Originally Posted by Neville nobody
1. Can autonomous aircraft beat that fatality rate?
2. Can they do it cheaper than pilots do now?
1. Yes, if implemented properly taking in to account a systems design that is fully autonomous. #
2. Absolutely. Pilots are extremely expensive.
# What I would like to know though is where is the optimum? What combination of pilot/aircraft/automation will yield the best return in terms of fuel economy/payload/accident rate/fatality rate. Whatever it is will take a change in attitudes within the design, operating and regulating communities.
Originally Posted by Jwscud
... but we are looking at the next generation of clean sheet designs, so 30-50 years away.
Not necessarily. The majority of latest designs have the necessary infrastructure on board already. If required they could be adapted quite readily with the addition of some computing and tweaking of the existing algorithms. But frankly, where is the need? While the aircraft has to be designed to accommodate people, then having a pilot on board is a small penalty for the massive gain of a highly flexible and capable systems manager, plus a human can bring a lot more to the decision making that just isn't necessary to be considered by a computer, but enhances the whole experience. For a cargo aircraft, that trade off may yield different results.