Media reporting is starting to come out that the AF is considering going to 1-pilot/1-boom minimum crews in certain situations for the KC-46. Any of our Navy-turned-AF types able to comment?
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
Single-Pilot KC-46 ops in INDOPACOM?
- Thread starter nittany03
- Start date
That sounds incredibly stupid.
I don't know who the final waiver authority is on this request, but the AMC/CC asked the McConnell folks to pen a waiver for it. I understand his reasoning to be something akin to "break glass in case of emergency", but even in WW3 I think single piloted is a bad idea.
He's got a long fight ahead of him, the FAA type requires two pilots and all flight manuals in existence require two pilots. He also has to overcome the cultural piece as well, which may be even more difficult.
Yeah, I was wondering (within OPSEC sanity obviously) whether or not that was even possible . . . or even if possible, feasible. I'd never heard of a jet that big/complex ever being physically designed to be operated by one person, as in "all the important switches are even reachable from one seat."
Even in Prowler land, it took the ICAP III AFC to be able to operate that jet Intruder-style outside basic VFR training flights that had VMC-from-here-to-your-bingo weather (read El Centro). And to do that, they had to relocate a few key circuit breakers to justify leaving the second backseat crewmember at home. There's still no way in hell you would have been able to take that jet up pilot-only (and even two folks would have been tactically ridiculous), because you physically couldn't execute the required boldface EPs, and it's the best mind analogue I have for anything bigger.
The FAA piece is interesting: I don't know how much the military can get away with if they decide to tell the FAA to bugger off. An example is ADS-B: a number of platforms don't have and might never have it... and yet they are flying despite the FAA's "rule".
The cultural piece... I believe you're right in that the rank-and-file will not buy in to this in any way, shape or form.
As someone who is rated in the 767, I'd like to think I could fly it single-pilot. And if I was flying California to Hawaii, I'd probably do ok and make it.
But accomplishing a complex military mission... like refueling ops... just seems to me to be an entirely different league of operations. It just doesn't pass the sniff test.
Beat me to it
Well…between take-offs and landings the pilot can nap.
This isn't as wacky as it sounds.
There is A LOT of work going on in the "optimally manned" (vice "optionally manned") space. There is no reason that in a world with large UASes flying around the world with zero pilots, a lot more can’t be done with one.
I wouldn't start with a tanker, especially one based on a legacy design, but clearly the USAF sees a gap. I would've thought you've run out of planes before pilots, but whatever. I only say not on a tanker because of the difficulty in retrofitting the systems to fit appropriately around one pilot.
The biggest impact will be in rotorcraft. Helos and tiltrotors today are just as stable as airplanes. You don't need another pilot to hold the sticks so you can tune the radios. You can't say the workload is too demanding...TACAIR is flying 4+ hours and leading strike packages all single pilot. You just have to build the systems with a single-pilot mindset from the beginning.
Could you fly with 2 guys for a LLL insert, 1 for PMC, and 0 for a ferry across the Atlantic in a future tiltrotor? Absolutely. Or lose the second seat altogether and save the weight.
There is A LOT of work going on in the "optimally manned" (vice "optionally manned") space. There is no reason that in a world with large UASes flying around the world with zero pilots, a lot more can’t be done with one.
I wouldn't start with a tanker, especially one based on a legacy design, but clearly the USAF sees a gap. I would've thought you've run out of planes before pilots, but whatever. I only say not on a tanker because of the difficulty in retrofitting the systems to fit appropriately around one pilot.
The biggest impact will be in rotorcraft. Helos and tiltrotors today are just as stable as airplanes. You don't need another pilot to hold the sticks so you can tune the radios. You can't say the workload is too demanding...TACAIR is flying 4+ hours and leading strike packages all single pilot. You just have to build the systems with a single-pilot mindset from the beginning.
Could you fly with 2 guys for a LLL insert, 1 for PMC, and 0 for a ferry across the Atlantic in a future tiltrotor? Absolutely. Or lose the second seat altogether and save the weight.
Last edited:
…when all the magic works
The next generation is all FBW, so it either works or you die.
Probably a mission abort in most current aircraft, as well.
Top Gun 3: Maverick gets recalled to active duty out of retirement because the DoD can’t retain enough pilots.