4 ms·

>You are ignoring the fact that cars have to navigate what is basically a set a of 1 dimensional corridors on a 2 dimensional plane. Airplanes don't have these

>You are ignoring the fact that cars have to navigate what is basically a set a of 1 dimensional corridors on a 2 dimensional plane. Airplanes don't have these limitations and can fly point to point at their choice of altitude. Absolutely true. However cars are mostly autonomous and airplanes flying through urban airspace are not, with rare exception. The bottleneck will be our air traffic control system, which can not in its semi-automated form scale to the volume required and would not qualify for the usual SV "move fast and break things" treatment, since "breaking things" in this context would be in-air near misses and collisions.

jillesvangurp 7y ago
True, this is as much a cultural and legislative problem as it is a technical problem. IMHO, having lots of autonomous capable planes will create a need for having them interact with some form of automated traffic control that does not yet exist. Building that technically is much less of a challenge than getting it certified, standardized, and integrated in the aviation world. IMHO this will play out over decades and will be driven by increasing traffic volumes of basically fully or semi autonomous vehicles causing issues with the current system. But if you think about it, doing things the way we have been doing for the last 70 years with analog radio broadcasts, call signs, people using archaic jargon, chattering about altimeter settings, verbal communication of flight plans, having to monitor multiple radio frequencies, etc. is maybe not optimal in a world where all that info could be exchanged in ms between two autonomously operating systems.
- technofiend 7y ago
  Yup yup - I'm not defending the status quo as much as just commenting it's not built for the future utopia of self-directed or autonomous private aviation. Commercial aviation puts pressure on Congress now to try and marginalize general aviation due in part to system constraints; every private flight that displaces a commercial one is revenue lost as far as they are concerned.
bananabreakfast 7y ago
Autonomous air traffic control is far further along than you think it is.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Would appreciate some pointers for that; I'm interested in this space. My understanding is that governmental institutions are moving at a glacial pace here. E.g. ADSb took decades to get deployed (mandatory in lots of places as of the beginning of this year) and is technically less than ideal because of a lot of design by committee stuff interfering. I'm aware of some automated ATC efforts on smaller fields that would otherwise be uncontrolled.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

True, this is as much a cultural and legislative problem as it is a technical problem. IMHO, having lots of autonomous capable planes will create a need for having them interact with some form of automated traffic control that does not yet exist. Building that technically is much less of a challenge than getting it certified, standardized, and integrated in the aviation world. IMHO this will play out over decades and will be driven by increasing traffic volumes of basically fully or semi autonomous vehicles causing issues with the current system. But if you think about it, doing things the way we have been doing for the last 70 years with analog radio broadcasts, call signs, people using archaic jargon, chattering about altimeter settings, verbal communication of flight plans, having to monitor multiple radio frequencies, etc. is maybe not optimal in a world where all that info could be exchanged in ms between two autonomously operating systems.

technofiend 7y ago
Yup yup - I'm not defending the status quo as much as just commenting it's not built for the future utopia of self-directed or autonomous private aviation. Commercial aviation puts pressure on Congress now to try and marginalize general aviation due in part to system constraints; every private flight that displaces a commercial one is revenue lost as far as they are concerned.

bananabreakfast 7y ago

Autonomous air traffic control is far further along than you think it is.

jillesvangurp 7y ago
Would appreciate some pointers for that; I'm interested in this space. My understanding is that governmental institutions are moving at a glacial pace here. E.g. ADSb took decades to get deployed (mandatory in lots of places as of the beginning of this year) and is technically less than ideal because of a lot of design by committee stuff interfering. I'm aware of some automated ATC efforts on smaller fields that would otherwise be uncontrolled.