Originally Posted by
1Seat 1Engine
The current accident rates of UAV's is extremely high. To have them fly international would almost certainly require satellites in orbit that we don't have and won't have for a long time.
The first time that a "drone cargo plane" crashes on someones head, that will end that program, because that same people who would travel IN a drone, won't want to be overflown by a 600,000lb drone.
Very true, in addition to cultural hurdles, the technological hurdles are ENORMOUS, and pilots don't cost enough to make it worth doing a "manhattan project" to create an automated air transport system. All of these things would have to be adapated and seemlessly integrated:
- Aircraft systems
- Nav systems
- Regulatory infrastructure
- Ground systems
- ATC systems
Military UAV's have a (non-combat) safe return rate of something like 98%...that's six or seven orders of magnitude below current transport safetly levels. Any engineer knows that fixing the first 99% of the bugs is the easy part...it gets exponentially harder after that.
Also the national security aspect is colossal...you would have to ensure that automated airliners could not be jammed or hacked. Otherwise you just handed the opposition 5,000 massive, pre-launched, cruise missiles all just waiting for targeting data!
You might see some cargo applications in remote areas or for military purposes, but I think my job security is good for at least another 100 years.