"Pilotless airliners safer" - London Times article

[netstruggler]

This thread has drifted into a couple of areas that I know something about so I'm going to stop sitting on my hands.


I don't know whether fully automated commercial airliners will be realised before the aviation fuel runs out, but if they do arrive under current regulations then I'd be quite sure of the following:

1. They will be 10 to 100 times safer than human piloted craft, because nothing less would be allowed..
2. They will use "brute force" logic rather than AI, because you couldn't build a safety case around AI.
3. They will not mix with human piloted air traffic, because that introduces too many variables.

Personally, I believe that all the above is achievable now, but that the cost of providing a 'clean' environment for these aircraft to operate in outweighs their benefit at the moment.