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This sentence was a bit cute: "Waymo has received our pilot permit allowing for commercial operations at San Francisco International Airport." Yeah, that kind o
by aaronharnly 1y ago
This sentence was a bit cute: "Waymo has received our pilot permit allowing for commercial operations at San Francisco International Airport." Yeah, that kind of pilot.
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
- danielvaughn 1y agoThat was my first interpretation, and I was very surprised and kind of afraid. Glad to know they aren't trying for autonomous flight yet.
- amelius 1y ago"Autopilot" already exists when it comes to flying.
- bdcravens 1y agoSure but it's not autonomous in the sense of Waymo (ie, driverless)
- ckastner 1y agoLanding can be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland In fact, it's pretty routine. Don't have the source at hand, but somewhere around 1% of all landings (at airports with ILS) are autolands. I think it was Boeing that even requires at least 1 autoland per plane every 30 days or so. You can find videos of this on YouTube. Completely hands-off.
- amelius 1y agoI'm curious, what is harder to implement: autoland for airplanes, or autoland for rockets (spaceX)?
- ckastner 1y agoI don't know if these are comparable. But two interesting data points from the Wikipedia article I linked are that the first aircraft certification for ILS Cat III was in 1968, and Cat IIIB in 1975. And IIRC by the 1980s, autoland was already a pretty common feature.
- themafia 1y agoMost carriers have a rule that on clear days you always hand fly the landing. This is a competence you do not want to lose. It's also the case that you can have a whole approach setup in your flight computer and at the last minute the controller gives you a runway change. You could drop your head down and start typing a bunch info the FMC but you're generally better off just disabling auto pilot and manually making the adjustment.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoYes, but autopilot usually just keeps the plane flying in a straight line at some specified altitude, which have been around since 1912. It isn't full self-flying (although we definitely have drones that can fly themselves already, so that tech already exists).
- dawnerd 1y agoThat's an oversimplification of autopilot systems. They can follow flight routes, avoid traffic (TCAS), even auto land to name a few.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoAuto-landers are not simply classified with autopilots. An autoland system is an advanced function that is part of a modern aircraft's overall autopilot capabilities. A basic autopilot can control an aircraft's attitude and heading, but an autoland system can automatically execute the full landing procedure.
- danielvaughn 1y agoYes but it should have been obvious that in the context of Waymo + SFO, the implication was autonomous flying of commercial airlines.
- bdcravens 1y agoI have zero expertise for my claim, but I feel like autonomous flight is easier than autonomous driving.
- snickerdoodle14 1y agoI also feel like the demand is way, way lower. A pilot can't be that large a % of the cost of a flight. Maybe if we lived in the jetsons era.
- rkomorn 1y agoDepends on the size of the plane, really. One of the reasons a few companies were investing in fully autonomous air taxis is because the math on a small piloted aircraft wasn't realistic for a low enough price point to be competitive.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoThe problem is actually safety. As automated systems get better, the pilot is left with not much to do, and has to maintain vigilance while being really really bored. It is almost better to have fewer automated systems and give the pilot more things to do during the flight so it is easier to keep them paying attention, or all automated with no human pilot to mess things up.
- 0_____0 1y agoIn the abstract yes but in practice the economic (ratio of cost of pilot to pax miles) and safety context of aviation mean fully autonomous flying has to be extremely robust before it has actual utility in industry.
- rkomorn 1y agoIn practice, you're also currently very reliant on infrastructure that is definitely not as solid as you want (eg: ILS and GPS can be interfered with quite nastily). ILS being under maintenance and unavailable for certain runways is also far from unusual.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Fomite 1y agoMine as well, and I was crossing SFO off the list of airports I'd connect through.
- onetokeoverthe 1y ago[dead]
- ricksunny 1y agolol deniable demand-gauging :)
- dlcarrier 1y agoSee also: garden-path sentence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence)
- loeg 1y agoThe flying kind is a license, not a permit.
- simonbw 1y agoThere are driver's licenses and learner's permits. This could be the flying equivalent.
- seany 1y agoThis is actually why you have "Naval aviators". To maritime people a pilot means something else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_pilot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_pilot
- tdeck 1y agoHonestly I think the title should be edited. The first time I scrolled past it I had the same obvious interpretation.
- blackkettle 1y agoCool, I wonder if this means they will finally start letting foreign visitors also use the app. I'm an American living abroad now for many years, and I was initially super excited to try Waymo in LA and SF this summer when I visited with my family. Unfortunately they only make the iPhone app available via the US app store, and while I actually have a US credit card that I could have in theory used to make the switch, Apple makes it an absurd pain to change your region as they require you to both a) cancel any existing subscription AND b) wait until they all expire. Most tourists have it worse as they have no option to even switch in theory.
- nicoburns 1y agoHuh, as a Brit, I was able to use Waymo just fine on this summer on my Android device.