I've been seeing more and more stories like this. I've also read that we may very well be seeing the last of fighter pilot classes for the military. I think that most of us in the industry are safe right now but this may very well be realistic within one lifetime. Ask some of the grey beards now and ask them what it was like when they started flying. I chuckled the other day in the jumpseat of an Airbus when the seasoned captain turned to the F.O. and after running the "before start checklist" said, "count three blades and start two".
[FONT=arial,helvetica,geneva]Cargo Drone In The Works[/FONT]
Israeli Aerospace Industries is working on an airliner-sized unmanned aerial vehicle capable of carrying 60,000 pounds of freight. And the only reason it’s focusing on a cargo plane is that the flying public won’t accept a pilotless passenger plane. Shlomo Tsach, IAI’s director of flight sciences, told the Jerusalem Post the technology already exists to fly passengers without pilots but "the world is not yet ready to be flown without a pilot at the stick.” However, he said, a study by Boeing suggests there’s no such resistance to sending packages without direct human intervention, so the idea of a pilotless cargo plane is gaining some traction.
[FONT=arial,helvetica,geneva]Cargo Drone In The Works[/FONT]