"In many cases it might be better – particularly if the weather is not so good – to engage the autopilot early," says Qantas technical pilot Captain Alex Passerini, who flies a 737. "That might be a few hundred feet after takeoff, so the first minute or so after takeoff. And the airplanes have the capability, if programmed and monitored correctly, to automatically land. So from just a minute or two after takeoff to automatically landing is certainly something that can happen today and does happen from time to time. Other times, it might be many minutes, 10 or 15 minutes potentially for the flight." When researchers at the Duke University Humans and Autonomy Lab interviewed American pilots for a paper due to be published next year, they found pilots of Boeing aircraft typically spent about seven minutes touching the controls and pilots of Airbus aircraft flew for half that time. One of the reasons is that in cruising altitude, 29,000 to 41,000 feet, aircraft must always be on autopilot. That is done so that vertical separation between planes can be safely reduced to 1000 feet, allowing for more aircraft to fly in the same airspace. "Knowing what goes on in the cockpit now, I would say there is a lot more automation than the public knows," says University of Sydney professor Salah Sukkarieh, who is director of research and innovation at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics. And as technology continues to develop, the aviation industry is studying whether further automation could help improve safety while cutting costs, preventing a future pilot shortage and making more-productive use of tighter airspace in decades to come. But some major hurdles remain, the biggest of which is probably the acceptance of the flying public. The rise of machines

Michael O'Leary, the notoriously provocative chief executive of European budget carrier Ryanair, has publicly called for pilot numbers to drop to one on short-haul flights to save costs and potentially reduce airfares. "For now we have two pilots, one to not touch the computer and the other one to make sure he doesn't touch the computer," he said last year, in another version of a classic pilot's joke. In the scenario being examined by NASA and Rockwell Collins, the first officer, or "super dispatcher" in the operations centre on the ground, could assist with up to 12 aircraft at once, but move to focus on a single aircraft if a problem arises that can't be dealt with by the captain in the air. The ground operator would also take over the controls in the rare event the captain was incapacitated by something such as an in-flight heart attack, guiding the aircraft in for a safe landing at the nearest airport. At present, the reliability of communication links between the operations centre and the pilot on board can't be assured at all times, particularly when flying in polar regions. But that will be solvable eventually and in any case, short-haul single-pilot flights could be conducted in the meantime.

It is notable that smaller corporate jets are already approved for single-pilot operations and there has not been a dramatic rise in crashes as a result. Pilotless planes Notoriously provocative Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary would like regulators to approve single-pilot operations. Credit:Bloomberg The second, more dramatic scenario is moving to fully autonomous aircraft operations. In the nearer future, it is more likely in the freight market than for passengers. UPS, FedEx and Amazon are all interested in unmanned cargo deliveries and a major project in Europe, CargoMap, expects pilotless flying of commercial freight aircraft with no need for pressurised cabins will occur by 2035. Queensland University of Technology Professor Duncan Campbell, the director of the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation, says long-haul point-to- point autonomous freight flying would be possible in the "not too distant future".

"The big paradigm shift is with unmanned aircraft you don't have a human payload," he says. "You aren't protecting people on those aircraft. You are protecting other aviation users and people on the ground." Australian airspace is gearing up for these challenges. The Civil Aviation Safety Administration has put in place regulations requiring Australian aircraft capable of instrument flight rules to be fitted with Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) technology that allows aircraft to be tracked by controllers and other pilots without the need for radar by 2017. That would allow other pilots to "see" the unmanned aircraft to avoid any collisions. "It will be a major step forward in air traffic management," says University of Sydney Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering Peter Gibbens, who flies the university's Jabiru J400 while conducting navigation research. And as part of the OneSKY Australia program, from 2018 civil and military air traffic controllers will use a combined system, allowing for better tracking of unmanned aircraft in the future. The same technology would assist with the future introduction of large, autonomous commercial aircraft, which Airbus Group chief executive Tom Enders in July said could already be operating today from a technical point of view. "[But] another question is political aspects and psychology; hence I do not think that any time soon we will see a completely pilotless aircraft due to security reasons," he said.

Even the prospect of flying with a single pilot with assistance from the ground will require studies into "social acceptability", says John Borghese, the vice-president of the Advanced Technology Centre for Rockwell Collins. In other words, the views of passengers do count in this debate. If they won't fly on aircraft without two pilots on board due to safety concerns, there won't be a market for autonomous commercial aircraft. 'Skin in the game' Captain Richard de Crespigny said the types of people willing to fly on a pilotless plane would be similar to the those now interested in Virgin Galactic. Credit:Mark Greenberg Qantas Captain Richard de Crespigny, who safely landed an Airbus A380 in Singapore after an uncontained engine failure severely damaged the aircraft in 2010, is one of the greatest industry examples of why having pilots on board improves safety.

No amount of simulator training could have prepared him for the particular cascading set of problems on QF32, but his long commercial and military flying background and the assistance of four other pilots on board prevented a tragedy. Yet de Crespigny, who is deeply interested in technology and systems, believes sentient machines replicating human consciousness and prediction could be developed by 2025, paying the way for pilotless aircraft to be in production about 2040. "The aircraft will eventually be built," he has told readers of his blog. "Innovative airlines will buy them. Adventurous passengers will fly them, adventurous passengers similar to those who will rocket into space on board Virgin Galactic. But how quickly will the pilotless market transition to include the John Doe on 'main street'?" Based on typical technology life-cycles curves, de Crespigny expects it will be 2060 before pilot jobs start to become obsolete.

Forty-five years is a very long time in aviation. But it's worth remembering that the fresh-faced 20-year-old pilot of today could still be flying then. Passerini, the Qantas technical pilot, says he wouldn't want to be among the passengers on a pilotless aircraft, citing QF32 as a good example. "I want someone with skin in the game on board with me and they want to fight and put all of their expertise and training into resolving a problem," he says. "I have faith in the automation and systems we are putting in place. But I can't concede every situation that we will come up against. That is why I want someone on board thinking differently to how the automation might be approaching it." Human error

As technology has advanced, so, too, has the proportion of crashes attributable to pilot error. Between 1990 and 2010, issues involving the flight crew were a contributing factor to 60 per cent of fatal accidents, according to European research project ACROSS, which is looking to reduce pilot workload. This February, Taiwan's TransAsia Airways flight 235 crashed into a river shortly after take-off when one engine flamed out. In error, a pilot shut down the working engine rather than the one that had flamed out. And in March, Germanwings flight 9525 was deliberately crashed into the French Alps by the first officer when the captain left his seat for a toilet break. That led to new rules mandating a second person in the cockpit when one pilot is away. "Perhaps with ground control these, too, could have had a happy ending," says Ron Bartsch, a former Qantas head of safety who now serves as the chairman of unmanned aircraft consultancy UAS International. "Eliminating 'airborne' human factors errors – which is by far the greatest causal factor relating to fatal air accidents – is a giant leap forward." However, Qantas First Officer Nathan Safe, the president of the Australian & International Pilots Association, is concerned that moving to a single pilot with a ground operator or a fully autonomous system would introduce new security risks.

"What happens if the pilot on the ground goes rogue?" he says of the single-pilot model. "They could take multiple aircraft down and walk out the fire escape. When you think you are closing one gap in safety, you are opening another one." He thinks the more important focus at present should be on honing pilot flying skills so they are better able to recover in the event of an emergency and avoid crashes caused by pilot error. The crash of Asiana flight 214 upon landing in San Francisco in 2013 was considered a deeply disturbing example of pilots lacking basic flying skills because they had become too dependent on automation. In this case, when the instrument landing system was out of service, the pilots were unable to land the plane with a visual approach on a clear day with good weather. "If you can't do that [visual] landing, that is alarming," Safe says. Australian pilots, like those in the United States, are known for having excellent piloting skills honed through a mix of general aviation, regional airlines and the military. Pilots take pride in being able to fly and land the plane and tend to use autoland systems only during foggy weather or when required to certify the systems are still working properly.

But elsewhere in the world, the aviation training culture is less robust. Some airlines and pilots rely far more on automatic systems and when they break down, the end result can be tragic. So the best pilots now have great manual flying skills and the ability to manage complex computer systems. Flight deck of the future The highly sophisticated A380 flight deck. Credit:Craig Abraham The latest generation of jets from Airbus and Boeing, such as the A350, 787 and 777X, are designed for two pilots, in a sign that the standard is likely to be maintained for the foreseeable future, although retrofits could be possible. New jets cost more than $US15 billion to develop already, so it is conceivable the next generation after these could incorporate more-advanced automation technology allowing for single-pilot operations. Steve Boyd, the manager of the US Federal Aviation Administration's airplane and flight-crew interface branch, in 2012 said it was likely a single pilot could operate a plane when it was functioning normally.

"However, normal operations are not the issue," he said. "[And] while we often hear about flight crews making errors, we don't often talk about the safety that flight crew members add. Many errors by one pilot are identified and addressed by the other pilot." Until regulators get on board, there is no hope of single pilot or fully autonomous aircraft taking off in the future. Aviation is an innovative industry but highly conservative when it comes to safety standards. Retired Air Chief Marshall Sir Angus Houston, who is chairman of Airservices Australia and is co-ordinating the search for MH370, this week said having three pilots on a flight as occurs with longer-haul operations is, "in hindsight, safer". Gibbens, the aerospace engineering expert at the University of Sydney says for him, the debate comes down to the following question: "Would you fly in a plane with 500 paying passengers and no pilots? Why wouldn't they pay someone to sit up the front just in case to deal with any unforseen situations?" He says autonomous rail is less of a concern because there is a defined track and it can move in only one direction, while driverless cars have freedom in two directions, thus introducing more potential for conflicting situations.

"In the air, you've got another degree of freedom," Gibbens says. "North, east and down. It introduces far greater airspace management challenges, especially when autonomous vehicles are involved." However, others are less bothered by the idea of having fewer pilots as long as the aircraft can pass proper certification tests. Bartsch, the former head of safety at Qantas who has clocked up more than 7000 hours as a pilot, puts it like this: "If I am able to drink good wine, listen to Pink Floyd with my noise-cancelling headphones and have enough room to stretch my legs, then I'm happy if they refurbish the flight deck into a vintage cellar."