Originally Posted by
Tourist
Flyingstone
You are making the assumption that an autonomous airliner would use 1950s tech autoland.
Why on earth would a future aircraft even consider such archaic tech as ILS/MLS/VOR/NDB? We only use it today because it is certified despite the fact that VOR and NDB approaches have awful safety statistics.
There are 1000's of better options if you are already making the jump to entirely new certifications.
Cat 3-capable GBAS is the way to go - I agree, but it's still not certified today and likely will not be quite some time.
What you have to remember that at least for small airports, you are likely to see a transition to RNAV (GNSS)-only operations first, which require absolutely no infrastructure on the ground, so no servicing of the navaids, while providing relatively good approach capability (system minima for RNAV is 250ft I think). While this provides a significant reduction in costs (all new aircraft can do a basic RNAV approach), the next step would provide significant cost increase, as it's very unlikely to see SBAS-only autoland, so again you need some increase in equipment on the ground. And while this might make sense in LHR, FRA, JFK or somewhere in major hubs (i.e. replace multiple ILS systems with a single GBAS station), it makes much less financial sense on some remote airport with seasonal traffic where the weather is CAVOK most of the time anyway.
It all comes down to the basic bean counting technique - cost vs. benefit. Technology might be here or close, but at what cost and how much benefit does it actually bring you? Save (if at all) couple of dollars to limit your operating capability significantly?