Successful first test of a remote-controlled passenger plane - (albeit they did for the purposes of the test have a pilot on board who did the take off and landing) Now I'm a big fan of technology, but would I take a remotely controlled flight to somewhere? Hmmm. I'm thnking not. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395

Successful first test of a remote-controlled passenger plane - (albeit they did for the purposes of the test have a pilot on board who did the take off and landing) Now I'm a big fan of technology, but would I take a remotely controlled flight to somewhere? Hmmm. I'm thnking not. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Successful first test of a remote-controlled passenger plane - (albeit they did for the purposes of the test have a pilot on board who did the take off and landing) Now I'm a big fan of technology, but would I take a remotely controlled flight to somewhere? Hmmm. I'm thnking not. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395'" Luddite.

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Successful first test of a remote-controlled passenger plane - (albeit they did for the purposes of the test have a pilot on board who did the take off and landing) Now I'm a big fan of technology, but would I take a remotely controlled flight to somewhere? Hmmm. I'm thnking not. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395'" Luddite.

Not a bit, I'm all in favour of them building it, I just can't see me getting on. And I think they have enough potential for smashing themselves up anyway without Luddite input

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Successful first test of a remote-controlled passenger plane - (albeit they did for the purposes of the test have a pilot on board who did the take off and landing) Now I'm a big fan of technology, but would I take a remotely controlled flight to somewhere? Hmmm. I'm thnking not. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395'" I've been on a plane where the pilot told us that the landing was going to be completely automatic, and that was some years ago. It was a flawless landing, you could hardly feeel the touchdown. However, I don't understand the need for remote control piloting, as it still requires a pilot even if (s)he's not on the plane.

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Successful first test of a remote-controlled passenger plane - (albeit they did for the purposes of the test have a pilot on board who did the take off and landing) Now I'm a big fan of technology, but would I take a remotely controlled flight to somewhere? Hmmm. I'm thnking not. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22511395'" I've been on a plane where the pilot told us that the landing was going to be completely automatic, and that was some years ago. It was a flawless landing, you could hardly feeel the touchdown. However, I don't understand the need for remote control piloting, as it still requires a pilot even if (s)he's not on the plane.

Probably not, there's a reason that they have a pilot and another reason why they have another pilot - to go from that situation to no pilots seems a bit of a chance - I bet Ryanair are one of the first to go for it though.

Watch out for the "Pilot fee", a non-optional extra.

Not a chance on this planet I would get on a plane without a pilot. I am a bowl of jelly when I go on one WITH two pilots.

I arent the best in the world with flying either.
I have never been remotely sober in all the years I've flown and I will not be changing that policy in the near future.

My first ever experience $hit me up for life, it was RAF and we heard a loud screaming noise from an engine and 'Biggles' up front calmly announced a 'bird strike', I left a pile of something on the seat that probably resembled the bird that hit the engine.

It feels like more of a leap of faith than a driverless car. I'm looking forward to my first ride in one of those.

I would. I wouldnt have a problem with it..

Thrillseeker!!!

I should think the travel and liability insurers may take some convincing . . .

I can't honestly see myself boarding another plane ever, whether piloted or pilotless. It's not the flying that concerns me, it's all the ballsing about in airports.

Thats my attitude too although I do still accept the once a year freebie to Portugal (going again in three weeks)

but I mitigate that by not taking any luggage and using online check-in so that you don't have to join the endless lines at the baggage check-in counters and can just walk straight through to the security checks.

I'm looking at booking somewhere for September with "her" and have actually got as far as reaching a page on a web site all filled in with flight and hotel choices but I stop at the "Proceed to Book" button when I think of all of the farting around with luggage and what you can take and what you can't take etc etc and then admit that its actually easier to holiday in this country and save a few hundred quid on flights.

I'm with you on this entirely.

I don't particularly mind the actual flying bit, but I absolutely hate, hate, hate take-off. I become an überfatalistic, jangling wreck.

That's the bit of flying that I really enjoy.

Getting an internal flight from San Francisco International is a particular thrill. They have a dual runway and two planes take off side by side. It's like drag racing on a grand scale. If you switch the in-flight entertainment on to the airport channel, you can hear the pilots and tower communicating, the pilots basically race each other, stopping just short of a "Yeeeehaaaaawwww" as they become airborne. The only sobering thought is wondering whether they know which one is supposed to bank left or right.

Back in 1985, I think it was, I was on a Boeing 737 going to Madeira.
I had only flown once before and that had been in a little Cessna, from which I had parachuted.
Hence, I had never landed in an aeroplane.

I was a little bit nervous, as a 737 had burned-out on the tarmac at Manchester only a fortnight before.

Madeira airport was like a little deck built over the sea, with just enough deceleration space to to stop the plane and turn it before it flopped over the opposite edge onto the sharp-looking rocks and crashing waves beneath.

The pilot pointed out the island and then the little postage stamp that was the airport and then banked the plane around in a tight 180 degree curve, descending as it went round, lower and lower, seemingly just above the waves ... and, as soon as the wheels were over the lip of the apron the pilot slammed the plane the remaining few feet onto the tarmac and flipped the engines into reverse thrust.

There was a crash and a bang from the wheels, some of the luggage bins burst open (cigarettes everywhere) and an enormous roar from the reverse thrust (I had been unaware that reverse thrust was effected by the engine cowling flipping-up, so when I saw that happen at exactly the time the wheels banged joltingly onto the tarmac, I was convinced the engine had disintegrated and that this was Manchester all over again).
The plane slewed left and right as the pilot braked it and, with what looked to me to be about a couple of millimetres to spare, turned toward the terminal building.

Since then, all landings have seemed like a doddle.

Very similar to one of the first flights I took in 1980 on the first version of the 737's, Corfu airport runway is 30% poking out to sea anyway with the town and a BIG hill at the other end so the approach is always from the sea, which can be slightly un-nerving to those virgin flyers, but slightly more so when with the aircraft a few hundred feet above the waves some daft bint jumps up and starts shouting that her seat is on fire.

Yes, the days when they let people smoke on aircraft, incredible as it sounds now, when the "extinguish cigarettes" light had come on this woman had gone to stub hers out and pushed it down between the two seats instead, forgot about it and then only noticed five minutes later when the smoke started to rise from her seat.

Pandemonium ensued, the landing was aborted (why???), engine noise in those early 737's was incredible so you had all of that going on with three stewardess's running from both ends of the plane with fire extinguishers which they sprayed the seats and the daft bint with but as it was powder extinguishers they were using the spray got sucked up into the vents and pumped back out further down the plane at which everyone at the back started to shout that smoke was pouring out of the ceiling vents.

Its a good job that I was already nine parts p1ssed after drinking gin for four hours

A large part of me thinks that flying here and there at (relatively) minimal cost will soon be a thing of the past. The emissions produced by aviation are quite significant and are increasing unsustainably. Something has to give, and most people won't be greatly inconvenienced by being unable to fly off to Benidorm for a couple of weeks every year. There are plenty of nice places to holiday in this country (or in France), so I think this is one area where harmful emissions could easily be scaled back. I'd introduce a massive tax on aviation (with certain exceptions), and plough the money raised back into funding renewable energy research.

We've been travelling to the Continent by train for a few years now. There are a lot of sleeper services that make longer journeys even easier (I did Paris to Hamburg last month overnight and we did Paris to Collioure last year – and will be doing so again – that way).

It's a lot easier than, I suspect, people realise.

Quote ="Rock God X"A large part of me thinks that flying here and there at (relatively) minimal cost will soon be a thing of the past. ...'" Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't. Screenshot of planes over N. America

Quote ="Rock God X"A large part of me thinks that flying here and there at (relatively) minimal cost will soon be a thing of the past. ...'" Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't. Screenshot of planes over N. America

I definitely would. With planes there is far less going on to worry about. If they can perfect driverless cars, with pedestrians, cars, bikes, motorbikes, different road conditions, different temperatures etc, I can see flight being an absolute doddle. In terms of the programming involved, it seems relatively simple, flying between waypoints and lining up for landing is probably something a computer could do better than a human anyway.

The only problem I guess would be the computer crashing. I can imagine the blue screen of death coming up on the inflight TVs would send the cargo into panic.

Flights for me would be better if they were fully automated. You get into a bed, get put to sleep with soothing gas, get sardined into the cargo hold (more capacity, no need for in flight expenses and cabin crew), plane flies you to the destination, and you wake up once it's hit terrafirma.

I would certainly trust auto-piloted planes over computer controlled cars and most definitely over teleportation, which is surely man's last remaining big invention.

Famous last words "WTF was that bang?"

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't.'" Yep, love that site too, whenever the daughters are flying anywhere this saddo dad is tracking their every minute, the only problem is that occasionally the details disappear for a few minutes - when your flight has literally dropped off the radar or you right click it and it says "no data" then it does bring a gasp. Last year I was following the eldest's flight home from Ibiza when one of our customers Egpyt Air rang on a support issue and as it was a long call I left the flight tracker open on the laptop, while we were waiting for one of their PC's to reboot the daughters flight was crossing over the channel and I got to clicking a few of the ones approaching Heathrow and found an Egypt Air flight so I told this dispatcher guy on the phone that his flight number "xxxx" was about ten minutes out - he asked me how the hell I had that sort of information to hand and so I told him - he had no idea that all of their flight information was available live on the internet to plebs like me

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't.'" Yep, love that site too, whenever the daughters are flying anywhere this saddo dad is tracking their every minute, the only problem is that occasionally the details disappear for a few minutes - when your flight has literally dropped off the radar or you right click it and it says "no data" then it does bring a gasp. Last year I was following the eldest's flight home from Ibiza when one of our customers Egpyt Air rang on a support issue and as it was a long call I left the flight tracker open on the laptop, while we were waiting for one of their PC's to reboot the daughters flight was crossing over the channel and I got to clicking a few of the ones approaching Heathrow and found an Egypt Air flight so I told this dispatcher guy on the phone that his flight number "xxxx" was about ten minutes out - he asked me how the hell I had that sort of information to hand and so I told him - he had no idea that all of their flight information was available live on the internet to plebs like me