4. The Boeing 747-400 has a Cat 3 autoland (allowing approaches in less than 600 metres and a crosswind of 25kts), auto braking and auto spoilers/thrust reversers. Surely the next step is to remove the man waiting to disengage it from the cockpit and put them in a control cabin? Especially for cargo/freight aircraft?
Not this myth again.
1. For starters, what about when its more that 25 kts cross wind. Or places where topography causes serious chop even below 25 kts.
2. Next, what about the required traffic separation to protect the signals for autolanding? Pretty serious implications for traffic capacity.
3. As usual (for the proponents of "an aircraft can autoland so it doesn't need crew") you completely ignore the fact that the
crew are part of the autolanding system, by providing the extra monitoring loops , power supplies (we eat food but don't need electricity) and sensors that are required to assure the level of safety. Aeroplanes are only certified for autolands
because of the crew, not
inspite of them.
4. The idea that we can accept a lower level of safety for cargo or frieght is also bonkers. You realise that most airborne DG are moved by cargo only aircraft?
As someone with many years operating cat3 aircraft let me tell you categorically that you need to watch them like a hawk, and they do sometimes need intervention. One little wobble and they'll plant you in the grass. Not to mention the more general need in modern aircraft to be able to revert to more basic operation when they decide to go glitchy on you. And those of us with actual experience using modern avionics know exactly how glitchy it can be.
imho drones for some military roles makes perfect sense - the risk of getting shot down anyway means that even a relatively high system loss rate is justifiable. Likewise, if its a war zone anyway, then the risk of a drone spearing in on an innocent bystanders house is relatively small compared to the other war zone risks.
For civil, non public transport use? Well, i can see the arguemnt... but I hope the police force that has it drop on some old biddy is prepared to take the heat.
For public transport use? Utterly crazy.