Originally Posted by badflaps (Post 2407827)

CNN said yesterday that a B1B could fly as high as 30,000 ft. so there is that.

Originally Posted by Awesome Wells (Post 2410316)

This isn't quite the same as pilotless flights on a day to day basis, but this article from 2006 makes for interesting reading:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...jacked-210869/





Have any of you folks heard about this?

It seems Honeywell has been working on a similar system with Airbus.
https://www.wired.com/2003/08/flying...on-auto-pilot/

Originally Posted by Awesome Wells (Post 2409968)

I'm a bit late to the party on this thread.

The public will go wherever the cheapest flights are. They'll soon forget about the lack of pilots up front if it saves them a few dollars.

Of course the irony of the CNN article is that pilotless aircraft won't be cheaper. Why are Airbus and Boeing still using a lot of 60s and 70s technology on their aircraft? The answer is that it is prohibitively expensive to get the new technology through the regulators approval processes.

Then there is the issue of liability. Pilotless aircraft are every ambulance chasing lawyer's wet dream. Us pilots are quite handy scapegoats when an aircraft goes down in the ocean, but what if the aircraft is pilotless? Who takes the wrap then? The media and lawyers want a scalp when there is an air crash, so they'll come after airline management or the aircraft manufacturer management.

I think what we are more likely to see is much greater levels of automation, overseen by pilots on ever decreasing wages, and receiving less and less training.

Originally Posted by Subieguy14 (Post 2406704)

What happens if something goes wrong the computer cant fix and the plane ends up in a neighborhood instead of a grass field 2 miles the other way?