Another day, another article about how we'll soon be obsolete. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-01/boeing-is-getting-ready-to-sell-flying-taxis-within-a-decade

Not a pilot, but an aspiring one. I know it’s just an article, but it’s worrying.

Keep flying, get an MBA to sit on, save money. That said, I think it will be a good long while and anyone currently in or near the profession will have a good few decades before the people movers are flown by HAL9000.

No, the point is that the technology is NOT there. We can do it only when it is very easy to define all of the aspects of the problem. Elevators and trains are very, very limited as to the types of scenarios that can lead to problems. Those scenarios are well known and can be programmed, including just "stopping" if there events that are outside of those well defined boundaries.

Hand flying is essentially treated as an emergency procedure, drone airliners are inevitable.

Please name one US airline or operator where hand flying is essentially treated as an emeregency procedure.

Show me an airport where I can use managed speed in an Airbus from cruise to the runway without having to select a speed 20 times...

Our airspace is too busy for drones.

Would you turn on the autopilot if you knew that it could not, under any circumstances, be turned off?
That’s what riding in a UAV would be like.

The airspace system is the weakest link, so long as that stays like it is, there is no chance for fully automated aircraft.



However, the military will be using fully autonomous aircraft here shortly for special missions. It will be interesting to see the failure rate.