There’s an old aviation saying that goes something like, “Eventually, the only thing in the cockpit will be an autopilot, a dog and a pilot. The autopilot will fly the airplane and the dog will bite the pilot if he touches anything.” I was reminded of that saying when I came across a news item about Airbus reportedly thinking about a cockpit-installed toilet with a radio console beside it to, umm, accommodate single-pilot operations. As online sister publication AVweb.com put it, “pilot unions are dumping all over the plan.”
But it got me to thinking about how technology has improved during the five decades I’ve been flying.
I started out in a well-worn Cessna 150 that sported a 90-channel Narco nav/comm and a VOR head. It was pretty average, including its 2.5-hour MTBWO (mean time between window openings). No transponder, but no airspace it could reach without a fuel stop required one.
Many new airframes are still riveted together as they were in WWII, but many more are molded from composites. That many of the airframes and engines we fly today haven’t changed much from the post-WWII general aviation “boom” is a truism failing to recognize the astonishing technological advances a modern personal airplane can incorporate as standard equipment.
What comes next is anyone’s guess but we probably can look to the broad category of uncrewed aerial vehicles/advanced aerial mobility for hints. The good news is they’ll be easier to operate, and to train for. Since the “pilot” can’t make an error, they should be safer, too. The bad news is they likely won’t require a pilot to fly, taking much of the fun out of it.
It won’t be long before grandkids will be hopping into our laps, begging us to tell them again about how we used to fly piston-powered airplanes by hand.
