Originally Posted by
Sholayo
I am sorry but I cannot resist and propose some similarly important questions:
- parachutes for passengers
- circular runways
Being an IT guy I can tell that in forseeable future autonomous plane is as realistic as the above ideas.
Proof - we have just a handful of autonomous metro trains and it does not seem to be popular choice for new developments. Same goes for trains even in remote places.&
There's a damn sight more than a handful. Rio Tinto has spend megabucks automating almost their entire railway operation in regional Western Australia - and they are some of the biggest trains in the world, in both size and weight. The integration of dozens of different systems to achieve that is incredible and an order of magnitude higher than what would be required to achieve autonomous flight.