[skgoa]

> isn't there a calculable, mostly-predictable limit -- for any given altitude -- to how much a plane can correct for a stall by nosediving. And when this limit is approached, shouldn't the plane's autopilot cede more control to the human pilot, if there's no indication that the pilot is otherwise incapacitated?

There is, but there will always be a dependency on sensors to feed the input values into these funcitons. Modern flight computers are far better at pretty much any flying task than humans. Other than communicating wiht traffic control and raising/lowering the flaps and gear (none of which are absolutely necessary), a modern airliner can take off, cruise and land entirely on its own, with no human intervention.

I agree that it's probably a combination of bad maintenance, a not quite perfectly fault-tolerant system design and human error of the pilots. One factor that hasn't been mentioned is that even the newest versions of the 737 contain ancient, obsolete technology. A newer airliner will probably have more redundant and more fault-tolerant systems.

[Piskvorrr]

Nope. Nope nope nope. It can, very theoretically, do each of those things, but it can't switch those modes, must not take off automatically (there's no safe way to do this, and therefore would be very illegal), and requires vigilance that's above manual w/r/t landing. Please stop perpetuating urban legends.

http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/

[userbinator]

One factor that hasn't been mentioned is that even the newest versions of the 737 contain ancient, obsolete technology

You mean technology like... wings? ;-)

More seriously, the "ancient" stuff is such because its reliability has been proven over decades of refinement. "Don't fix what ain't broke," as the saying goes. The aerospace industry moves slowly for a reason. I'd much rather fly on an old maintained plane than the very newest.

[CPLX]

> Other than communicating wiht traffic control and raising/lowering the flaps and gear (none of which are absolutely necessary), a modern airliner can take off, cruise and land entirely on its own, with no human intervention.

Yeah no. This is obvious patent nonsense.

Relevant: I am a licensed pilot

[Retric]

A single operator handles multiple military drones. A large part of this is they can takeoff and fly to a specific location, and or land from a specific location on their own.

Their are many reasons a 747 is not setup to do this is, but it’s not technology that difficult. Ex: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

[danielvf]

Just because other aircraft can to this today does not mean "a modern airliner can". No modern airliner currently has the capability to make remote controlled flights.

[JoeAltmaier]

Hm. Autopilots have been able to fly the whole plane for decades, from runway to runway. They're not permitted for whatever reason; there has to be a pilot in the seat. But honestly for most flights of airliners (not even just modern ones) the autopilot is in control almost all of the time.

Can they be remotely operated? I'm thinking putting a plane into autopilot has to be a remote operation by now. Its so trivial, how can they have left that out?

[mrguyorama]

They can't and don't fly runway to runway by themselves because even the smallest problem/perturbation/deviation from the norm knocks the plane out of the higher levels of automation and requires a human to intervene. The automation is great at making small adjustments to keep a plane flying stable, but give it a complicated, unknown airframe and it would fail miserably

[JoeAltmaier]

CatIIIb can surely land, even with fog or other perturbations

[snowwrestler]

Military drones sometimes fail to do these things correctly, but it doesn't really matter because they are drones.

[Retric]

So do manned military aircraft. The military does a crazy amount of flying so you need relative rates for similarly refined systems* to really compare them.

* AKA older designs have better understood failure modes.