Disclaimer: I am a 'co'-pilot.

Mod parent up, he is absolutely correct, mod gp down, he's not.

I fly an aircraft that has no autoland feature. I fly in and out of airports that mostly do not offer an autoland facility.

All the pilots that I fly with have some vulnerability. Every so often (most days), one guy in the cockpit corrects the other one and averts an undesirable situation. Usually the situations involved would be more embarrassing than dangerous, but a few times, I have been very grateful to have someone else there.

But the most important thing is- if we decide (and I think that we already have) that we need human input in the flight deck, then, as humans are pink, mushy, and prone to dying at inconvenient moments (especially under stress), then we should have a backup system.

Also, imagine we have airliners where only one pilot is looking after the aircraft. Where was he trained? Was his first flight in that aircraft one where he was on his own, with just 150 trusting passengers for company? Every airline FO is a trainee Captain.

Anyway, MOL has quite a reputation in the pilot community (such as it is) for making outrageous comments like this to get publicity / upset people. And it's a very widely held perception that airline senior management never like pilots, as we're far too expensive...

Just my 1.3 pence!

Charlie

There's a few comments here about fuel savings and speed of flight.

Most jet airliners have what they call 'Cost Index'. That's a number that the crew punch into the flight management system, and reflects the compromise between speed and fuel economy that the management have figured out for the particular environment that the operation is taking place in.

There are many factors aside from fuel economy that affect the cost of running an aircraft, for example:

- Passenger convenience (particularly if the flight is running late already
- Regular maintenance costs (inspections etc to be performed after xxx flight hours)
- Utilisation- can we get more flights out of this expensive aircraft?

All the above would encourage faster flying for sound commercial reasons. I'm sure there are more that I don't have in my brain right now...

Off the top of my head, fuel-saving is about the only reason to fly slow. But as fuel keeps gradually getting more expensive, it becomes a better reason!

Charlie

Parent is correct.

I'll be happy to cough up some dough for quality services that integrate well with my free Ubuntu desktop. PIM-syncing type operations have been a headache for me, and I am sure other users, and it's excellent to see the need being addressed. Although I won's need this, as I'm all Googly now, I look forward to trying out the music store.

Charlie

What? Where did that come from? The link in the summary points to the slashdot posting about the airliner that overflew its destination by a bit. THAT summary talks about the crew using their laptops during the flight. However, I am not sure that's the case. In fact, I am led to believe that they had both nodded off. So, while removing personal electronics from the flight deck might be attractive to people who want to remove distractions, in reality it's often useful to have a distraction to keep one alert, particularly during a long period that would otherwise be spent largely in inactivity. If the purpose is to reduce interference with GPS equipment, well, I am not aware of this being a problem. If it really is an issue, presumably the pax will have to forego their MP3 players. Also, my headset (my own) is a nice active noise reducing device. It enhances my performance by allowing me to hear stuff more clearly, and protects my hearing. Will that be banned? More rules, less safety. Rah! Charlie

Hold your horses... the new linux version is usually available a few days after the Windows builds.

In all the EU airports that I know of, airport workers of all sorts (including crew, baggage handlers ect) are screened in the same way as passengers. Even using the same equipment in many cases. So, while it's not good that it's this easy to defeat the ID card system, it doesn't in itself mean that anyone can get in to the baggage hold with a bomb.