Old 08-07-2017 | 06:43 PM
  #12  
flensr
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Originally Posted by Dised101
You and I know how important our services are. But, the fact is pilotless aircraft are already flying. The technology to have pilotless aircraft is "off the shelf" technology. Nothing has to be developed from an aircraft perspective.
What off the shelf technology are you referring to? Which company or supplier has this ready to go? Do you have ANY idea of the mishap rate for these "off the shelf" systems you are talking about, or any concept of how much it costs to scale those systems? Do you understand the expense behind lofting a couple hundred more satcom birds or putting up a couple million ground transceivers to handle the necessary high bandwidth datalinks? KU won't handle it, not enough frequencies available. So add in the cost of a new satcom spectrum, waveform, and of course standards...

The barriers to this are enormous. Not saying it won't happen eventually, but... Really? "Off the shelf"? No way, not even close, unless you're talking about an operation limited to a handful of flights per day flying people who don't mind dying on routes over people on the ground who also don't mind dying.
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