[pinaceae]

well, the liability is still there. but, the operator on the ground can stay clear headed. far less adrenaline rushing through you.

also do not forget that a lot of catastrophes are happening due to pilot error. see the air france crash off of brazil. inexperienced co-pilot pulled the stick through a stall.

smoke in the cockpit and other shit does not impair an operator. you can have 15 operators rotate in and out of a flight - but only the pilots you have onboard. one medical issue with them and flight is over. operator? send him/her home.

elevators used to have pilots too.

[cpa]

Is it possible to ensure a reliable connection to the plane, even when things go wrong? Or are there some physical limiting factors, like electromagnetic disturbances that could cut the link?

[pinaceae]

that is a very good question - and thanks to the ongoing drone warfare by the US, this is being answered right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unmanned_aerial_vehi...

the wikipedia article above is a good entry point. note how drones were successfully used in the Vietnam war.

[cpa]

Indeed, but the specification for unmanned planes carrying 300+ people will probably be much harsher than the spec for military drones... I think that first thing we will witness is freight done by huge drones.

[webreac]

Well, I have worked in nuclear domain and I am now working in aircraft domain. In nuclear, the machine has to protect from human mistakes. In aircraft, the human has to recover from machine failure. The way of thinking is completely opposite even if the purpose is the same: prevent accidents.

All the aviation (and space) experience is full of stories where unforeseen events have been well handled by creative humans in hopeless situations (maybe thanks to adrenaline). When you are remote, you are dependant of all the associated issues (communication failure, instruments failure), you may be obliged to follow procedures even if you think they are not adapted to the unforeseen circumstance. When you are in the plane, you can feel acceleration, see outside, and do the best to save your live.

Perhaps, I am wrong and your analogy with elevator is the correct one.

I think there is a long way before remote piloting. The first experiences with drones were far from crash proof.

[pinaceae]

actually pilots are being actively trained to ignore their senses and trust the instruments. instrument-rated pilots do exactly that (=all commercial pilots).

the human eyes do not work in fog, night, rain, etc. the human ear does not help at all in trying to distinguish between acceleration and climbing - both press you into your seat. the classic stall is exactly that, the pilot does not realize the angle of the plane.

you can see something similar at play in modern surgery. robotic instruments are taking over as they will not shake, ever. and surgeons can suddenly rotate in and out easily, even remotely. no one does LASIK manually...

and don't forget, the heroic anecdotes of human intervention might be strong survivor bias. maybe the problem would not have been there in the first place. or do not counterweigh all the fuck ups human pilots have caused.