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The only surprising thing in your statement is the fact that the drones can’t land themselves. Even large commercial passenger aircraft can do that. Nobody dies

The only surprising thing in your statement is the fact that the drones can’t land themselves. Even large commercial passenger aircraft can do that. Nobody dies if a drone cocks up on landing.

numpad0 7y ago
So the drones has a few strains, Predator is a frontline ones akin to A-10, reportedly uses some Cisco VPN gears in it. There are Global Hawk, which is basically modern Air Force U-2, or X-37B or X-47B, controlled like stah-tegic wargame piece, and how each ones fly are different. For whatever purpose they fly Predators manually.
nradov 7y ago
Very few commercial passenger aircraft have autoland capability, and even those that do have two human pilots ready to take over instantly in case of system failure.
- fyfy18 7y ago
  The first part of your statement is not true. Autoland as in "press a button and go get a coffee" sure. Almost all commercial aircraft have systems that can land the aircraft themselves (with the pilot ready to take over at any point), but it is not often used in practice because: - pilots still need to know how to land an aircraft themselves, so they may as well practice it (it's not like they are driving to work and can read Facebook) - to prevent interference with the radio signals used for the ILS, ground aircraft are routed away from transmitters which reduces capacity of the airport when it has to be used - the system isn't perfect, so from a safety perspective it's safer to use it as guidance rather than rely on it Autoland is a requirement during severe weather conditions - when a pilot cannot obtain enough visual information to perform the landing themselves.
  - az656 7y ago
    1) Ground aircraft are always kept out of the ILS critical zone when there is IFR traffic landing, which happens to be all commercial flights and almost all business aircraft. Autoland being used has nothing to do with this, besides, even GA planes can autoland today with RNAV GPS LPV approaches. 2) Autoland is never a requirement — usually, deciding to try an autoland landing or diverting to an alternate airport is the pilot’s game time decision. 3) Not “almost all” commercial aircraft have autoland capability. It requires specific certifications for the pilot and crew as well as the aircraft itself.
    - selectodude 7y ago
      >Not “almost all” commercial aircraft have autoland capability. It requires specific certifications for the pilot and crew as well as the aircraft itself. The 737NG, 737 MAX, 747, 757, 767, 777, 787 and every Airbus model have autoland. It's a requirement to be able to use autoland in order to be certified as a pilot for a particular type. Garmin even has a system for newer GA planes so they can autoland nowadays. Autoland is used rarely because its more work for the pilots to enable and they all think they can do a softer landing, but in very low-vis weather conditions its used pretty often.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  They have had the capability for decades back at my first job on campus at Cranfield University (which has its own airport) BAE where doing tests of this lading passenger jets on wet and slippery runways for example

The only surprising thing in your statement is the fact that the drones can’t land themselves. Even large commercial passenger aircraft can do that. Nobody dies if a drone cocks up on landing.

numpad0 7y ago

So the drones has a few strains, Predator is a frontline ones akin to A-10, reportedly uses some Cisco VPN gears in it. There are Global Hawk, which is basically modern Air Force U-2, or X-37B or X-47B, controlled like stah-tegic wargame piece, and how each ones fly are different. For whatever purpose they fly Predators manually.

nradov 7y ago

Very few commercial passenger aircraft have autoland capability, and even those that do have two human pilots ready to take over instantly in case of system failure.

fyfy18 7y ago
The first part of your statement is not true. Autoland as in "press a button and go get a coffee" sure. Almost all commercial aircraft have systems that can land the aircraft themselves (with the pilot ready to take over at any point), but it is not often used in practice because: - pilots still need to know how to land an aircraft themselves, so they may as well practice it (it's not like they are driving to work and can read Facebook) - to prevent interference with the radio signals used for the ILS, ground aircraft are routed away from transmitters which reduces capacity of the airport when it has to be used - the system isn't perfect, so from a safety perspective it's safer to use it as guidance rather than rely on it Autoland is a requirement during severe weather conditions - when a pilot cannot obtain enough visual information to perform the landing themselves.
- az656 7y ago
  1) Ground aircraft are always kept out of the ILS critical zone when there is IFR traffic landing, which happens to be all commercial flights and almost all business aircraft. Autoland being used has nothing to do with this, besides, even GA planes can autoland today with RNAV GPS LPV approaches. 2) Autoland is never a requirement — usually, deciding to try an autoland landing or diverting to an alternate airport is the pilot’s game time decision. 3) Not “almost all” commercial aircraft have autoland capability. It requires specific certifications for the pilot and crew as well as the aircraft itself.
  - selectodude 7y ago
    >Not “almost all” commercial aircraft have autoland capability. It requires specific certifications for the pilot and crew as well as the aircraft itself. The 737NG, 737 MAX, 747, 757, 767, 777, 787 and every Airbus model have autoland. It's a requirement to be able to use autoland in order to be certified as a pilot for a particular type. Garmin even has a system for newer GA planes so they can autoland nowadays. Autoland is used rarely because its more work for the pilots to enable and they all think they can do a softer landing, but in very low-vis weather conditions its used pretty often.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
C1sc0cat 7y ago
They have had the capability for decades back at my first job on campus at Cranfield University (which has its own airport) BAE where doing tests of this lading passenger jets on wet and slippery runways for example