(via Arthur Marriott):

“Your mention on the ‘Misc’ page of Boeing and the 7E7 reminded me of two things that occurred to me when I read the piece about the first 7E7 order last week in the Times.The first was that there was a photograph of and quote from one Ellen Piasecki, who’s some sort of marketing VP at Boeing. I’ll bet there’s a whole story there.

Piasecki Aircraft was the original name of the East Coast company that eventually became the core of Boeing’s helicopter division. Their specialty was always big heavy-lift ‘copters with two main rotors instead of a ‘tail boom’–their Korean-War ‘flying banana’ was the precursor to the present-day Chinook. What would you bet that she was born into that family, with aviation in her blood, and that eventually led to what she’s doing now?

The other thing I perceived was more ominous. The rendering of the 7E7 in All Nippon Airways colors accompanying the article showed only one person in the cockpit.

Over the last several decades, we’ve seen the flight crew of large airliners reduced from three to two as the flight engineer was automated the way of the railroad fireman. The effect of this on safety has been open to question, as evidenced by reading John Nance’s first major book–when things break, it helps to have more brain power at work and more hands to manipulate whatever controls are still working.

However, economic forces and corporate and technological arrogance may be leading to the day when it’s assumed that the aircraft can flawlessly run itself, and having a token ‘attendant’ sitting up front will be a transition to putting hundreds of passengers in a pilotless aircraft. At that point, I don’t think I’ll be flying anymore.”