Consider 9/11. A few terrorists with easily concealed boxcutters destroyed the lives of thousands of humans and directly affected the families of hundreds of thousands. The aftermath has affected everyone on this planet that travels. It is irresponsible of Airbus or any other transportation related business to remove half the security and safeguards to save a few shekels for an investor. A sad day that we have come to contemplate this proposal. Emphatically no to single pilot ops for airlines. Lest we forget…
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Touché. Valid point, Tom!
Airbus posed this a few years ago, but for freighters. But we can be sure that they would want to extend it to two pilot operations and make them single pilot.
Safety is the issue. All pilots make occasional mistakes and the second pilot is there to catch it. Equipment failures occur and it takes two to sort it out …
I started jet flying in a Citation 500 single pilot and I was buzzed with the speed - but it really takes two because things happen very fast.
ugh. I’ll fix it right away
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I think pilots are just mad there would be fewer jobs. The planes can essentially fly themselves today, the pilot is largely a “minder”. It’s not “security” to have a cockpit full of pilots; how many plane crashes have been caused by that elite group? Most of 'em.
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An old saying that was born from hard fought experience: two is one and one is none
Mr. Phillips, I disagree.
Crew workload is pretty light at cruise altitude with the autopilot humming away.
But when something goes wrong, the workload gets furious, and it can get that way in the blink of an eye.
Approach to minimums at a busy airport, hard IFR at night, they switch runways on you. . . that’s not even something going wrong, but that’s when the cockpit needs more than one pilot.
It’s good that people are trying to think the whole notion through, the discussion will be messy.
I can think of better ways to implement the notion. And I’d want stretch breaks - sitting for 9 hours is not good for health.
(Jokes will abound - and what is that hole and human hand where the right seat usually is? Oh, on second look it seems to be a loop of something blue and a pair of leggings and lap blanket or skirt not in flying position. I hope Russ didn’t pay a lot for that photo.)
Where will the diapers be stowed…or does the pilot carry his/her own?
So the need to have a flight attendant come into the cockpit during bathroom breaks needs to be stopped today, immediately.
If nothing else, Russ, you’ve written a very amusing tongue-in-cheek description of the issue. Thanks for brightening my day!
I just has another thought: Why not build the potty into the pilot’s seat, so he or she never has to leave their station? Add a bidet, add “drop trow” to the pre-start checklist, and we’re ready to go.
An insurance policy is useless until you need it.
This brings the demise of Elvis Presley to mind. Which also makes me wonder if single pilot operations will require constant eye scanning to access if the pilot is awake, attentive, and alive? (Whether they are seated on the flight deck or the poop deck). It also brings a new level of privacy concerns over the NTSB’s proposed Cockpit Image Recorders.
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You may be thinking of someone other than Elvis Presley of RnR-rockabilly fame, who died of intoxicants, in poor health, while on the ground.
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Right now, the crew must access the rest of the plane for rest, toilet needs, and food. Wouldn’t take much for planes to be designed so that the flight deck and rest and refreshment areas are separate from the main cabin (look at cargo aircraft). You could eliminate the door to the cabin and only have the F/D accessible from the aircraft exterior. Since you have crew members in the cabin, you would not need cockpit access to the main cabin for fire fighting.
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I’m sure this is a delayed April Fools joke by Airbus. Or throw and “idea” at the wall and see what sticks. NY to Tokyo in a single pilot Airbus XXX SPLR. (Single Pilot Long Range). All aboard. So somebody tell me how UA 232 Sioux City Iowa, USAir 1549 Hudson River would have worked out single pilot?
Peak insanity. Seal off the main cabin from the cockpit. Then, at that point, who cares whats up front anyway? As long as…well, you know… we get there.
Yes, everything you say is true, but I was referring to the unfortunate circumstance that all of those things reached their fatal conclusion while he was seated on the commode.
Hey, Tosla cars work, don’t they?
/sarc
(Actually while not nearly enough distance/time has been driven by self-driving cars to make a meaningful conclusion, so far data suggests no worse than human drivers who make mistakes.
Of course pilots make mistakes, some comparable to the Tesla system that can’t decide which fork to take in a road until it is too late to avoid hitting things between.
And there are the local delivery robots who can’t decide things either: 1.8M views · 8.9K reactions | I thought it was some kind of traffic cop robot | Cheezburger.
I suspect not everyone can read that robot video as it is on Facebook.
With quiet flight decks due better aerodynamics today, is voice recognition enough instead of radio?
Well, yApple phone users say no, it is quite variable - sometimes botches a word.
I see strange pictures after reading this… not to mention the smells.
Well, who wants to read a book on the potty when they can fly an airliner???
Wasn’t the standard protocol up to that point in terms of hijackings to comply with the hijacker request? I’m genuinely asking because I’m pretty sure I read that. I don’t think those pilots were really even given a fighting chance? Like up until 9/11, the idea of using an airliner as a weapon wasn’t really a risk that was heavily considered? That seems like the weakness that was exploited, the willingness to comply with hijackers.