ROBOTS IN THE COCKPIT
For the last several issues, Aviation
Week has devoted substantial space on
the Viewpoint and Feedback pages to
pilot pay. Perhaps the long-term answer
is unmanned aerial vehicles ( UAV).
Robots don’t need pensions, bath-
room breaks or sleep, nor do they need
to adjust their income for infl ation.
R obotic control systems can be placed
nearly anywhere on a large aircraft,
allowing more seats to be squeezed in
and a much better view from fi rst class
(surely increasing the ticket price and
bottom line).
A really good pilot may truly be
one-of-a-kind and, occasionally, a hero.
A really good robot may not be a hero,
but it can be exactly duplicated with
1,500 hr. of fl ight training pre-installed.
Chris Mann
AUSTIN, TEXAS
PILOT SHORTAGE MYTH
With regard to William Swelbar’s
recent Viewpoint: “Yes, There Is a
Pilot Shortage” (AW& S T Oct. 6, p. 58),
yet another business advocate has
followed a textbook for a master of
business administration course and
drawn the wrong conclusion. The
mythology of a pilot shortage, or an
engineer shortage, or any shortage in
a STEM (science, technology, engi-
neering, mathematics) fi eld fl ies in the
face of the fi rst, most basic economic
law: If there is a shortage in anything,
demand rises, and with it, price.
In a true labor shortage, demand in
all of those fi elds would
spike and wages would
rise signifi cantly. Howev-
er, wages have stagnated
in real terms for a couple
of decades.
In fact, the opposite
of a shortage is appar-
ent. There is always an
oversupply of aspiring
young people who dream
of being pilots. Regional
carriers can get away
with of ering obscenely
low wages by telling
pilots: “Hey, if you don’t
like it, I have 100 other
eager applicants.”
Of course, there are
some distortions, such as arcane
government subsidies and union
contracts, but at the core, these would
not change the bottom line—wages
would have been rising above infl ation.
The only true shortage we have is of
technically competent workers and
pilots who refuse to work for wages far
below what their training and experi-
ence merit. The cry of “pilot shortage”
is little more than crying wolf in an
attempt to help keep wages down.
Chris Manzuk
STANWOOD, WASHINGTONCOMPUTING TRUE COSTS
Readers Craig Kronfeld and Robert
Steven (AW& S T Oct. 20, p. 10) should
look at any airline annual report to
understand the reality of running
an airline. They would see that the
bottom-line profi t margin is low; labor
and fuel are by far the biggest costs.
Even if regional carriers were to
pay executives nothing and spread the
money out to the pilots, the incre-
mental increase in pilot pay would be
negligible: There are far more pilots
than executives. Fuel is essentially an
uncontrollable cost. Only labor can be
controlled to a limited degree.
The real culprit is the fl ying public.
If we were willing to pay more, wages
would rise.
We all have a budget, whether “we”
are airlines, employees, or customers.
W hen it comes to leisure travel, I have
deferred a trip, or else have driven to a
major hub, to save money. I suspect this
is true for most people. Until we pay
higher fares, airline wages will be low.
Rick Cunnington
ORO VALLEY, ARIZONANEXT-GEN FIGHTER CONCERNS
I read with some trepidation
Dave Majumdar’s “Separate Ways”
(AW& S T Oct. 13, p. 28) regarding the
U.S. Air Force’s and Navy’s pursuit ofthe next-generation fi ghter programs.
As a taxpayer I am concerned this
may be a Congress-industrial complex-
initiated move to build a $500-million-
per-copy fi ghter that will bust its
budget and come in fi ve years late. Does
anyone remember the F-35 or the F-111?
The latter was a failed one-size-fi ts-all
solution for the Navy and Air Force. At
least s ome saner minds prevailed in the
1970s and produced the F-16 and the
F/A-18 or we would still be fl ying F-4s.
I am appalled at the gross incom-
petence and avarice of our aviation
industry and government. Are there
any patriots left in that business?
Michael J. Flaherty
LEESBURG, VIRGINIAOPEN-MINDED MH370 SEARCH
“Little Clues” (AW& S T Oct. 20,
p. 34) provides a good summary of the
recent reanalysis of the Malaysia Air-
lines Flight 370 disappearance. But I
am puzzled as to why the satellite data
analysis has been taken as gospel. I do
not doubt the talents of the Immarsat
team; however, it seems that they and
other investigators are looking from
the nominal satellite and airplane side
of the equation—not the out-of-the-
box fi rst-principles thinking that is
warranted in an “unknown-unknown”
mystery such as this.
Some types of questions to ask:
Since the Burst Timing Of set aircraft
terminal bias value is key to the arc
location, is it really stable in a variable
bus power and temperature scenario?
(fi re can cause soft and
hard shorts and reboots,
and there are so many
more anomalies ). Take a
similar unit and test it (if
necessary with its fl ight-
power supply) on the
ground, and then again
on an airborne testbed.
Also, credible theories
for the mid-fl ight Burst
Frequency Of set (a Dop-
pler measure) were not
covered, and these may
help narrow down the
scenario space.
An approach of work-
ing backward from other
(admittedly small) leads
may also yield alternative locations.
Assuming the underwater acoustic
arc is valid, what would have to hap-
pen in the satellite data assumptions
to fi t that?Feedback
10 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 AviationWeek.com/awst
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