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Are these actually autonomous (no pilot at all) or just very large drones? https://www.xwing.com https://www.xwing.com "Our system changes the role and locatio
by alistairSH 3y ago
Are these actually autonomous (no pilot at all) or just very large drones?
https://www.xwing.com https://www.xwing.com
"Our system changes the role and location of the pilot. The aircraft is fully self-sufficient with the pilot remotely supervising from a ground control station."
So, there's a pilot somewhere, but it's not clear if the pilot is flying remotely or just there for "backup".
- 0x457 3y agoIt's clear tho. Remote pilot is for backup.
- euroderf 3y agoProbably even if there were only a 0.01% chance of interventionable mission failure, a remote backup pilot would still be cost-effective.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoParticularly considering that pilot salaries are going to massively plummet when one superviser can oversee dozens of planes, simultaneously [perhaps].
- justinclift 3y agoThat'd get interesting if more than one plane has an emergency at the same time.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoSomewhere there's an airline's actuary calculating the risk, for the sake of shareholder profit. Perhaps a better idea would be to have two pilots, together, monitoring dozens.
- whatever1 3y agoYep no costs for hotels, travel for pilots etc. Plus you can hire dirt cheap pilots from eastern europe
- jessriedel 3y agoI think the distinction between remote piloting vs. fully autonomous is a continuum rather than discrete. It's clearly remote piloting if the remote operator has a joystick and all other flight controls that are controlling the aircraft directly in real time. It's clearly fully autonomous if the remote operator issues an instruction that says "take-off from SFO and land at SEA". But there are intermediate cases like the remote operator only issuing way points, or the remote operator having access to some flight controls but not others and only using them in certain situations.
- kevinventullo 3y agoI want to say that “remoteness” versus “autonomy” are actually two separate axes, since even local pilots can in principle defer many flight instructions to an autonomous system. That said, I’m not sure the “remote but non-autonomous” quadrant actually makes sense here.
- jessriedel 3y agoWell, there was no human in the plane so remoteness is fixed at "yes".
- alistairSH 3y agoI think the distinction between remote piloting vs. fully autonomous is a continuum rather than discrete. Absolutely, I just didn't see much detail on where on the continuum this project sits. I did find a video that appears to have the pilot just monitoring, but not flying, the plane. A little but worrying, given a similar size/type of plane just crashed by my house (commuter airline at Dulles Airport). If there was no pilot actively flying it (remote or not), would it have been able to safely ditch on the highway? Or would it have crashed into a row of homes instead?
- yencabulator 3y agoI think it's also worth remembering that commercial airlines already fly on autopilot most of the duration. Pilots fly takeoff, landing, and unexpected scenarios, the rest of the time they're just monitoring the system. Here's some fun tidbits: Autopilot landings are actually preferred in bad weather (where airport is equipped). > On a typical commercial flight, autopilot is used for almost 90% of the flight. > The autopilot can be engaged as early as 5 seconds after lift-off > autopilot must be used when flying above 29,000 feet https://travelradar.aero/the-importance-autopilot-commercial-flights/ https://travelradar.aero/the-importance-autopilot-commercial...