I used to think totally automated flight was possible before I started getting my pilot's license. Now I doubt we'll even see it in the next 50 years. The natio

I used to think totally automated flight was possible before I started getting my pilot's license. Now I doubt we'll even see it in the next 50 years. The national airspsace system relies on interactions with other pilots and unless all planes became automated it would be really hard to pull it off. For starters, flying is the easy part. It's the fuel management, dealing with communications to ensure aircraft are safe, and reacting to constantly changing weather that gets tricky. When there's an emergency things get even more complicated since electrical malfunctions are definitely a not so uncommon possibility. For anything safety critical you're going to need 2-3 way redundancy. Plus you'd need some kind of standardized aircraft to aircraft data link on all aircraft.