Originally Posted by
Tourist
The money is being spent right now, as usual, by the military.
They will do the heavy lifting on this one, and as time progresses and the safety benefits become apparent the civil world will follow.
The reason they will want to follow is not the safety aspect, that will merely justify it.
The benefit from their perspective is the extra passenger space, reduced weight and the drop in wages.
How many pilots per aircraft does your airline have?
Do away with all those wages. All those pensions. All those uniforms. All those medicals. All those hotel rooms. All those crew meals. All that training.
That's worth a few billions.
Think of all those increased insurance premiums for pilotless aircraft, think of the infrastructure, communication costs and hardware equipment that will be required.
Think of all the salaries for the researchers, developers, engineers, maintainers, controllers etc. think of what happens the first time a control signal is hacked or lost. Worth more than a few billion I think
And I doubt whether the military could transform the entire global airline system. Militaries are notorious for cost overruns, delays, inefficiencies, and the governments of the world are tightening their belts.