Originally Posted by
Rahlifer
The technology already exists in high end drones that will automatically follow a pre set flight plan and land in the event of loss of signal from the drone operator. It probably wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to equip airplanes with similar technology for single pilot ops. You’d have some sort of button or control that needs to be pushed or manipulated at regular intervals, if the pilot fails to push the button at the right time, the autonomous aircraft would simply squawk emergency and land at the nearest airport.
I seriously don’t see this happening within the remainder of my flying career, but there’s absolutely no stopping technological advances, no matter how hard we fight it. Once it presents a significant cost savings and is “safe enough”, it will be implemented.
It is usually foolish to bet against technological progress. But there is another side to this “progress”: the technical savvy of those who attack and compromise these advanced systems.
Unless and until automated vehicles can be reliably demonstrated to be “unhackable,” l don’t expect them to be whizzing by in large numbers in the next lane or over our heads.