The RetiredF4
It is not quite as simple as you make out.
Yes, good weather flatters the reaper/predator UAVs because they don't have to carry deice anti-ice. If they had to be fitted with all the expensive heavy stuff that a proper all round military jet had to carry around like flaps and a DAS and ejection seats then yes they would be far less capable and attractive.
The fact that the initial attraction had more to do with cost, endurance and safety benefits does not alter the fact that a lot of the work has been done. The thin end of the wedge is in and designers are seeing other benefits.
Your suggestion about only operating from quiet airfields is incorrect however. Kandahar is/was like Heathrow and it was routine to be queueing with the drones.
Yes, in a A380, the percentage weight/space saving is small, but it would still be a few extra 1st class seats per flight and a few tonnes of freight and lots of extra flexibility with no crew duty problems.
The big benefit is that it will be safer.
We are the failure point in a huge percentage of accidents.
I truly believe that the only reason that the safety rate is so good is that the engineers have created amazingly foolproof aircraft. Probably the best engineered machines in history.
They are so good that today's pilots have forgotten how to fly. The managers don't want them to practise, and 2 sims sessions a year is a joke.
On those occasions that something really bad happens and the aircraft gets handed to the pilot we hear about it in the news.
I have sat in sims with guys from both seats from "quality" airlines that quite simply cannot fly a raw data ILS. I'm sure they once could, but they forgot long ago.
Won't practise hand flown approach if it is a bit gusty.
Won't practise manual thrust.
The simple fact is that if you can't do it any time any place, then you can't do it period.
Aircraft always seem to fail on ****ty days.
Computers don't skill fade.
I think there are a lot of people out there who must just pray that they retire before it happens to them.
Yes there are some awesome guys out there. I don't know how they remain at that standard without the chance to practice.
The point being as I said before that autonomous airliners don't have to be perfect, they just have to be equal or better.
There are a lot more Asiana flights just waiting to happen.
The sooner you remove us from the system the better.
p.s. You say that UAVs are not replacing helicopters now or in the future and that they can't make decisions, only follow them.
There have been unmanned helicopters in Afghanistan for years moving freight very successfully. No, they are not autonomous, they require a mouse click, but as I have said many times since nobody seems to bother to watch the links I post, go and watch the autonomous Blackhawks video I posted.
That is autonomous, low level tactical flight to an LS it reccys itself.
Last edited by Tourist; 4th Dec 2014 at 19:34.