Originally Posted by
G0ULI
An autonomous route can also be programmed which would allow the drone to fly for many miles and to considerable altitudes without any operator supervision. Fly and forget!
Of course this would be illegal in the UK without a speciofic Air Operator Certificate from the CAA as flight beyond visual range and any kind of autonomous flight are prohibited by the regulations. Even a "return to base" function (whether commanded or on loss of signal) is prohibited - any fail-safe device (which is mandatory for the larger ones) can only set controls & power to fixed values to ensure the ensuing crash is (a) gentle and (b) local to the point at which the fail-safe was triggered.
PDR