Commercial airlines operate in a highly competitive environment. Flight deck crew cost account for a significant part of total cost, hence airlines try to reduce these cost. One such option is the implementation of Single Pilot Operations (SPO) in commercial aviation. Various organizations have contributed to the discussion of SPO feasibility by developing conceptual frameworks. In this paper, we summarize such efforts on developing future concepts. First, we identified two dominant concept design approaches: second pilot replacement (e.g. through automation) and second pilot displacement (e.g. to the ground). Based on these two design approaches, we have categorized existing concepts in literature into seven concept categories, mainly differing by the number and nature of agents involved. We then review these categories as well as individual concepts along multiple criteria, including safety, and social, economic and legal considerations. We find that concepts involving multiple agents, man and machine, will likely solve some of the human factors issues arising with simply removing the second pilot. Such concepts, however, are inherently complex. Their economic feasibility remains questionable. Besides, more research on how human decision-making contributes to overall safety today, and on how to best support human decision-making in future single pilot concepts must be undertaken. Many questions, predominantly human factors issues, still remain unanswered. We continue by reviewing three general observations on concept development methodology, concept consistency and concept detailedness in literature. Finally, we postulate that SPO will only be implemented with a comprehensive and concise concept that proves to enable operations at least as safe as today. Implementation of SPO will be gradual with less complex concepts in well-defined situations.
Classification and Review of Conceptual Frameworks for Commercial Single Pilot Operations
2018-09-01
667921 byte
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
System architecture for single-pilot aircraft in commercial air transport operations
DSpace@MIT | 2016
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