| You can get almost infinite range on hot days by riding thermals. This assumes thermals are available in the area (some days are better than others, as are some locations), and the s/w knows how to ride them. But that is a much harder problem than just launching and gliding. Also, gliders that could carry even a handful of passengers + baggage would be huge, and likely far too heavy for a simple winch lift. As for the automation - airliner flight is more or less a solved problem, for flights in good weather that don't suffer any emergencies. It hasn't been taken further because most passengers don't want to fly without a human in charge. And also because the edge cases - unexpected turbulence, difficult weather, mechanical failures, unruly passengers, software failure - happen often enough to be a problem, and they need someone trained on board to take over. Otherwise people die. And that's very bad. |