Quote:
Originally Posted by gordner
Are you a boeing engineer? I worked on an MD-80 5 years ago, an aircraft that was ancient when I worked on it, and it was fully capable of auto land and auto take off. Going from the proper category of airport to another fully rated destination the aircraft was fully capable of carrying out the entire flight wheels down to wheels down with no human input.
The systems and capablities are out there to build a fully autonomous airliner, just as fully autonomous drones currently are flying up and down your Northern and Southern borders every single day....The computers don't care if it is a 10 000 lb drone or a 500 000 lb airliner.
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No, not an engineer, just a pilot type-rated on a Boeing (not the 777) but most Boeings share a similar design philosophy. I'd be interested to hear more about the auto-takeoff feature on the MD-80 and how that works. We don't have anything of the sort on the 747-8, which is a fairly modern airplane. Of course, we do have autoland for very low weather conditions (basically blind) but it still has to be 'set up' by the crew in flight. Its not the least bit remotely operable. Its interesting that you would point out drones, because, again, they're not fully autonomous. I agree computers don't care about weight, pretty sure they don't care about anything, because they're machines.