Robot Plane Heralds Future Of Air Travel

A new flying machine "a robot plane" that is designed to take off without any human intervention is flying above the skies in Britain.  This robot plan can withstand the bad weather and land safely without the pilots command.

The one that is currently flying in the skies above Britain is a part of their test programme. According to the engineers, this plane is a perfect representation of future of air travel and could even be used as passenger jet.

This unmanned aircraft was till date limited to military use especially in the war zones. Something very similar is being used by the police in Britain, the small remote controlled models fitted with observation cameras. These both require pilots on the ground to fly the aircraft remotely. They can also fly civilian aircraft without any assistance. It doesn't require a team of pilots.

Similarly, In the U.S unmanned aerial vehicles are used as a weapon in the hunt for terrorists overseas. After bill signed by Barack Obama opened US airspavce to thousands of unmanned aircrafts. The drones can are available in any size you want. A dozen of these drones are in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan, hunting down insurgents, every minute of every day. They've become one of the most important planes in the United States Air Force which functions without the pilots assistance. They are nowhere near the aircraft or the battlefield. They are controlled by remote control, from thousands of miles away.

The flight without a human pilot can fly on a pre-designated route 

The on board cameras scan the sky and send immediate signals if they detect any danger. These cameras are used to detect the presence of other aircrafts, hot air balloons or parachutes and avoid colliding with them. They can even determine the weather conditions.

Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, engineering director of systems and strategy at BAE Systems, which has developed the system, and programme director of the consortium conducting tests on the pilotless plane said, "It is doing all the things a human pilot would be doing. The level of autonomy can be gradually increased. The system flies by itself on a pre-programmed course until it detects something is wrong. Then it suggests manoeuvres that an operator using a laptop on the ground can confirm or reject. If the communication link goes down or the operator is not paying attention, the on-board system will take action to keep the aircraft safe. In an emergency, it can use infrared cameras to identify safe sites to set down aircraft by itself and can look for body heat to make sure a landing area is clear of living things."

This is the first step towards unmanned plane. The system is being tested in the UK in a converted Jetstream passenger aeroplane being flown in an 80-mile wide area of airspace over the Irish Sea, off the coast of Preston.