Originally Posted by Elevation

Global Hawk is pretty big. Like you, I shared airspace with UAS for years. There are lots of us here. I have personally watched them fail and bust across boundaries, disrupt stacks of assets working a particular task, etc. I have personally watched manned assets do the same thing, though. So I don't assume UAS or automation is inherently worse; it's inherently different. Crews have strengths and weakness (fatigue and cabin environmental factors, for example) and automation has strengths and weaknesses (Iranian capture of an RQ-170 for example).

I was really trying to speak about liability, economics and politics more than technology, though. That's why I point out that trains still have conductors even though automated trains may be more reliable. If we aren't willing to chance automated trains the limiting factor is law and politics rather than technology. I didn't make my point very well, though.