The tragedy of the GermanWings Airbus A320, which has already prompted several companies to reconsider the procedures for accessing the cockpit of their aircraft, raises the question of the behavior of pilots, that is to say the human factor, in air accidents. This crash also raises questions about the prospect - albeit a distant one - of seeing unmanned aircraft flying with passengers on board. Their trajectory would be programmed and supervised from the ground. Clearly, they would be transport drones.
This horizon can be considered very plausible. In the military field, the European combat drone demonstrator Neuron produced by the Dassault group openly foreshadows an alternative to piloted fighter planes. In Les Drones Aériens (Cepaduès editions), Lionel Chauprade talks about the AirMule, a kind of large drone (1,4 tonnes) fitted with a huge turbine, produced by Urban Aeronautics Ltd, an Israeli company. It is intended for the transport of troops, more particularly for the evacuation of the wounded.
In the civil sector, the flight of transport drones is planned for 2050 (which leaves a reasonable time for the Air-France SNPL to file a strike notice ...). "The hypothesis is in any case realistic", estimates Michel Polacco in his book Drones, the aviation of tomorrow? (Privat) which recalls that the movement is engaged. "After the current generation of civil aircraft, the journalist underlines, a single pilot will remain responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of the systems and will be able to take initiatives or even hold the stick." Onera (National Office for Aerospace Studies and Research) has been working for several years, as part of a project initiated by the European Commission, on a small unmanned airplane-taxi project. With a wingspan of 12 meters and a length of 8 meters, the unmanned aircraft of the PPlane project (for Personal plane) could carry two to four passengers several hundred kilometers thanks to its six electric motors. Its flight altitude would be between 2 and 000 meters.
Before buckling up and getting carried away by a drone, many obstacles will have to be overcome. And not the least. These refer to technical questions (ensuring the link in all circumstances with the base despite the foreseeable shortage of radio frequencies, automatically dealing with any malfunction or unforeseen), organizational (ensuring that these manned flying drones are able to avoid by their own means the risk of collision by developing a largely automated air traffic control) but also psychological. Whatever the relevance of the findings highlighting the responsibility of the human factor in air disasters, accepting to embark on an aircraft whose pilots do not commit their lives at the same time as that of passengers is a perspective that must be taken into account. admit that it is not self-evident. Not to mention that the recent wave of resignations of drone pilots within the US Army suggests that those who remotely control these flying machines may also be subject to stress or even depression. However, mentalities are changing. In ten years, the autonomous car will probably be a reality, which should make things happen. And then, all other things being equal, what public transport user 30 years ago would have happily planned to board a metro train without a driver?
http://drones.blog.lemonde.fr/2015/03/28/lorsquil-ny-aura-plus-de-pilote-dans-lavion/
European research centers, universities and industrialists are studying the issue of air transport automation. They chose to analyze together the strengths and weaknesses of an unmanned on-board system to determine what level of automation could be achieved in the future. ONERA coordinates this approach carried out within the framework of the European IFATS project.
http://www.onera.fr/fr/le-saviez-vous/des-avions-sans-pilote
