New Aircraft Is Pilot Optional

Zothecula writes "Although the use of unmanned aerial vehicles such as Global Hawk and Raven for military information gathering has increased sharply in the last decade due to the maturation and miniaturization of enabling technologies, conventional piloted aircraft can still be a better option depending on the mission at hand. Northrop Grumman has unveiled a new intelligence gathering aircraft called the Firebird that falls into the category of an Optionally Piloted Vehicle with its ability to be flown robotically or with a human pilot on board."

Comments

Re:Pilots are optional on commercial airliners ...

[pushing-robot]

Well, someone has to operate the Manual Inflation Nozzle from time to time.

Re:How about cargo UAVs?

[dargaud]

"In the future, airplanes will be flown by a dog and a pilot. And the dog's job will be to make sure that if the pilot tries to touch any of the buttons, the dog bites him." — Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame).