TABULA RASA
The Post-Autonomous Flight Deck
THESIS – BFA INSDUSTRIAL DESIGN
JAN-JUNE 2023
“WHO’S FLYING THE PLANE?”
The commercial flight deck has come far from the early days of widespread air travel. In the past few decades, as the steam gauges, analog switches, and electrical fuses of old gave way to digital autopilots, glass computer displays, and detailed systems monitoring, the number of required crew in the cockpit dropped from an original five to just two, the classic pilot-copilot duo.
However, with new data display methods and tools, artificial intelligence automation, and safer aircraft and systems than ever before, the above question is once again at the center of discussions over Single-Pilot Operations (SPO). AI has already proven itself at flying widebody airliners; as computers once again threaten human control in the flight deck, fierce debate has ignited over the practicality, safety, and reception of a single-pilot future.
To some, the thought of a commercial aircraft without a duet of pilots at the helm is akin to beheading a Hydra of operational difficulties, in which observing, analyzing, and resolving each workflow complication sees two new ones arise in its place.
The road to a true single-pilot future is a long one. However, while the question of how to achieve such a system preoccupies our minds, a less frequent thought is how the landscape of the flight deck might adapt when we one day reach it.
This project aims to take a forward-looking, technology-driven, blue-sky approach to a clean sheet design for a future commercial cockpit, based on an assumed successful AI-Single Pilot flight relationship. How might the introduction of artificial intelligence affect the flight deck’s data presentation methods? How might the focus on single pilot operation change the functionality of a cockpit space? And, by re-examining aerospace standards under the lens of our future scenario, what disruptive changes might occur in the newfound physical liberty of a blank slate (“Tabula Rasa”) flight deck design? ▨
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