Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar
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You don’t think people who have decades of experience in an industry might have a better idea of the complexities of automating that industry. In particular, I suspect I have a far better understanding of the weight of regulation and certification standards, than either you or the author of that Forbes article. As a point of fact, broadly speaking reaper drones cannot fly in civilian airspace and as far as I‘m aware that’s not going to change soon.
To give you an idea about the time involved in aircraft certification, it took Boeing 2 years to do what was essentially small software update to the MCAS system on the Max. How long do you suppose it’s going to take to update and certify an airframe to complete automation. I’ll tell you - decades. It will take a generation for people to be convinced pilotless aircraft are safe.
Good grief - a remote controlled Cessna. Do you have any idea of the difference between a light aircraft flying a short hop between A and B and a large civilian transport aircraft flying across international airspace?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and all that…..
To quote the CEO of Boeing:
’Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun revealed an open secret in the world of aviation. “I think the future of autonomy is real for civil,” he told Bloomberg TV, before quickly offering some qualifiers. “It’s going to take time…..’
For time, read decades.
Almost the entire of an international journey is already flown by the autopilot. The issue is as much regulatory as it is technical. I expect we'll see internal flights opened up first in one of the more reckless countries, probably the US, and when that's been running safely for a good many years, other countries will start accepting fully automated flights.
This is where you are over-thinking it though - for a mission like this regulations and certifications don't matter, airspace regulations don't matter as long as they can get the plane close enough before discrepancies are noted. Compliance with most regulations, etc. go out the window and they don't need to do anything more complex than maintain a basic flightpath which an autopilot can do, maybe make some slight adjustments if necessary which is perfectly possible to remote without complicated systems and respond to air traffic control which can be relayed.
Soldato
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You said the tech didn't exist, it does.
There is going to be a big difference between cargo (what the original discussion was about) and civil in regards carrying passengers.
Public will be the decider rather than tech IMO, although you can guarantee the likes of Ryanair will jump on anything thats cheaper for sure.
Precisely which bit of the long distance do you see being an issue, contacting ATC or what?
As I said you have literally repeated what I have seen across many industries, that the people least able to comment on evolution are those closest to the coal face.
Regulation and certification do matter if you want to have a reasonable chance of success. It’s literally the reason certification standards exist.
You do realise this bizarre discussion is around NATO flying a remote controlled cargo plane with a nuke onboard into Russia for some weird reason, despite the fact that Russia would fire their full strategic arsenal within 15 minutes of it going off
edit: I do see what you're saying though, this discussion is just weird considering people complain that I take things off topic.
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As per what I said a few posts up - it is a lot less complicated if you have a crew fly it up until the last leg, bail out, the rest is fully within the capabilities of existing autopilot with some slight modifications and relaying of things you can't easily automate like essential communications. It doesn't need to be perfect just get the job done. The chances of more complex conditions arising on the last leg are low and the chances of discrepancies being noticed and responded to in time also very low.
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I said theoretically possible and technically achievable are two different things but never mind….
Yeah contacting ATC would be a good start. The vast majority of ATC is done using voice comms very much the same way it was 50 years ago. We even still use HF radios. There a reason for that. If you want to know what state of the art looks like google CPDLC and tell me that can support the kind of data transfer required for autonomous flight.
Thats just a complete load of tosh.
Theres about a million other reasons I can’t be bothered to go into because:
Good point.
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I can’t remember if it was in this thread or elsewhere, a video of AI dogfighting which now surpasses human pilots. Can’t find the original, a truncated version here. Basically they are more precise and the pilot can’t keep up. Also the AI was attacking head on from what I recall in the longer video.
In some theoretical situation where someone was going to do this with full remote control of the aircraft they wouldn't use a data link system like that - they'd use something propitiatory which interfaced with it in a one-use kind of way specific to the mission - as above they don't need to worry about regulations or putting it into safe every day use, etc.
But as I've said you don't need that level of sophistication for this task - get the plane close enough and with some slight modification existing autopilot can do the job - while cruising over Russia at FL320 the pilot is generally doing very little.
Dogfighting has become less and less relevant to combat in the air these days, at least many scenarios, it is more and more about long range sensors and stand-off range munitions. Though AI can be an assist in those scenarios it is much less able to dominate vs human capability.
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Soldato
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I alluded to this above but the issues are we have gone past the ability of planes to turn etc that humans simply cannot be within that environment.
So dogfighting, or probably in reality more likely, the ability to perform extreme maneuvers to avoid incoming missiles will be limited if a human is in there.
Thats my experience of having worked in change based roles in a number of businesses.
I am doing another again currently with our engineering team. A system (physical and software) that will replace 12 people. They cannot see it coming because they think only a human can do it.
Its pretty much always the same, the assumption by humans that only they can do it.
The people closest to the role see the "noise and complexity". Those stood further back see them differently.
Are we talking about replacing the human sticking the ham in the ham sandwich here? Because every job is different and what’s true for one may not necessarily be true for another.
Actually I don’t dispute that at some point flight and most other things will be performed by AI/machines etc.
You seem to think it’s just round the corner, I disagree and think it’s decades away. I’ve been flying since 1999 - I have a good understanding of the technical difficult involved. To be perfectly frank - you don’t.
Right, enough - I shall read your reply with interest but I’m done.
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This might well be a Ukraine thread, but it's still a tech forum full of pendantic nerds.
I don't think it that far off topic - I can't see there ever being a situation where the West would employ such tactics but it isn't inconceivable, albeit unlikely, variations of such a tactic might be used against the West, we've already had previous incidents involving civilian aircraft used crudely such as 9/11.
EDIT: As above though a lot of posters seem to be ignoring that the likes of the US and Russia, etc. employ a nuclear triad so the use of civilian aircraft as part of a first strike has much more limited usefulness and there aren't a lot of scenarios where the likes of Rapid Dragon with non-strategic payloads are useful either though an interesting capability to have in the bag.
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Soldato
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Pedantic?This might well be a Ukraine thread, but it's still a tech forum full of pendantic nerds.
Let's hope that's the case so lessons can be learned.
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Not sure what they are going to do with it given how badly burnt it was but it's better then letting get captured as Russian trophy I guess.
IMO a plane needs an experienced captain and co captain. AI as a third backup pilot or for some type of flight optimisation to be referenced is fine, but not as replacement.
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