even eliminating pilots entirely—have been topics of theoretical discussion among aerospace industry officials and researchers for many years. The NASA initiative is significant because it raises the concept’s profile, and signals that NASA officials are convinced the general notion isn’t too far-fetched to merit further research.
The roughly $4 million, four-year contract was awarded to Rockwell earlier this year but the first phase will be announced on Tuesday. The nearly half-decade study will include running simulations, determining where technology is needed and even potentially undertaking live flight trials. NASA officials say they anticipate Rockwell’s efforts will spark additional studies by an array of other companies and experts.
Under the concept the researchers are studying, aviators on the ground could be assigned to assist solo cockpit pilots on multiple flights, virtually co-piloting during the busiest times through crowded airspace, approach-and-landing maneuvers, or if something goes wrong. “It’s a reasonably new area” to study how the notion may apply to large jets, according to Parimal Kopardekar, the program’s manager based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in northern California. When pilots need a midair rest or bathroom break, those on the ground even may “need to baby-sit the vehicle,” he said.
Such a dramatic shift won’t happen any time soon, and there is virtual consensus that reduced crews for passenger planes won’t be considered until they are introduced first in the cargo arena. That is unlikely to gain traction much before the end of the next decade, according to experts and airline officials.
Jets today are designed to have two pilots behind the controls, and retrofitting existing aircraft “may be too expensive and may be too difficult” to obtain regulatory approval, according to NASA’s Mr. Kopardekar. Industry officials say all-new aircraft would be needed with cockpits designed from the start with a single pilot in mind.
The international aviation system has reached unmatched levels of safety and reliability, in part because of greater automation and a widely accepted global standard for cockpit behavior and cooperation.
Early investigations of single-pilot flying alone in a simulator with a co-pilot assisting from a virtual ground station found that separation led to frequent confusion about what the other aviator was doing.
Boeing Co. and Airbus Group NV designed jets in the 1970s with increasing automation that eliminated a third crew member, who used to be responsible for monitoring navigation and the various aircraft systems.
Steady advances in cockpit automation and enhanced capabilities of unmanned aircraft have transformed the technologies required for reduced-pilot airline operations. “Fundamentally, it’s not an engineering question anymore,” according to Richard Healing, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. “The real debate is over how regulators and public opinion will react to previously unthinkable changes.”
About a decade ago, FedEx Corp. informally broached the idea of reducing its cargo-jet flight crews from three to two on long overwater routes of more than eight hours. Flights of that duration require a relief pilot. To reduce risks to people on the ground, proponents argued such flights could take off from coastal airports with runways ending over water and land on the same type of strips.
The company abandoned the idea, government officials said at the time, largely due to union opposition, compounded by extensive institutional and regulatory hurdles. Labor leaders naturally bristled when the issue came up, though many continue to believe the pendulum is inexorably swinging in the direction of reduced crews and ultimately, cargo planes entirely controlled from the ground. The Air Line Pilots Association declined to comment and FedEx didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The early industry discussion was aimed at cutting costs, but Rockwell’s latest study is partly inspired by an anticipated shortage of pilots. Boeing projects a need for 533,000 new commercial airline pilots over the next 20 years as the number of miles flown doubles, and the plane maker has warned that personnel availability might fall short.
Analysts, labor groups and academics contend any pilot shortage results from the industry’s unwillingness to sufficiently pay pilots. Boeing declined to comment on the NASA study with Rockwell.
While experts almost universally believe some moves in this direction are inevitable, they disagree over how long they may take and the extent of the stumbling blocks.
“This is not an incremental change,” said David Woods, a professor of cognitive systems and resilience engineering at Ohio State University. Reducing crews goes beyond bolting on technology and further automating flight decks, he stressed. “This is a major step change. It has big implications for how we train pilots.”
Prof. Woods said as flying becomes more automated, transitioning from routine flying to dealing with potential emergencies in the air and on the ground becomes increasingly difficult.
Experts say these challenges may be surmountable, but not without significantly rethinking current design principles. The worst-case-scenario of pilot incapacitation during stormy weather or mechanical failure, for instance, offers a daunting challenge.
“You need to have a very assured way of getting that aircraft down to the ground with no help from the pilot on board,” said Mr. Borghese. “Right now I cannot imagine a harder problem.”
12-27-2014, 04:48 AM
#3
veut gagner à la loterie
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I hope your holding patterns are more North Korea friendly, because you're going to get a lot of people deleted with that attitude.
12-27-2014, 07:18 AM
#4
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You have great and unjustifiable attack against the great people of North Korea and their Feerless Deer Leeder. Unless you now re-write your most sarcasm statement, you will feel wrath of most Benevolent Leeder and all your sarcasm will belong to us.
01-05-2015, 05:51 AM
#5
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Joined APC: Jun 2008
Posts: 3,716
SPO
Rockwell Collins has been tapped to lead a NASA-sponsored study into "single pilot" operations of commercial airliners. In a news release last month, the company said the study will determine the feasibility of SPO in airliners while acknowledging the considerable barriers in the way. "The aviation industry has been looking at the potential for single-pilot operations for quite some time to address concerns about future pilot shortages, but there are a number of technical, certification and policy considerations that must be addressed along the way," said John Borghese, vice president of Rockwell Collins' Advanced Technology Center, in a statement. While there might only be one pilot on board the aircraft, that doesn't necessarily mean he or she will be alone in operating the flight.
NASA is also looking at the feasibility of having some aspects of an airliner's flight operated from ground stations. In a separate study (PDF), NASA and several partners, including Rockwell Collins, is looking at developing the appropriate ground station that leverages the burgeoning technologies for unmanned aerial systems, including sense and avoid systems. In practice, the study notes that for most of an airliner's typical flights, a single pilot is all that's required. The ground station personnel would help out more on departure and approaches and take over the full responsibilities of a first officer in an emergency. Presumably the ground station will be able to direct an autoland in case the pilot on board becomes incapacitated.
NASA is also looking at the feasibility of having some aspects of an airliner's flight operated from ground stations. In a separate study (PDF), NASA and several partners, including Rockwell Collins, is looking at developing the appropriate ground station that leverages the burgeoning technologies for unmanned aerial systems, including sense and avoid systems. In practice, the study notes that for most of an airliner's typical flights, a single pilot is all that's required. The ground station personnel would help out more on departure and approaches and take over the full responsibilities of a first officer in an emergency. Presumably the ground station will be able to direct an autoland in case the pilot on board becomes incapacitated.
01-05-2015, 06:36 AM
#6
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I expect that this study will confirm what is already fairly obvious to those with technical insight...you'd need a fully automated airliner to account for pilot incapacitation.
A full-auto airliner is WAAAAAAY too expensive a proposition just to get rid of the FO.
I don't see SPO as a practical destination. At some point (likely in the distant future) SPO will serve as a transition to full-auto airliners...basically a safety pilot until the full-auto is proven in actual service.
A full-auto airliner is WAAAAAAY too expensive a proposition just to get rid of the FO.
I don't see SPO as a practical destination. At some point (likely in the distant future) SPO will serve as a transition to full-auto airliners...basically a safety pilot until the full-auto is proven in actual service.
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