But as an airline captain, I can't picture an airliner completely reliant on ground-based guidance, data and analysis.
Any remote-control solution hinges on a futuristic technical perfection, and there's the rub: Today's remotely piloted vehicle technology has
But as an airline captain, I can't picture an airliner completely reliant on ground-based guidance, data and analysis.
Any remote-control solution hinges on a futuristic technical perfection, and there's the rub: Today's remotely piloted vehicle technology has so far chalked up an accident rate nearly 40% higher than that of airliners with pilots on board.
In the 212 drone crashes documented by the civilian watchdog group Drone Wars since 2001, a never-before-encountered fatal flaw — "data link failure" — was the root cause in many of the losses.
Unlike aircraft with flesh and blood pilots, remotely piloted jetliners rely upon two factors that have to be 100% reliable: electricity and data. Probabilities and reliability can be calculated all day long, but what really matters is what happens in a jet loaded with twenty tons of jet fuel and hundreds of passengers, hurtling at eight-tenths of the speed of sound eight miles above the Earth.
Let's consider a real-life scenario.
For me, the most vulnerable phase of any flight is the takeoff. That's when the jet has the maximum amount of fuel on board and is at its heaviest. Starting from a dead stop, the plane has the least amount of energy to spare as it generates sufficient speed on a finite runway.
As the plane goes down that runway, we have to make decisions quickly and correctly, under conditions of uncertainty.
What I know from hands-on experience is that the crucial, instantaneous decision to stop or go must take into account how potential system failures will indirectly (but drastically) affect other critical systems on the aircraft. For example, electrical problems may disable vital components like hydraulic controls, a