Treading carefully

The single-pilot freighter study

News has emerged out of the United States this year about a $US128.5M package to fund an FAA study into single pilot operations on jet category freighter aircraft. This is not ‘single pilot’ in the conventional sense as the human in the cockpit will be effectively supervising a highly automated flight deck that is in direct interface with a ground station which is uplinking commands to the aircraft.

The study was described as, “The FAA, in consultation with NASA and other relevant agencies, shall establish a research and development program in support of single-piloted cargo aircraft assisted with remote piloting and computer piloting.”