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I really hate this association of aircraft and car autopilots. Aircraft operate in essentially empty space, and barring major mechanical failure the pilots typ
by erobbins 10y ago
I really hate this association of aircraft and car autopilots.
Aircraft operate in essentially empty space, and barring major mechanical failure the pilots typically have tens of seconds up to many minutes to act to avoid disaster. In a car you often have less than a second to react, and certainly never more than 4-5.
Aircraft hardware and software is tested, retested, tested again, and certified. Auto hardware and software is pushed out the door with reckless disregard for reliability.
There is really no comparison.
- mc32 10y agoPeople forget planes, the kinds with sophisticated autopilot, don't come out with a new model revision every two to three years. Their cycles are very long, decades long.
- icebraining 10y agoAutolanding doesn't have the empty space, yet the first autolanding of a commercial flight with passengers aboard was done in '65.
- jerf 10y agoErrr... yes it does. A runway is empty space. There are no other planes on it, it's a straight, well-maintained stretch of pavement, kept clear of ice and snow, with clear markings. Those are conditions so easy that non-self-driving cars can manage to navigate them for non-trivial periods of time without hitting anything! The Mythbusters have had a couple of cars go entirely out of control a couple times under those circumstances and the damage was a fence, once, IIRC.
- icebraining 10y agoThere's more to landing than taxiing on the runway, like approaching the ground at a minimum of 250 km/h while getting hit by winds, often with very little visibility.
- jerf 10y agoHike dem goalposts!
- icebraining 10y ago?
- mentat 10y agoThey're just talking about reality of every day landings. If you don't like it, don't make up counterfactual claims in the first place.