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I agree! Personally, I would rather fly on a plane with no pilot that's driven completely with UAV guts from takeoff to landing. Yes, there will be edge cases where there will be failures. I just believe those cases will be far fewer than pilot error. AND with the resulting data, we can prevent those same edge cases from occurring again.

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UAVs are still piloted. They're just controlled from the ground.

<cynical thought>Remotely piloted by guys who aren't sitting at the pointy end of 100 tons of jetfuel doing 600mph, and therefore might not be quite as well motivated to succeed as their in-jetliner colleagues…

Not all UAVs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B

The X-47B receives commands from the flight deck, but is not directly piloted. It not only can be catapulted from an aircraft carrier, fly its mission, and return with no human input, it can also autonomously on-air refuel from a tanker with no human pilot on the ground.

Maybe piloted is the wrong word. It's not AI. They're still directed and monitored by an operator.

Not for you tho', as getting the data killed you!

Still an improvement over people. You know what goes wrong, but you have no guarantee other pilots own't make the mistake again, even with training and education.

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