Keeping humans in the loop will speed up airspace system entry and allow accumulation of flight hours and repetitions that will build trust that artificial pilots can rise to the kinds of occasions that have turned some pilots into folk heroes credited with 'miracles.' Hands (mostly) off Sullenberger would have made (or agreed to) the decision to ditch in the river, rather than attempt to reach one of the nearby runways, based on information provided that could include estimates of remaining glide range.Īll contingencies, emergencies, and unexpected events will be handled in much the same way in any of the automation strategies currently being pursued. Various companies pursuing FAA approval as soon as late 2024 hope to facilitate that ambitious timeline by keeping trained pilots in the loop, monitoring flights remotely.įor example, if the Airbus A320 that US Airways Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger ditched in the Hudson River in New York on January 15, 2009, had been automated in this fashion, nearly all of the tasks Sullenberger and first officer Jeffrey Skiles performed before and after striking the birds would have been handled by the automated system. Making either of these new air mobility models work will depend in large part on more automated aircraft that can be repositioned on empty legs without a human aboard.Īvoiding risk to other aircraft or people on the ground that regulators and the public will not accept requires some combination of artificial intelligence and awareness of other objects and conditions.

Aircraft automation is one facet of a transformative change that is about to usher in new kinds of aircraft, in many cases powered by electric motors and designed to enable various new forms of 'air mobility,' collectively termed advanced air mobility (AAM) by the FAA to include urban air mobility (UAM) operating from city rooftops, and regional air mobility (RAM) that would utilize larger aircraft operating from many more-perhaps eventually every one-of the roughly 5,000 public-use airports in the United States today.

21 pilots ride 1 hour loop