Microburst:
I stand corrected with the numbers. According to the link below, total worldwide traffic movements for 2007 was 73,864,874. That very roughly equates to 200,000 air traffic movements
PER DAY, not 30,000 as previously postulated. Given that not all of this is commercial airline traffic, it still illustrates the number of air traffic movements concerned.
Someone brought up the point that the question should be whether the Autopilots could do the job from start-up to landing, rather than flight control from the ground via datalink. Even if it were (and it is likely that the technology to do it is not far away), that alone, IMHO, can never be adequate. Autopilots frequently require intervention - be it route modifications, weather deviations etc. Without a pilot, the only conceivable other form of control of the automatics has to be ground control via failsafe datalinks. Imagine 200,000+ per day - none of which may be allowed to drop off line for whatever reason.
One other point that is worthy of mention - it is not just "normal" flight control by datalink that needs to be taken care of; any such "automated" system will also need to handle non-normal/emergency procedures as well. Plus, in-flight decision making? Uncontrolled engine fire midway over the Pacific? Or combination of separate unrelated on-board system failures? (Don't say it can't happen - we all know that it can). If the automatics cant' handle it, or require intervention of some sort (read "help") and there is no pilot then only ground control via datalink remains. And for this very reason this has got to be 100% failsafe under worst case conditions & cannot
EVER be allowed to fail. Imagine 200,000+ of these at the very least?????
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