Aviation has always been a breeding ground for technological, social and economic change. Many of these changes, such as the jet airliner, shrank the world and transformed how we see it. The airliner’s influence may be on the wane, however, as challenges in the workplace and the effects of climate change—two major factors among many others—force a reduction in commercial air travel by making it less relevant and costlier without making it less unpleasant. At the same time, trending technologies may make air transportation more reliable and safer, and they’ll most likely first appear on aircraft similar in size and capabilities to the ones you and I fly.
A new concept, Simplified Vehicle Operation (SVO), is quietly being developed by manufacturers, trade associations, regulators and other stakeholders. Considerable resources are being invested to address safety and marketing objectives, as well as applications for new conventional aircraft designs and even retrofitting in-service aircraft. If this concept even partially succeeds, it could upend everything in the industry from pilot training to safety trends. The technology is mostly here, and it is not rocket science.
