Huge day for Naval Aviation

[WarHawK]

Today, the X-47B successfully completed it's final main program testing for unmanned vehicle carrier use: Launching & Recovering on a moving aircraft carrier, typically known as one of the most difficult things a pilot can do.

While it's a little bittersweet for me personally since I like the idea of having pilots in all aircraft, I think in the future we will remember this day as being an important one in the history of unmanned flight.

[HawgDawg4life]

Awsome videos. Imagine the possibilities, unmanned commercial flights......

[Jcom]

I really hope commercial aviation does not come to being unmanned and controlled by computers. As I was just watching on Television, about Capt. Sullenberger; no computer can do what he did.

[Splithorse]

Well thats not really true....maybe the computer would have turned the plane around the instant it knew the engines were dieing. Because it has been shown that if Capt. Sullenberger had turned around the instant the birds had hit he most likely would have made it back to the runway. In testing I believe that the test pilots made a successfull landing 70 percent of the time when they turned around right after the birds hit and 0 percent of the time after the 30 seconds it took said Captain and Copilot to troubleshoot. The 30 seconds it took the humans to assess the situation would have taken a computer just miliseconds. So it makes a case for debate at the very least. I would rather have a human behind the yoke unless there Asiana pilots...

[c0p0ut]

Being a relatively new RC airplane pilot and working toward my HAM radio license to start building/flying in FPV (First person view) with an RC airplane and/or multi-rotor copter, I have to say the unmanned flights the military are doing is very exciting. Keep our military farther out of harms way is a definate bonus.

As far as commercial aviation, I don't see unmanned flights happening for human transport. Cargo .. maybe. I think having a human in control and seated inside the pane with human passengers not only makes the passengers less anxious, but makes the pilot's desire for plane/passenger survivability more pressing.