Originally Posted by
NE_Pilot
It seems like you are stating that the government had not been involved in aviation until the creation of the FAA. Prior to the FAA we had the CAA and the NACA (predecessor to NASA), prior to that there was the Aeronautics Board. We also had the Airmail Act of 1925, which basically established commercial airlines through the use of Post Office contracts, these contracts would pay more for aircraft that could fly further, at night, etc. Not to mention the Air Commerce Act of 1926, which allowed organizations such as the Aeronautics Board, CAA, and FAA to be created. The U.S. Government has been involved in the aviation industry since its inception.
I agree with RickAir, it will be awhile before the infrastructure is established to allow for pilotless aircraft. You need more than just airports to have unmanned airliners, and the cost of that alone would be prohibitive to "fix" a system that is not broken, let alone to maintain that system. It becomes even more cost prohibitive when you consider international flights.
Like I said, thumbnail. I am aware of the history of government supervision of aviation. My hypothesis is that regulatory oversight crossed the threshold from constructive to intrusive some time in the 1950s. That transition could be measured in dollars spent by the FAA, by pages of regulations in the federal register, or something else. In any event, aviation in the 1950s began to advance more along the lines of quantitative advances, rather than qualitative (revolutionary) advances. It's just a theory, but it is what I think.
Pilotless vehicles make much more sense as a family size enterprise--the risk is almost entirely assumed by the operator/owner and the smaller size makes emergency accomodations much more feasible. However, our supervisors in the gov't don't like cars and they'd like individual skycars even less.
WW