Parachutes need a certain amount of height to work correctly, are difficult to steer, can get twisted, tangled, etc and are at the mercy of overall atmospheric

Parachutes need a certain amount of height to work correctly, are difficult to steer, can get twisted, tangled, etc and are at the mercy of overall atmospheric conditions. Free flight autopilot I agree isn't a tough problem to solve- it's free flight launching, landing, and responding to rapid and dangerous changes in atmospheric conditions on autopilot that I'd be worried about. When you're landing in free flight, you have one chance to set up your approach and landing, and conditions at the LZ can change rapidy- without constant distance and wind measuring equipment as well as enough space to come in a little too high, you're in a very difficult and dangerous situation. So if we're now taking about needing essentially an airstrip with sensors, it's basically an airport. I don't think that autopiloted free flight is an impossibility, I just think it's an impossibility for mass-produced untrained consumer use.