By Rob Russell
Ever since the day after the Wright brothers called in their bankers to help them finance their future planes and plans, the bean counters have been determined to reduce the number of aircrew flying planes.
We all know what dramatic strides have been made regarding automation and developing systems aimed at reducing aircrew workload. That cannot be denied and how many pilots will tell you, that without some of those systems, the workload will be far too much, in certain situations, or some will even admit they owe their lives to some modern technology getting them out of sticky situations.
So what’s the next step?
They are now looking at developing pilotless planes – horrors of all horrors you say! But it's coming and it's something we need to face up to, like it or not. Automation has made the life of all of us very much easier and we are able to perform our jobs a lot better than two or three decades ago. Now throw in the latest buzzwords – “Artificial” and “Intelligence” and the bean counters are even happier and more determined to reduce, and eventually remove, the amount of pilots in an aircraft. Those two words were never used in a paragraph together a few years back, but now they are the big words, no matter what you think about them.
And it's not only in the cockpit – automation is coming all over the place. Cars, trains, ATC, shipping, you name it
Remember Canary Wharf, in the late 80s – the downtown London development, when London Transport introduced driverless and conductorless trains? Horror of all horrors! The die-hards said they would never work and there would be collisions and many people would die. That was 50 years ago, there has only been one collision and the die-hards now travel on them! The collision, interestingly, involved one train being under manual control, following an earlier failure, and the other under fully autonomous control.
Who remembers, when in September 1984 Boeing announced, at Farnborough that they were upgrading the 747 and reducing the crew to two pilots only? The world went into a flat spin – pilots said they would never fly it, the workload would be too high and there would be many crashes. Passengers said they would never fly on such a big plane with only two pilots. Well, it wasn’t a day after they delivered the first one (remember North West Airlines took delivery of the first one), that pilots could not find simulators to do their conversions and they were fighting to get in the queue to convert. Passengers loved the bigger jet and peace and calm were restored. Try and find those pilots who years ago said that they would never fly it! No chance! Flying the 747 certainly got a lot easier.
So it can be done. The older generation are still those that believe there should be two pilots, an engineer and a navigator, but modern technology has developed at such speeds, that, not only in aviation, we are able to safely reduce the number of people doing certain jobs and using technology to help them do the job better and more safely.
Likewise, when Lockheed said they were upgrading their iconic C130 Herc and doing away with the flight engineer. Never work, said the pilots. In the environment they operated and the terrain they flew into, it was asking for trouble, having a two-pilot glass cockpit. They said the engineer was an indispensable member of the crew. Well out came Lockheed with the J model and EFIS and the pilots wanted to know why they took so long to bring it out! Sure they had teething problems, but the J model has proven to be a stunning success. Even Airbus brought out their competition to the Herc – the A400 without an engineer!
Automation is not something that has suddenly happened overnight. Ever since we started flying, there has been a move to assist the aircrew in their work, be it cockpit management or the actual flying. There have been dramatic improvements and developments in automation and associated reduced workload. One has to look at the autopilot, the introduction of EFIS systems, integration of digital communications in cockpits, for example, all developed to make flying safer and more efficient.
The dramatic move to automation and reduction in workload can only go one way from here and that is the move towards reducing pilots in the cockpit. Contentious indeed, but it's happening, whether or not we like it. But before aircraft can become fully pilotless, determined moves are being made to reduce the manning of aircraft down to one pilot. It certainly has raised the anger and fear and many a pilot is very much against it, but the reality is it is coming.
But many of us forget that there have been many well-recorded cases of multi-engine, multi-crewed aircraft flying around with only one pilot. What do you say? Think back to World War 2, the Avro Lancaster, where thanks to the sterling work done by the crews, the UK was able to gain the upper hand and eventually win the war. It only had one pilot, remember? Okay, a flight engineer and a navigator too, but not much automation and the pilot did all the flying himself. Who can remember reading about the 1000 aircraft formation raids? They managed to get there and back, with very few midair incidents and they were in far more confined airspace than aircraft operate now.
Take an example of unmanned flight in controlled airspace that we so often overlook – that of drones being flown around the Middle East. They are all over the place and are controlled from places far from where they flying. The drone flies in controlled airspace and the operator, wherever they may be, can speak to the local controlling ATS authority. Some of those drones are really large and visible to passing aircraft. Crews are happy to fly in the same airspace as them.
Whilst there is a lot of research going on, primarily in America, it is the FAA and the Department of Defence that are taking the lead. Heavily involved in this research is Merlin Labs, founded in 2018, specialising in autonomous flight. Its Head Office is in Boston, with additional offices in Denver, Kerikeri (New Zealand) and Mojave.
They have been actively working with the FAA, New Zealand aviation authorities and USAAF to introduce autonomous flight and reduce cockpit personnel and workload.
They have established an Advanced Capabilities Team, which is currently focused on developing three features:
Automated Checklists: Their systems fully integrate with cockpit operations, automating checklist procedures in all phases of flight. Acting as a digital co-pilot, the system builds on the same natural language processing (NLP) technology used in Merlin’s automated communications systems to provide verbal prompts and multiple levels of checklist validation, ensuring efficiency and reducing errors in checklist procedures. The processes have been developed to allow the pilot to concentrate on making critical decisions.
Autonomous Navigation and Dynamic route planning and amending: Merlin's autonomous navigation capabilities enable live updates to coordinate flight planning and execution. The system can monitor changing environmental conditions, ie weather and suddenly implemented no-fly zones, and adjust the route of the aircraft accordingly. This adaptive navigation reduces the pilot's workload, ensuring safe and efficient flight. It can decode NOTAMs and interpret the information contained in them, make decisions insert the information seamlessly into the autopilot and update the route information and actual route being flown.
Automated Emergency Landing: Merlin's emergency landing system can identify suitable landing locations and guide the aircraft to safety during actual emergency situations. The system generates an initial set of destinations (airport + runway) that should be considered before performing more complex calculations, like planning and ranking routes to destinations. This advanced planning reduces risks and enhances aircraft safety. It effectively takes the decision away from the pilots, as to where to divert to, in emergency situations, vastly reducing their workloads
Merlin Pilot offers a software package designed to be readily integrated into many types of aircraft to help automate a host of functions. Merlin has demonstrated variations of this system on other types of aircraft in the past, including full pilot-optional flight capability.
Some of their projects include:
In the months leading up to July 2023, Merlin successfully completed 25 test flights in Alaska, using a Cessna Caravan, following a $1 million contract with the FAA to demonstrate a highly automated flight control system in conjunction with a safety pilot. In partnership with the FAA-designated University of Alaska Fairbanks UAS Test Site and Everts Air Cargo, the test flights reached rural areas using crewed aircraft augmented with its integrated hardware and software solution, the Merlin Pilot. All routes originated from Fairbanks and flew to Fort Yukon, Galena, Huslia, Tanana and Prudhoe Bay. Over sixty hours of systems-on, autonomous flight time were successfully completed with the Merlin Pilot allowing for extensive data collection in a real-world environment with complex terrain and inclement weather. These test flights also make Merlin the first autonomy system to be integrated into the National Airspace System.
It has entered into an agreement with the United States Air Force (USAF). In collaboration with Air Mobility Command (AMC) and Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), Merlin will design, integrate, test, and demonstrate aspects of the Merlin Pilot on the KC-135 Stratotanker for the first time. The multi-year partnership is focused on using a planned approach starting with reducing crew workload, then proceeding to reduced crew operations. As the system gains experience and trust, it will pave the way for autonomous unmanned operations of the KC-135; an unprecedented new capability for AMC and the USAF. These flights are all being undertaken within military-restricted airspace.
A modified pilot-optional UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter has flown for the first time ever without a single human crew member onboard. The test flight utilized a suite of systems that were designed primarily to help improve the helicopter pilots’ performance and offer additional margins of safety.
Merlin is also very much involved in introducing their software and systems into a C130J. These tests started in 2022, firstly with systems to reduce pilot workload and then continue to reduce the crew on the aircraft. The software installed will address all aspects of flight, from pre-takeoff to after-landing.
The U.S. Air Force has announced the completion of two KC-46A Pegasus tanker sorties with only a pilot and single boom operator, as well as an instructor pilot acting only as a safety observer, onboard. A KC-46A from the 22nd Air Refuelling Wing at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas conducted both sorties on October 25, according to a release from Air Mobility Command (AMC). The mission was executed inside military test airspace and included two KC-46 sorties with a reduced crew complement of only a single pilot and boom operator. The first sortie flew the pattern only, followed by a debrief and assessment,” the AMC release explains. “The second sortie immediately followed and accomplished a full mission profile including ground operations; preflight tasks; takeoff; aerial refuelling rendezvous; air refuelling on-load and offload; and landing.
All these tests and developments are leading to a further reduction in the number of people, in a cockpit. And whether we like it or not, pilots are the next in the firing line. Already a lot of the workload of a pilot is aimed at monitoring systems - look at the autoland, for example. The pilot’s job is one of monitoring the systems and the autopilot. If the monitoring can be done on the aircraft, is there any reason why it cannot be done remotely? Already airlines and aircraft manufacturers are remotely monitoring various systems on aircraft and doing it pretty successfully. Ask pilots of newer generation Boeing and Airbus aircraft - it's not unheard of them being electronically informed, by the technical operation departments, of a pending system failure, or the need to watch some system. Aircraft on arrival, are met by their ground engineers, who already have a list of problems on the aircraft transmitted to them. That never happened a few decades ago - the engineers had to gain access to the tech log, that was written up by the pilots. Digital and paperless logs, digitally transmitted to the ground are the way to go. It all helps speed up turnaround times and enables better utilisation of the aircraft.
All this data is being used to look at cost savings on the aircraft. The resistance to the removal of pilots is going to go on for years to come. But the harsh reality is that it is coming.
Over the past few years, together with those two swear words “artificial” and “intelligence”, the bean counters are upping the game to reduce the number of pilots in a cockpit. It's all over aviation. Towers are being combined and “remote towers” are the new buzzwords. Of course, the battle lines are being seriously drawn and the fight ramped up, but like it or not and whether or not we agree, it's coming. It's been an ongoing battle and one that won’t end this year, or soon. In fact, it will probably only happen on commercial flights once we are pushing the daisies from below! So whilst many of us are not going to be around to see it happen, our grandchildren will probably be the ones to see the implementation and fly on pilotless planes!
So enjoy the crewed ride now, whilst you can.
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