All
← Back to Squawk list
NASA Kicks off Testing Campaign for Remotely Piloted Cargo Flights
NASA recently began a series of flight tests with partners to answer an important aviation question: What will it take to integrate remotely piloted or autonomous planes carrying large packages and cargo safely into the U.S. airspace? Researchers tested new technologies in Hollister, California, that are helping to investigate what tools and capabilities are needed to make these kinds of flights routine. (www.nasa.gov) More...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Somebody is Still paying a “pilot” to fly that plane whether remotely or an actual pilot inside the cockpit.
A pointless waste of $$ if you want my 23,000 pilot hours opinion.
A pointless waste of $$ if you want my 23,000 pilot hours opinion.
Put this in the category of a another government initative flying blind!
In today's busy airspace there will NEVER be a suitable replacement for eyes in the cockpit. We just saw that the other day in LA when a drone hit and took a super scooper out of service. Too many things can go wrong without human intervention on site.
So many commenters here are clearly experts in aviation safety. They should all go get jobs with NASA since they know better than anybody else.
What are they thinking!
Fully autonomous from at least the moment it enters the departing runway to the moment it clears the destination runway. Autonomous, every action and response pre-determined, every contingency ever before seen, plus some that haven't happened yet, contemplated. Ready to land at every airport within fuel distance, and ditch anywhere between. This is doable. Not easy. But doable.
For comparison. Putting a man on the literal moon..... We did that. Half a century ago. We will have men on Mars, before this little website disappears into archive.org.
Fully Autonomous flight should be figured out by now. Imagine a future, where any human input to flight controls of a commercial airline after taxi is cause to launch fighter jets. 100% doable.
Humans created machines that surpassed our own speed of action, endurance, reliability, cognitive, and sensory abilities, many years ago. It is borderline negligent to not be using them today. They don't have to be perfect. They just have to be better than the average pilot. Be honest with yourself. You wouldn't do your own taxes without a computer. We're already there.