FAA Adds a Study On Adding Drones To Commercial Aviation

coondoggie writes "Facing a number of technical challenges, the Federal Aviation Administration said today it added another research project designed to better understand how unmanned aircraft can be brought safely into the national airspace. The FAA set a two-year research and development agreement with Insitu (an independent subsidiary of Boeing) and the New Jersey Air National Guard that will help FAA scientists to study and better understand unmanned aircraft design, construction, and features. Researchers will also look at the differences in how an air traffic controller would manage an unmanned aircraft vs. a manned aircraft."

Comments

Re:If I'm going down, so are the pilots

[osu-neko]

Now, the flight recorder data from numerous crashes caused by human error show the tendency of humans to panic when they think they're going to die, and when the pilot panics and pulls up the nose (because aiming your nose at the ground is precisely the kind of thing that causes mortal fears to scream loudly in your head) causing the aircraft to stall (because what the pilot really really really needed to do right then was point his nose at the ground at pick up some airspeed so the plane didn't stall) and crash and die, I'm sure you're rest smugly in heaving knowing that although you just died in a perfectly survivable situation, at least the pilot died with you (whereas you all would have lived if he hadn't been in mortal panic at the time he was required to keep a cool head and fly the plane competently rather than like someone in mortal panic).

Re:If I'm going down, so are the pilots

[sznupi]

And what about the possibility of the milkman poisoning breakfast eaten by your usual pilots, in a way that shows results when they are long into the flight?

Seriously, it's that kind of argument. You're looking for something absolutely temper-proof?... Tough luck, this is not a good Universe for you...

R/C cargo planes can fall on people

[syousef]

Now if they want to run just cargo planes as drones, that's fine.

So you're fine if it falls on you, or your family or just your house, as long as you're not in it?