Can a drone do your job?

[megan]

Japanese farms are of small acreage and they have been using RC helos for some time crop spraying. A well developed industry.

You Tube

[helihub]

SuperF

Agricultural work, around stock. Good luck getting a drone to do that, faster and cheaper than a human

I don't think we are necessarily talking faster or cheaper, but the preservation of human life is obviously key in the world of cattle mustering. Drones are expendable, pilots are not

Trains, they only deal in one dimension forward and reverse. Do they still have drivers??

example - Driverless trains have been around since 1987 in London (Docklands Light Railway)

cars, forward reverse, left and right, driverless yet?

example - Tesla can do full autonomous driving (and a contact of mine has validated the technology on the M25 near Heathrow!). Cars are very well advanced in autonomy - my own car reads the speed limit off the signposts and shows the current limit in the corner of my digital dashboard, and it has an AmazonAlexa style voice command system so I am 100% hands on the steering wheel.

aeroplanes, runway to runway, programmed routes in the sky, surely they can that without pilots,

example, MQ-9 Reaper in the USAF. Civvy flying held back by public perception and regulations

unplanned operations onto moving targets is what we should worry about.

I suspect this just needs to be demonstrated. If a robot can Find Waldo ("Find Wally" in some countries) then it's possible to follow a fire.

Check this

i will start thinking about it when my car can drive me to the pub, wait for me while I have a few, then safely deliver me home again.

Only the regulations stand in the way. The technology is here now

Here are a few other examples of drone technology already in use where it may have been done by other modes of transport in the past

• Crop surveying
• Blood delivery to hospitals (with Rwanda leading the way with fixed-wing drones)
• Powerline survey, LiDAR etc

.
JerryG - Given your film flying experience, what's your estimate for the % of helicopter film flying already lost to drones being used?

the freight train is coming down the tracks SO much quicker than we dare imagine

I'm right with you, and I'm surprised at the ostriches here. As with my last contribution on this thread, my closing note was.... "Technology is advancing much faster than aviation authorities can develop airspace law to cope"

[edited to tidy up the way the YouTube video showed up!]

[Robbiee]

Eventually the only helicopter pilots left will be hobbyist pulling their old, beat up, self maintained Robbies out of the garage for a weekend joyride.

[Non-PC Plod]

Apparently my job as a trainer is "ticking boxes" according to my erudite boss. Therefore, I am sure a drone, robot, or chimpanzee could probably do it.
#Feeling Valued

[GrayHorizonsHeli]

I'm convinced some tasks will be easily taken over by drones.
m not so worried yet, as itll still be a slow process to implement all of the safely and efficiently.
but to all those making these things can there be a nagging voice, after every flight, just complaining about stuff. Pump it over a loudhailer if possible.
I'm not sure I can start work until I've been thoroughly nagged about little things.

[JerryG]

I'm totally with you Helihub.

Given the pace at which the law moves it's interesting that SELF regulation from within the drone industry, by virtue of that same technology, often appears to be the answer. By that I mean that Gatwick initiated a lot of head scratching about regulations and anti-drone measures - meanwhile the manufacturer with over 80% of the world market (DJI - Chinese - first time I've seen original technology coming from there, but that's a whole other discussion) has already initiated geo-fencing in their products. BTW that's an immediate retrofit to all their products out there; you can't fly unless you've upgraded.

Ref

Given your film flying experience, what's your estimate for the % of helicopter film flying already lost to drones being used?

If I was being conservative I'd say 50% but it's probably more than that in the last three years. Once again there's a secondary effect happening. Just for one simple example it used to be that a newspaper or TV station would hire a helicopter to capture a major road-crash, flood, or other newsworthy disaster but why do that if a local citizen has already offered photos or video of the scene that's been captured from his drone?

So far I agree with "Carrying the Royal Family" (somewhat tongue-in-cheek!) and I can see the argument for bucketing over fires (except you can buy an awful lot of expendable drones for the cost of the Skycrane currently languishing in a Victorian dam!). But I haven't yet seen any other tasks in this thread that are currently manned and unlikely to be impacted by drones.

Jeffory, ref

Some jobs will disappear if the price point is right, but hardly worth getting worked up about.

I think you just won the ostrich prize of the month!