PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Automation - State of the Art
View Single Post
Old 7th May 2010 | 20:17
  #13 (permalink)  
Jetex_Jim
15 Anniversary
 
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 98
Likes: 0
From: Bavaria
Are you ready to get aboard an airplane without a pilot...?
Not bl**dy likely.

Robert Heinlein, the great SF and Fantasy writer, predicted that even in the far future human pilots would be maintained. The way he put it, as long as you have a human pilot on board, no matter how bad the catastrophy, and when all the logical possibilities have been exhausted, the human pilot will keep trying. (and perhaps find a solution amongst the non-logical possibilities.) By way of example, Jim Lovell explained how he followed the biolumiscent trail behind his carrier when all the navigation systems had failed.

And that's the way I'd want it to be, thank you very much.
Jetex_Jim is offline  
Reply