I think Tourist is being a bit if a troll. Because he is missing some really important elements. The first one is that we are not killing enough people. We will have to park a few more aircraft on hills and in smoking holes every year before it becomes economically worthwhile. The cost of implementing this will be enormous and even given our current appalling record, not presently viable. The work being done at the moment is to place the companies working on these projects in first place if this looks like it's viable. They are counting on generating infra-structure, consulting and training income to enable this sort of operation to take place. Next we have the cost issues. Who will pay for the improvements to infra-structure and training to handle aircraft in the less developed parts of the world? Thirdly, we haven't got a single sky over Europe yet. Not until this exists, plus reliable and secure C(remote)PDLC will this be a flyer. Then we have the failure cases. Who can foresee a controller accepting an unmanned aircraft with a problem? Also, will the cabin crew now run the aircraft? Will they press the "something is wrong button" and be told by the cheapest handler, say one in Bangalore or Calcutta to go away or fail to communicate? Who will change international law to make a person in a remote office the "captain"? And there are hundreds more hurdles to be overcome. Will it happen - probably. But not in my lifetime. And when it does, after the first few prangs, prangs only possible because of the stupidity of computers, the public will want to know why it's not safe. And we'll send them over to the Tourist for an answer.