Unmanned drones make much sense in military gear. Cost and weight saving as you can eliminate life support systems. Better performance, as UAV can ignore any g-force limitations puny meatsacks enforce on manned craft. And finally, nobody cares if an UAV is shot down, while an enemy force killing or capturing a pilot is major political disaster (at least for western countries that depend on goodwill from media and public).
Civilian transports gain none of those advantages. You still need life support for slf. Civilian planes don't need to outmanoeuvre other planes. And if an unmanned plane full of slf crashes, the media is REALLY gonna have a field day. Unlike in military, in the civilian world pilots having their own life on the line is a safety feature. It is a good motivator of taking pre-flight checks seriously and avoiding risks when in the air.
So I don't believe in fully automated civilian transport any decade soon. Single pilot + remote control as backup now is different story. Especially for the currently uneconomical <30 passenger planes.
Last edited by keitaidenwa; 5th Dec 2011 at 10:27.