Just gonna leave this here... discuss among yourselves

Exactly right. In the 1980s automation & computers advanced to a point the FAA tested a program called STARS, essentially automated air traffic control. What they saw was that contrary to the selling point "your employees can monitor more traffic and step in when necessary" was the opposite. If the human isn't active with making the small decisions, which develops the "big picture", he's far less capable of making the emergency decision. If your mind isn't participating in the small decisions, when the critical moment comes, you have to take time and analyze, then act. Ditto for the mechanical skill of how much to yank the wheel or stomp the brake. They should automate the passenger cars since nobody is actively driving them anyway.

All of these tests come down to "we cleared all the obstacles, got permission from agencies in advance, and then under perfect conditions our machine behaved as expected. Give me a police escort, advanced approval from all the weigh stations, drive under the most favorable conditions, and my duties conclude at the guard shack and my record will rival that of any magic truck.

The industry would rather bet on Star Trek than put pressure on bad customers, bad traffic engineers & cities, etc.. Who are the drivers that are going to voluntarily spend all day in the worst traffic running just from automated terminals to go sit at another Wal Mart DC for 18 hours while LaShonda talks on her phone and paints that "snow ski" on the end of her finger?

 

Better than perfect? Mine's been perfect and many, many other drivers have decades of experience and a perfect safety record.

 

As a former pilot I can assure you nobody but drone pilots do automated takeoffs, nobody. The reason so many "civilians" think there are routine automated takeoffs is because they read idiot reporters who spend one day this month covering aviation and every other day covering their own political opinion. Most people "know" things because they have seen movies and TV shows about certain things. Those people don't know what they are talking about but the people around them also don't know the truth so neither can correct the other.

A lot of airliners have the capability to do some flavor of automated landing. Both pilots and airport & aircraft have to be qualified and have done them recently to even make that choice. There are barely more automated landings done than the bare minimum needed to be able to do one when necessary. Think about why a pilot would do an automated landing. It's like expecting a porn start to flip a switch instead of doing his job.

 

You really want to test drive one. Test drive one on I81 in VA.

 

No flight plan is "paperwork" that proposes to Air Traffic Control your origin, time of departure, route of flight, desired altitude, destination. ATC takes your requests into consideration, plus everyone elses plus weather, plus expected traffic patterns and gives you their idea of how your flight should proceed.

Pilots type in the above into their aircraft's devices and at the appropriate time after takeoff activate their autopilots. Toward the end of the flight during descent they turn off the autopilots and hand fly the landing.

 

And airline pilots used to make much more than they do now, in inflation-adjusted dollars. People outside the airline industry have no concept or context for their uncle Fred that used to fly boxes for FedEx in 1992, so you know passenger pilots must be paid far more (wrong). These stories come from people that don't uncle Fred was a 40 year Captain flying FedEx biggest jet international and was probably the highest paid pilot in the USA. They take his salary, call it average, and rely on some movie to assume the rest. "I hear football coaches make millions of dollars per year so my son's pee-wee coach is probably making at least $200k."

 

To quote a famous quote "fusion power has been 20 years away for the last 50 years."

People should learn the difference between something that engineers think can be done and something that is both useful and people will pay to operate.

 

Nobody you know has experienced an automated takeoff in an airliner. EVERY takeoff is handflown in passenger jets. It doesn't matter of it's a 1972 DC-9 or 2016 B-787.

 

No it doesn't. Autopilots cannot be turned on below 400 feet, or whatever the manufacturer and airline agree. And nearly every landing is hand flown, if not from the last 4,000 feet certainly the last 1,000 feet above ground.

 

Im jumping in without reading the whole thread and Im probably a bit off topic from where its headed, so I apologise for that.

Autonomous in the next decade or not, I am not worried for the remainder of my 20 or so 'hard working years' one bit. Our terrain, infrastructure and weather in canada is just too knarly.

If they can't get that crash avoidance junk or an automated manual tranny even to work properly in the mountains (which have both been around for years now)... How is a truck expected to drive itself here on our highway system (unless its a special chunk of new 'closed' infrastructure) which there will never be any money for on a wide spread basis anyways! Look at all Our #### potholes! An autonomous truck can't fire off 15 drops a day over a few hundred miles, or chain up a truck again and again and again (yeah auto chains are great and would be easily computer controlled, but they do not out perform the real thing)

Not to mention the legalities and liabilities. Who's fault is it when **** hits the fan?? Because it will!!!

Platooning on the other hand, much more realistic in the coming years IMO. Id be very concerned with my job security if I were a guy pulling a box or can on the great big interstate system in the U.S. for a large carrier with deep pockets. The dying off (not morbidly, but referring to the decline of the hands on-fixit-jack of all trades paired with old school courtesy and professionalism) well experienced veterans will be in the seats of the lead unit, and the steering wheel holders will be toast. Sure, PRETTY MUCH every driver is replaceable, just gotta be one of the ones who aren't.

It's too bad I'll likely be the only first and last generation truck driver by my last name, I won't be pushing my kids to follow my career path....That's for sure.