Pilotless planes within 10 years?
Join Date: Oct 2004
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RAAF and DSTO trial off the NW shelf was very successful. VG AsA and RAAF contact to help smooth out the operation.
http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/news/4794/
http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/news/4794/
Sprucegoose
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Hughes Point, where life is great! Was also resident on page 13, but now I'm lost in Cyberspace....
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By the time have pilotless aircraft, the space program should be booming, so of course they will all go there!
Which is exactly what most aspire too anyway...
PS: Caution-floating big watches...
Which is exactly what most aspire too anyway...
PS: Caution-floating big watches...
Thread Starter
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What are the guys with big watches and small thingies do for an income?
No signon time, no need for the big watch!
And those mobile phone thingies have gotten way too small, I reckon. Bring back the Motorola 9300. Now that was a man-size mobile phone.
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Two companies I've worked for wanted UAVs for different purposes. The first got approval for Africa/Canada work and only for the far flung remote stuff. They have their uses for that delicate, dangerous flying but it's reliability that is the problem. They were the civil type and still in prototype stages.
The second is doing trials now but it's at least 5 years off and thats without approval from ATC. I once saw one up close and the Global Hawks are big suckers, would rather it didn't bang into me. I seem to recall a story of a predator going AWOL over europe and ATC declared a purple airspace around it till they got some sort of control. Was just a story though.
Thats the kicker, what happens when you lose the link for whatever reason. Who wants to be above or below something when we don't kow what it's going to do. I know they build super redundancies into them but as someone pointed out all it would take is one mishap. I think it'll be a while before we see them taking punters.
The second is doing trials now but it's at least 5 years off and thats without approval from ATC. I once saw one up close and the Global Hawks are big suckers, would rather it didn't bang into me. I seem to recall a story of a predator going AWOL over europe and ATC declared a purple airspace around it till they got some sort of control. Was just a story though.
Thats the kicker, what happens when you lose the link for whatever reason. Who wants to be above or below something when we don't kow what it's going to do. I know they build super redundancies into them but as someone pointed out all it would take is one mishap. I think it'll be a while before we see them taking punters.
tail wheel
Yeh it did at 60000ft+. No weather up there and over a part of the planet where data coms can be reasonably assured through data link via satellite. Go above about 75º North or South and the coverage disappears fast. HF becomes unreliable and VHF is non existent. They are very lonely places trust me but more and more airlines are flying polar routes because it saves considerable time and money.
Yeh it did at 60000ft+. No weather up there and over a part of the planet where data coms can be reasonably assured through data link via satellite. Go above about 75º North or South and the coverage disappears fast. HF becomes unreliable and VHF is non existent. They are very lonely places trust me but more and more airlines are flying polar routes because it saves considerable time and money.
Never say "Never" but I don't think we will see pilotless aircraft in commercial use, especially passenger aircraft for many years to come.
It will never sell to the paying customer. One trigger of the fear of flying for many people is giving away control of their destiny to the crew when they board the plane. I can't see that fear reducing by not having humans up front.
When I see driverless buses and taxis become the norm then I might believe that pilotless planes are a goer.
It will never sell to the paying customer. One trigger of the fear of flying for many people is giving away control of their destiny to the crew when they board the plane. I can't see that fear reducing by not having humans up front.
When I see driverless buses and taxis become the norm then I might believe that pilotless planes are a goer.
