The military is going to continue building more drones and keep improving the technology, and the transition will come. We have moved from a handful to over a thousand last I heard. One company just needs to decide to go for it, and they will push the legislation. People would probably have said the same about space flight 40 years ago. But look where we are now. Private corporations are working hard and spending big to fly barely anyone to NO WHERE. There is a drone pilot/engineer out there with an entrepreneurial mindset that is already dreaming of spending a lot on technology being heavily vetted by the military to fly people to places they can actually live and get things rather than into the cold void. The technology and demand exists. A new company will move to do this, and just like new steel or manufacturing companies use new tech to out maneuver bigger companies with bigger infrastructure, the same will happen. And since airlines have shown they have no problem routing out pilots when it suits them to try and catch their competitors it wont surprise me to see this.

And you want to talk about battling the public. The public only cares about one thing and that is the money. If a company using drones can cut flight costs further the people will come. As long as they don't fall out of the sky in their first year more people will keep swarming to them.

I also didn't say NO pilot. There will be pilots just not on the plane, and not working just one plane. The airports will remain roughly the same. The technology for drones will be worked and reworked until they can function in the environment. Cars are already being made that drive themselves(still testing), a drone will be able to navigate an airport where it is being given precise instructions from ground control. Then they will just hire someone for peanuts to make sure they watch it doesn't crash into someone.

Oh and my prediction for all this is within ~70years. Delta may or may not be around.

Good question.

Please tell us your thoughts about the "Children of Magenta" presentation video.






.

That video is excellent. Thank you for the link.

Yes that is a fantastic presentation. I spoke to Mr. High of exactly those same issues in regards to automation and the problems that it can cause, those exact things spoken about that I've seen crews experience while an instructor and check airmen on the B-777 and that I've experienced flying the line.

As usual and as expected he summarily ignored my input. You have to understand something about our resident know it all Mr. Skyhigh. In his mind he's got all the answers. He's never done anything wrong, it's impossible for him to accept blame for any of his actions and he refuses to listen anybody about anything. There was a poster on this thread who mentioned the term sociopath. I think there is some validity to that observation.

My fears are put to rest of pilotless airplanes.
I just rode the Monorail from Westlake Station to the SpaceNeedle, a distance of less than 1 mile I believe (it says it takes 2 mins), and there was still an operator on board and always has been since 1962 he said. Until they fully take the operator out of this loop, I'm not worried about airplanes!

USMCFLYR

In the future we will all have our own private VTOL aircraft flown by a robot pilot, robot maids, dogs, and friends. We will all live in worldwide peace and harmony. Humans won't need to work, being served by the machines they will spend most of their time in pursuit of philosophy, art, and science. We won't need leaders because we will all be leaders.

This will go very well until the machines decide we are worthless, lazy and a threat to the mission. Then they will hunt us down and kill us.

Ain't the future grand?:D

"Sent from my private Battlestar"

This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it

http://www4.images.coolspotters.com/...00-profile.jpg

Except for the couple of drones required to work at Spacely's Sprockets.

Aww man. We'll never get a raise from that penny pinching dwarf.

There is an idea from computer engineers about the "singularity" where human and machine ability will converge. That will squeeze people out of a lot of jobs, but also open new ones. The reason pilots will be removed from the plane(although the fact that they keep conductors is a boggle that I don't understand and does make me feel better) is that I find it hard to believe a pilot can honestly say that in flying from point A to B. They are even close to task saturated a majority of that time. From a management view, the thing to do would be to have them working more planes which have schedules that will stagger the workload and make the "pilot" spend more time on critical functions. Eventually they will have us looking like controllers at any of the world's busiest airports, but all the time 24-7.


And that is not even mentioning the neural augmentation to improve human data processing and decision speed. When I think about it I don't know if it will totally suck or be awesome. I hope I get to see it though. I'm putting my brain in a space ship and I'm outa here if I do.

As I prepared the above quote to make this post, my eyes briefly decieved me. I thought for a second that SkyHigh said he has the balls to prove his position.

Clearly he doesn't.


Expect him to bring up the same topic again in 6 to 8 weeks, making the same claim, citing the same source, acting as if this thread or the previous thread never existed.






.