Autonomous Cargo Aircraft Under Development

A number of autonomous cargo aircraft, such as drones and Cessna Caravans filled with autonomous systems, are under development. Some experts, in fact, expect them to make their debut before electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs, designed to carry passengers.

"We think the market for this sort of unmanned aircraft delivering cargo is going to happen before the urban portion with passengers," says Mike Blades, an aerospace analyst with Frost and Sullivan who is focusing on the drone market.

It just rules out pilot error as a cause of a crash which may be problematic in some situations.

I recall when the X-34 was planned to operate out of Holloman AFB in NM for shorter range missions. The people there blew a gasket. "No pilot! That's horrible! We can't have that!"

The long range missions were supposed to operate out of Cape Canaveral. I got call from the Pentagon.

Question: "Do you have any problem with unmanned aircraft landing at Cape Canaveral?" My answer was, "No, why would we? We've had unmanned aircraft landing at Cape Canaveral since the early 1950's. Even the Space Shuttle is not piloted until the last few seconds of the flight."

Question: "What happens if the X-34 is landing and a fire truck pulls out onto the runway?" My response: "Then it will hit the fire truck! But why would that ever happen? We have control of our airfields! We don't allow fire trucks to pull out onto the runway if we have an operation underway!"

Turned out that "hitting a fire truck" was a real concern voiced by people in New Mexico and relayed up to DC. Unbelieveable!

The X-34 flights were transferred to Edwards AFB, before the program was cancelled, after the vehicle was built, but it never flew.

And the real problem was that the USAF used to pay people in NM for "damages" caused by aircraft flying overhead and causing those nasty sonic booms. Then they quit paying and people were suddenly P.O.ed,

Perhaps people are more used to the idea of unmanned aircraft than they used to be.

pbehn said:

It just rules out pilot error as a cause of a crash which may be problematic in some situations.

Click to expand...

But will replace it with 'programmer error'

gumbyk said:

But will replace it with 'programmer error'

Click to expand...

Only if the programmer is dead.

Considering that autonomous military drone that recently went off script, I have reservations about anything AI until the technology gets a bit more developed.

I don't think we will see autonomous aircraft. An A320 has been written off because the automatics wouldn't let the crew flare for landing, an A330 had the automatics go haywire in a manner that was considered not possible, a 777 similar. The official reports for all three are available.

As said by gumbyk pilot error will just be replaced by black box designer or programmer error.

There's an old joke about an engineer who goes to his boss and said he can build a device that will make it impossible for two airplanes to collide. His boss ask how long it will take and how much it will cost. The engineer replies that it will take a year and a million dollars. He boss tells him to do it.

A year later his boss asks if the device is done. The engineer says almost, but it will take another year and another million dollars. His boss says Okay.

This goes on for five more years. Finally, the engineer says the device is done but needs more testing. His boss says that is BS and it is time to schedule a real demo. So they put the device in a Boeing 707 and have it fly directly at a DC-8 over LAX as the press and thousands of onlookers watch. The two jets collide and the result is devastation in the air and on the ground.

The boss yells at the engineer that the company is going out of business as result of the disaster. The engineer replies that it is not as bad as it could have been. The boss asks how could that possibly be true. The engineer holds up his device, "If we had actually put this in that 707 we could have lost it, too."