The flight system allows a plane to be remote operated by a pilot on the ground, which could streamline pilot airline operations in the future.
The innovation
Do they just not keep up with things at all? lol
Don’t most planes fly almost entirely on automated systems nowadays? The pilots mainly handle takeoff, landing, and monitoring the instuments if i’m not mistaken.
That said, remote controlling a plane of any kind seems like a very, very bad idea, cargo or not. If the 737 Max prevented pilots controlling the plane from the actual cockpit, I’d not like to think about what a similar plane would do in the event of a poor radio control signal and faulty instrumentation
Pilots aren’t paid to manually fly the aircraft from A to B. They’re paid to handle emergencies and abnormal situations. The kind of situations that automated systems are extremely poor at handling.
Yep.
If you want to see why we need highly trained, highly skilled pilots, with strong work ethic and principles, just go watch The Flight Channel.
When systems fail (and they do all the time), these are the folks ensuring you make it to the ground at an appropriate speed (or not).
“You never want to run out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas”. We’re a long way from tech itself generating ideas on the fly.
Thousands of military drones have been remotely piloted for decades. This news isn’t as ground breaking as it might seem. Some of these drones are large: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_Hawk
I know a military drone isn’t the same as a passenger carrying airplane, but for cargo I think the only reason this isn’t already a thing is because drones are military tech and most governments don’t want that falling into the wrong hands.
One interference away from crashing in a residential area…
Better wages and work life balance would also solve the pilot shortage. It’s one of those jobs where companies over rely on people’s passion for the profession in lieu of treating and paying them what they deserve.
A decade ago, my pilot friend informed me that after 4 years of college, starting pay was $18,000 a year. After a year of experience suddenly you’re making 4 times that. Not a lot of people can afford to make that measley income for a year. It’s not a sustainable way to recruit talent.
Then there’s the issue is being on call when you’re the lowest seniority in you’re position where they can call you anytime a pilot calls in sick and you have to be at the airport in 30 minutes.
You can make a lot of money, but there’s a lot of bullshit to deal with at the start of your career.
You’ve been hacked. Pay 500 BTC to regain control of engines and landing gear.
