Just say no to driverless cars ?

[Chip Fetrow]

Southwest Airlines pretty much flies on computer from take-off to  
landing (depending on the facilities at the arrival airport).  In  
fact, the pilots have no input into the system.  People on the ground  
set up the commands to be fed into the flight computer, and they are  
uploaded via Wi-Fi to the plane.

I was once on a gate hold on Southwest and the pilot explained it was  
a problem with the W-Fi upload the the autopilot.

--chip

On Dec 1, 2012, at 1:00 PM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:40:37 -0600 (CST)
> From: Robert Stratton <bob at stratton.net>
> To: tacos at amrad.org
> Subject: Re: Just say no to driverless cars ?
>
>> Besides, once generally accepted, next thing you know commercial
>> aircraft will be on auto pilot from takeoff to landing.
>
> My certificate isn't an ATP (airline transport pilot), but I'm  
> pretty sure that quite the preponderance of commercial aircraft are  
> already on autopilot from at least the enroute phase through landing  
> right now. Many, if not most company ops manuals require commercial  
> flights to be conducted mostly on autopilot.
>
> If you've ever felt that stairstep kick in the pants alternating  
> with what feels like slight negative G forces when on approach in an  
> Airbus, you know what I'm talking about.
>
> Autoland pretty much works.
>
> --Bob S.