Forget Robotaxis!

[jabloomf1230]

Forget Single Pilot Ops: This Company Just Flew A Cessna Caravan With No Pilots At All

The 12-minute test flight included taxi, takeoff, and landing without human intervention.

simpleflying.com

Just fly over the traffic.

 

[diplomat33]

Forget Single Pilot Ops: This Company Just Flew A Cessna Caravan With No Pilots At All

The 12-minute test flight included taxi, takeoff, and landing without human intervention.

simpleflying.com

Just fly over the traffic.

The article mentions that it was autonomous but also that it was controlled from the control center:

"With no one onboard, the aircraft was controlled from the company’s control center, nearly 50 miles from the test site."

"All phases of the flight were wholly autonomous and controlled by a remote pilot offsite."

So the plane was remote controlled from a center, it was not truly autonomous.

 

[legendsk]

The article mentions that it was autonomous but also that it was controlled from the control center:

"With no one onboard, the aircraft was controlled from the company’s control center, nearly 50 miles from the test site."

"All phases of the flight were wholly autonomous and controlled by a remote pilot offsite."

So the plane was remote controlled from a center, it was not truly autonomous.

I really miss the "good old days", when news reports might sometimes have errors, but were generally factual, advertisements pointed out the features and benefits of products, but did not blatantly lie about them.

News sources that distorted the real news, quickly became regarded as unreliable and withered away. Companies that advertised falsely were prosecuted, fined and their executives were even jailed for false advertising.

Now apparently anything goes and this is just another example. They don't even try to hide the distortions, exaggerations, and lies. Anyone who points out the untruths will likely be censored and becomes a target. Sad.

 

[fhteagle]

I think we're tripping over a very small semantic difference between "controlled" and "monitored". If there truly was no human intervention, than the "control center" was just a monitoring center, that was ready to take control if need be. I have had more than one flight over oceans, African deserts, etc where other than checking in initially with the controller, getting initial clearance, checking in with to the next controller, etc, ATC had zero new commands to give us. Were they truly air traffic control, or just air traffic monitoring at that point? Again, tiny semantic difference.

So seeing that aside, how significant is this entirely pre-programmed flight? I'll say moderately so. Automated taxi is relatively new. Automated takeoff is the same, but in many ways a higher degree of difficulty (and something that no commercial aircraft has as an autopilot feature AFAIK). Everything after the takeoff is nothing new.

The demonstration conditions, which I didn't see anything about in the article, make all the difference in the world. Was the airport closed to other traffic? Was there a temporary flight restriction in effect to keep other aircraft out? I assume the weather was calm, clear, no storms and low turbulence, etc. Flying in those conditions is relatively "brainless" for even relatively green pilots. It's the fogged in, popcorn thunderstorm, and ATC having everyone stacked up on holding pattern days where we'd really earn our salaries.

So, is this demo interesting? Yeah, kinda. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the piloting profession have been greatly exaggerated.