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Comment by hndamien | Hacker News Reader

My guess is that there would be no pilots. Given they are attempting to get rid of drivers, getting rid of pilots in VTOL seems like an easier proposition with a large added weight advantage.

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I think fully autonomous flight is a solution, but I also think it's further away than people imagine. For airplanes at least, the trickiest segments of flight are takeoffs and landings and even with today's advanced avionics suites, pilots are still in control for those portions of flight.

The other big factor is the passengers. Even if technology for fully autonomous passenger flight is available in the next 10 years, I don't think people will trust planes flying themselves.

DJI drones have been able to navigate back to their takeoff point and land automatically for a while now. Landing's much easier for a multicopter than for a fixed wing aircraft.

Ours went haywire and crashed into a pond onetime when we used the Return to Home feature. YMMV

I didn't say I'd ride on one personally. :P Just that the basics are solved, and reliability is a Simple Matter Of Engineering.

This is already happening and with testing in Dubai. http://www.ehang.com/ehang184

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/art...

No idea why I have been downvotes above. Great to see intelligent conversations is rewarded with down votes here.

Yeah kind of weird that the article didn't even consider it. It seems like a non-starter with a pilot.

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