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from the queue-the-'Airplane!'-references-in-3,2,1 dept.
Pilotless commercial airliners are about to be tested, but potential passengers are wary:
How comfortable would you feel getting on a pilotless plane? That is the question millions of people may have to ask themselves in the future if they want to jet off on holiday around the world.
As we move closer to a world of driverless cars, which have already been on the road in some US cities and have also been tested in London, remotely controlled planes may be the next automated mode of transport. Plane manufacturer Boeing plans to test them in 2018.
A survey by financial services firm UBS suggests that pilotless aircraft not be too popular, however, with 54% of the 8,000 people questioned saying they would be unlikely to take a pilotless flight. The older age groups were the most resistant with more than half of people aged 45 and above shunning the idea.
Only 17% of those questioned said they would board such a plane, with more young people willing to give them a try and the 25 to 34 age group the most likely to step on board.
[...] Steve Landells, the British Airline Pilots Association's (Balpa) flight safety specialist, said: "We have concerns that in the excitement of this futuristic idea, some may be forgetting the reality of pilotless air travel. Automation in the cockpit is not a new thing - it already supports operations. However, every single day pilots have to intervene when the automatics don't do what they're supposed to. Computers can fail, and often do, and someone is still going to be needed to work that computer."
Fnord666: So how about it soylentils? Would you fly on a pilotless plane?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Thursday August 10 2017, @01:34PM (1 child)
...by someone *inside* the plane, sure.
There was a TV show called The Lone Gunmen years ago -- a spinoff of The X-Files. The pilot episode, which aired in the summer of 2001, was pretty much the reverse of that exact situation. The flight control computers on a commercial airline were hacked remotely (in this case, by rogue government agents intending to blame terrorists and start a war in the middle east), and were being used to override the pilot's controls in an attempt to crash the plane into the World Trade Center. And yes, that aired just a few months before the 9/11 attack...
Which is less likely: someone learning to fly a plane, getting through security, breaking through the cockpit door, and overpowering the flight crew....or someone hacking a computer. Even if these things *aren't* connected to the global Internet (lol, we KNOW someone is gonna do it...) they still have to get the message to the plane, which means radio broadcast, which means it's easily intercepted by anyone nearby. Let's hope the encryption is good (lmao, that contract is going to the lowest bidder...)
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:06PM
Sure, but it should at least mean an end to the groping to get on a plane.