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Comment by usrusr | Hacker News Reader

Still makes me wonder: do you really need/want all that automation or would it make more sense to prepare for putting a remote pilot into the loop? Not for virtually holding the stick, but for looking at telemetry, communicating and doing all the high level decisions.

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If you have a remote pilot then you need some sort of data connection as well; and if that link cuts out the plane needs to be able to continue on its own anyway.

It'd have to be as an additional safety measure. Connectivity is by no means guaranteed - you'd be relying on satellite comms in most cases. Maybe when SpaceX's Starlink comes online.

(It'd probably also be significantly more expensive, due to the need for a subscription.)

There are certainly incredible situations with happy endings where ATC has made suggestions or gotten someone with experience in a type on the radio.

But I could imagine a company contemplating building the remote-pilot-for-emergencies service might be scared off by potential liability. Families of pilots killed in GA accidents routinely sue aircraft and engine manufacturers even when the FAA determines the cause to be pilot error.

This is what some of the new "fully automated" semi-truck companies are doing.

Remote truckers in an office, similar to a UAV drone pilot.

When a truck (or a train) can't see what to do on its own, it can brake to a full stop and remain motionless until a human intervenes. Cell network crashed? Mountain in the way of the transmitter? Somebody stepped on the cable? Whatever it is, most problems will be averted by just always braking to a halt and waiting.

This is not an option in a plane. If it was, this technology wouldn't be needed - if the pilot is incapacitated just brake to a halt and step out of the plane...

A plane entering an ad-hoc holding circle is much less of a risk to its peers than a ground vehicle coming to a stop on the open road.

That highly depends on where that circle is.

Most trucks drive similarly. A Vision Jet is a far different airplane than a Pilatus. Automation is better because the computer is designed for that specific aircraft as opposed to having a bunch of on-call pilots that just so happen to be type rated for that specific plane. And if they aren’t type rated, they are more of a liability. It’s very expensive to get type ratings so that remote pilot concept just wouldn’t scale. A 787 pilot isn’t going to know the intricacies of a Kodiak and besides, what pilot is going to want to sit in a ready-room for a shift for days on end with nothing to do? An incapacitated pilot is so rare that automation is a high enough percentage that it’s a fine solution. There is already a pilot shortage — hiring type rated remote pilots to just sit and wait around isn’t going to be easy.

> ... what pilot is going to want to sit in a ready-room for a shift for days on end with nothing to do?

Possible scenario: if pilots are already sitting in a simulator for currency training / testing, it may be possible to have the sim be 'reset' to a live feed in an emergency.

You wouldn't have them hang around 'just in case', but rather use people who are already present for some other reason.

Another possibility: pilots are hours-limited for a given time period. If you have pilots that have hit that limit, some may be willing to spend time in a ready-room for a nominal bonus.

FYI all major airlines have a sat link to their planes with monitoring. While they don’t have a remote fly by wire link, they can load live data from a plane into a sim and have a pilot on the ground troubleshoot with the troubled craft

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