Self-flying plane in one-year deal with feds

[skybluetrek]

- Canadian company to service remote Canada using self-flying plane in one-year deal with feds -

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/canadia ... -1.6472244

Thoughts? Are the current times the last 'best time to be a pilot' ?

[JHR]

At least they will still need pilots-in-waiting to unload the KFC, pop and chips!

[Meatservo]

So these guys figure that it's the pilots who are preventing all their dreams from coming true in northern and remote aviation?

Sounds like every office-guy I've ever dealt with. Good luck, losers.

[lownslow]

I wonder how it handles traffic conflicts in flight and on the ground.

[digits_]

I am wondering how it lands. If it needs any ground ILS type systems to land.

I am sure conventional operators would be very happy if they need to go missed while this thing makes it in ...

[nohojob]

I am guessing that a gps based approach would do it.

[digits_]

I am guessing that a gps based approach would do it.

I'm not aware of any GPS based approaches allowing 0/0/0 autolands. I suppose it's possible. Would be surprising though.

There must be some alternatives though. I can't imagine having a plane, even a pilotless one, flying around that can't land if there's a GPS outage...

[nohojob]

in the event of a gps outage (i wonder how often it happens, never saw one), the plane would divert.
As far as weather goes. Seeing or not seeing would not make any differences for a pilotless plane, would it?

[digits_]

in the event of a gps outage (i wonder how often it happens, never saw one), the plane would divert.
As far as weather goes. Seeing or not seeing would not make any differences for a pilotless plane, would it?

Assuming the outage is local enough. Still quite a gamble.

For a lot of current gps approaches, the minima are above 200 agl because of obstacles. A pilotless plane would still hopefully care about that.

If the approach is accurate enough to guide a pilotless plane to the runway, it stands to reason it should be accurate enough to get a piloted plane down to lower minima as well.


I'm very curious to find out what the actual logic and backups are that they will be using. No lives on board are at risk, but lives on the ground most certainly are. Especially around airports.

[flyinhigh]

in the event of a gps outage (i wonder how often it happens, never saw one), the plane would divert.
As far as weather goes. Seeing or not seeing would not make any differences for a pilotless plane, would it?

Assuming the outage is local enough. Still quite a gamble.

For a lot of current gps approaches, the minima are above 200 agl because of obstacles. A pilotless plane would still hopefully care about that.

If the approach is accurate enough to guide a pilotless plane to the runway, it stands to reason it should be accurate enough to get a piloted plane down to lower minima as well.


I'm very curious to find out what the actual logic and backups are that they will be using. No lives on board are at risk, but lives on the ground most certainly are. Especially around airports.

Not sure I’d say no lives in the air are at risk. I just don’t see how a pilotless aircraft hundreds of miles from anyone is going to be able to enter traffic patterns without broadcasting positions and co-ordinating with other aircraft.

They’ve regulated the drone industry and just look what happens all the time around airports with those things.

[TomCruise]

Why would drones need any visual reference at all? Even on an SKC day flight nobody would be looking for the req. vis. ref. Seems to me they're made to takeoff and land in 0/0. Sounds risky though, what if a Moose was on the runway? More info needed.

Captain Cruise

[Blueontop]

It’s a remotely operated aircraft that does autonomous flying with a ground based based pilot that does the mission planning and communications in air.

[TomCruise]

It’s a remotely operated aircraft that does autonomous flying with a ground based based pilot that does the mission planning and communications in air.

Interesting. Doesn't sound like it would save much money then....Still need a pilot, and added equipment to fly it remotely...

[flyinhigh]

It’s a remotely operated aircraft that does autonomous flying with a ground based based pilot that does the mission planning and communications in air.

What form of communications is going to work with that. VHF is limited in range so sitting in YZF in a hanger flying this thing into Kug 400nm away is not going to work.

[nohojob]

Just speculating but, 1 pilot on the ground could supervise several planes in the air.
Also, this project seems to me a building stone for future pilotless industry.

[digits_]

It’s a remotely operated aircraft that does autonomous flying with a ground based based pilot that does the mission planning and communications in air.

What form of communications is going to work with that. VHF is limited in range so sitting in YZF in a hanger flying this thing into Kug 400nm away is not going to work.

Elon Musk's internet is going to available for high speed moving vehicles soon. Probably not the most reliable, but it would be performant enough in theory and it does show that the technology exists.

[Blueontop]

It’s a remotely operated aircraft that does autonomous flying with a ground based based pilot that does the mission planning and communications in air.

What form of communications is going to work with that. VHF is limited in range so sitting in YZF in a hanger flying this thing into Kug 400nm away is not going to work.

Good question, I don’t have an answer for ya. I heard what I originally posted from the COO of the company talking on newstalk 1010 this morning. Straight from the horses mouth.

Basically in a crawl, walk, run proof of concept development stage.

[Tbayer2021]

It's understandable why most here are immediately suspicious of these types of endeavors and try to find every perceived fault. But make no mistake, this is the direction the industry is moving and the result none of us want is probably much closer than we think. This is something I would love to be wrong about, but the speed it seems to be moving at is shocking. I believe it's FedEx that's already doing trials with autonomous C208s and ATRs.

Plan your lives accordingly. Sticking your heads in the sand won't change reality. Don't be caught with your pants down.

[KiloEcho]

It's understandable why most here are immediately suspicious of these types of endeavors and try to find every perceived fault. But make no mistake, this is the direction the industry is moving and the result none of us want is probably much closer than we think. This is something I would love to be wrong about, but the speed it seems to be moving at is shocking. I believe it's FedEx that's already doing trials with autonomous C208s and ATRs.

Plan your lives accordingly. Sticking your heads in the sand won't change reality. Don't be caught with your pants down.

Best advice in this whole thread in my opinion..

[digits_]

It's understandable why most here are immediately suspicious of these types of endeavors and try to find every perceived fault. But make no mistake, this is the direction the industry is moving and the result none of us want is probably much closer than we think. This is something I would love to be wrong about, but the speed it seems to be moving at is shocking. I believe it's FedEx that's already doing trials with autonomous C208s and ATRs.

Plan your lives accordingly. Sticking your heads in the sand won't change reality. Don't be caught with your pants down.

We're not trying to find every perceived fault. We're trying to figure out the basics on how it could possibly work.
Self-flying plane is also vastly different than 'remotely controlled airplane'.

[Stratopaused]

I think you guys are putting way more thought into this than the company has. They're using a Quad City Challenger with a range of 170 NM and a payload of about 300 lbs if there's no pilot. They don't need to worry about communications 400 miles out from the base, because they'll never get even halfway there; I doubt there are any routes in the north that are short enough to be feasible besides maybe YEV-YKD and YEV-YUB, but even then they'll only get a few boxes on board. The whole thing smells like vaporware to get a grant for government money so the CEO can pay himself a fat salary for a few more years. Autonomous flights are coming, but this ain't them.

[Squaretail]

While I think whether it’s possible to do this operation technically, logistically, how does it save money over current operations? Remote operations need crew on board even more than operations between population centres. For example, if say a route from YZF to YCO and return, an unmanned unit needs trained people at destination to service and perhaps maintain it. What about destination infrastructure? What improvements need to be further made to these remote airports? Right now, aircrew are still relatively cheap. None of the current unmanned platforms are cheaper than current manned airplanes. There is a lot that still has to change before it’s anything more than just an experiment. Maybe we can watch it in action in retirement.

[Donald]

Quad city challenger proving flight today.....dash 8 tomorrow.

[piperdriver]

The whole operation looks like a scam to me.

[digits_]

Quad city challenger proving flight today.....dash 8 tomorrow.

The irony is that it would be much more believable and likely much more feasible if this *was* a dash 8 flying from ILS to ILS.