Fly Robotic?

IN THE FUTURE, THE JOKE GOES,

airliners will each have a pilot and a dog.

The dog will be there to bite the pilot if he

touches the controls, and the pilot will be

there to feed the dog. 􀂚 It’s no joke, though,

when NASA scientists begin entertaining

the idea of replacing the copilot with a

wideband connection to a ground controller.

Who will take over the plane should the pilot

become incapacitated? Nor is it a joke to

carry the argument to its logical conclusion and do away with the

pilot altogether.

It’s a beguiling vision.

An autonomous airplane

reliable enough to be

trusted by passengers

and air-safety regulators

could save not just on

salaries but also on the cost

of managing the glitchprone

minuet by which

well-rested flight crews

are united with the planes

they’re supposed to fly.

That logistical problem

will get harder as the

pilot shortage worsens,

and it will be hardest

of all for short-hop air

service, where the pilot-topassenger

ratio is high.

Now comes a slew of

startups that propose to

serve that very niche with

tiny, autonomous aircraft.

Most would be powered

by electricity, use multiple

propellers or ducted fans,

take off vertically or nearly

so, and range perhaps a

few tens of kilometers.

Vahana, a tilt-wing,

autonomous air taxi that’s

been developed by Airbus’s

Silicon Valley outfit, A3, is

supposed to begin testing

later this year. The German

company e-Volo, already

known for lofting a pilot in

an elaborate multicopter,

says it’s gearing up to make

an autonomous version.

Zee Aero, reportedly

personally funded by

Google cofounder Larry

Page, offers another

example, and Uber yet

another. And Terrafugia,

a veteran in the flyingcar

space—at last, a

proper use for that bit of  biz lingo!—is also talking

about making a model

that’s autonomous.

When so many new

startups are pursuing the

same goal, it’s tempting

to think there must be

something there. But

hope springs eternal in

tech land, and so does the

propensity to promise big.

All these companies have

proven tight-lipped (not

one returned inquiries

from IEEE Spectrum),

which suggests that there

might be less here than

meets the eye.

Spectrum reported on

Terrafugia, the one company

that has a real history,

back in 2007, in our

January special issue.

We called the company

a “loser” for describing

a flying car it said it was

about to bring to market.

It didn’t happen.

“It can be done—we could

be flying around in pilotless

planes, just as we

could be living on cities on

Mars—but is it worth the

cost and the effort?” asks

Patrick Smith, author of

the Ask the Pilot column,

which ran for years in

Salon magazine. “I fly

airplanes for a living, and

my jaw drops when I hear

people say that flying is

already mostly automated.

Even the most ‘automated’

flight is still subject to so

much human input and

subjective decisions.”

So why then are all

these startups starting

up? “It’d be a novelty, not

necessarily meant even

for profit, but as a way to

prove and build the technology,”

Smith suggests.

And should one of these

outfits ever offer seats to

the paying public, would

you entrust your life to

a robotic pilot? “People

want a pilot in the cockpit,

to know there’s someone

in charge who shares

their fate,” says Missy

Cummings, a former U.S.

Navy fighter pilot, now a

professor of mechanical

engineering and materials

science at Duke University.

“I don’t think we’ll ever

have a passenger airliner

be a drone—there will

always be some version

of a Captain James T. Kirk

on board.” But, she adds,

things are different for

hops of, say, 50 miles

(80 kilometers), where

for some people, at

least, convenience might

outweigh fear.

“It’s technologically

achievable in the near

term; as for the regulatory

problem, I think we’ll

see it in China first,”

Cummings says. “Ehang

[in Guangzhou, China]

is supposedly doing a test

in March.”

The company claims

that its roboplane has

already carried a passenger,

and if it performs the

feat in public, we’ll let you

know. And if it doesn’t.