FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by ghayes on Monday August 31, 2020 @08:00PM (#24337148)

Flying by instruments, I wonder how high the risk truly is. One of the bigger concerns might be an instrument failure, like the failure of the airspeed sensors on Air France 447.

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Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by bfuclusion on Monday August 31, 2020 @08:36PM (#24337317)

Very very high. What fuels a thunderstorm is large amounts of air rising, and falling very rapidly. When the aircraft encounters those air movements it can very quickly exceed the structural limits of the aircraft.

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Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by usrusr on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @05:15AM (#24339853)

Some more detail: flying in rising or sinking air isn't a problem in itself, as long as you can tolerate the change in altitude. But flying from one into the other, fast, is a sure way to exceed structural load levels.

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Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by sokoloff on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @06:44AM (#24340331)

There were many failures in the cockpit of AF447. Almost all of them were aft of the instruments.

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Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by juliansimioni on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @10:01AM (#24341779)

Problem exists between keyboard^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H yoke and chair

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