Pilots a dying phenomena!
Pilotless test plane stolen in Israel
12.11.2003
Thieves have broken into an engineering plant in northern Israel and stolen the prototype of a state-of-the art pilotless plane.
Amir Rochman, marketing manager of Steadicopter, said the burglars forced entry to the plant on Sunday and got away with the 1.5m, 14kg aircraft.
Rochman said that while a new prototype could be built relatively quickly, he was concerned that groundbreaking technology could have found its way to a commercial rival. "Our product does not need to be manually guided by a remote-control joystick or other means.
"Once the map co-ordinates are programmed in, it flies itself. As far as we know this is the first to reach such a high degree of autonomy."