[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

[mrguyorama]

Fog yes, but one of the three redundant guidance units malfunctioning? No. In fact, pretty much any hardware problem or malfunction will prohibit CatIIIb landing, which is common in current aviation. Craft will regularly fly with "minor" hardware or sensors in an inop status.

Basically to let the plane land itself, first the stars have to align

[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.