I'm posting AC because I have mod points tonight, but my handle is "occasional_dabbler" with ID 1735162. I wanted to alert you to this Bill because I mostly agree with your posts. The FAA are under intolerable pressure, Their prime function is to ensure that aerospace activities are safe for EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING; MY HAMSTER is protected by the FAA. They are not being as "obstructive as politically possible", they are desperately fighting a rearguard action against the FUCKING IDIOTS who want to fill our skies with random death machines.

I strongly suspect they have had their balls crushed to make this one-off allowance and they have their entire field team watching with prejudice ready to down the machine as soon as it twitches,

Commercial autonomous drones are not going to happen. At least not until we trust AIs. We can just achieve an acceptable mission success rate in military environments with military drones (which have ALWAYS more human pilots than any physical aeroplane, just not co-located.)

The only time in your entire life when you have been 'safe' to the FAA's satisfaction was when you were strapped into an airplane seat.

You have me, sir!

I was using a little bit of hyperbole. Currently there are no aircraft equipped for auto-taxi or auto-take-off precisely because this is something that a human pilot can handle better than a machine. It is not even an option offered nor are airports equipped to support it. Auto pilot can be engaged immediately after wheels-up at about 500ft and in principle, with a Cat III aircraft and landing runway, it can fly the whole journey from there to the taxiway, where the pilot would once again take over.

We already have the technology available to fill in those missing parts, should the need ever arise.

Thank you. I know plenty of pilots both socially and professionally. I know from what they tell me that, yep, that was one we wouldn't have foreseen, several times, per pilot. Yet you only get a maximum of one catastrophic event per pilot. I think it's quite possible that pilots avoid more than four otherwise-catastrophic events per career for the one they may cause.

I design aircraft engines for a living. Much as I am an early-adopter type I cannot agree with the assertion that a pilotless plane is safer than one with a man in the loop. At least not yet.

The question is not whether we could build a plane that could fly itself safely, we already build plenty of those, they're called 'drones' and any modern airliner can be specced with options to fly itself from gate to gate on an ordinary day including typical bad weather. The question that is not being properly addressed is this: does having a human pilot avoid more accidents that would have happened, than they cause by error? It is very hard to quantify the former number but tragically easy to quantify the latter.

Microsoft is really not the company it used to be.

Companies are made of people and they change, grow up/older and move on. It is a huge company and in any such organisation it takes a long time for culture and strategy to change significantly.

Anyone who witnessed the hideousness of the SCO litigation has to look at a new Microsoft where FOSS is actively supported (even if there are strings attached) and where employees can talk about open-sourcing the OS without being fired on the spot has to accept that they are at least heading in a better direction than they were.

At least in UK accounting a subscription model has benefits for anyone who can claim a Windows licence as a business expense. A subscription would be classed as an operating expense and can be wholly offset against tax as part of the cost of sales. A licence on the other hand is an asset, which can only be depreciated over at best, three years (50% the first year then 25% for the following two)

This has a number of effects: By reducing my costs in the current year and at the same time being able to offset the entire cost improves my cashflow and reduces my tax burden. Also, by avoiding the ownership of an asset I reduce the book value of the company so I increase the ratio of earnings to investment (ROI). The additional cashflow will allow me to grow the business; I should be able to get a good return on the cash or else why am I bothering to be in business in the first place?

It may well be that Microsoft make more money out of my company using a subsription model, but that does not necessarily mean that my company makes less money, it all depends on just how I can juggle the numbers and what I do with the cash.

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant, but I have been a subcontractor running a limited company for several years.

their they're!

oops!

(fellow grammar pedant here)

I just wrote to Peter F. Hamilton begging him to employ an editor to revise all of his excellent books with the correct use of which and that

This is a little tricky.

Yes, we British don't really have an historical right of ownership of the Falklands, it's not like they are on our doorstep, or even in our hemisphere. However, the Argentinians have never had a presence on the islands (except for the famously brief war) and their only interest is in the oil reserves suspected, and now being found, in the surrounding waters. The war was also an attempt by the Junta to boost their flagging popularity in Argentina and a corresponding opportunity for the Conservative government to boost their own flagging popularity in the UK. There are no white hats in this fight.

The only tangible facts are that the people who now live on the islands voted overwhelmingly to remain under British sovereignty and that Mrs Thatcher had bigger balls (and better-trained special forces) than the Junta.

Can we start a petition to bring back frequent contributions from any Bennett Haseltons? For one day in the year it would be preferable to this drivel...

Stop already. In the UK the joke doesn't count if it's after mid-day anyway.

Apologies if I misread the sarcasm content...

;-) od

No. It may be #2 as a result of the fact that PROFIT is #1. Safety is the job of the FAA, and the fact that they do not yet feel comfortable to publish a code of regulations for such things means that they do not yet think there is a safe way for it to be done.

Two issues:

You have it exactly right; 'pilots' will have to be trained to pilot the vehicle for which they are to be licenced. Obviously this is a bit nonsensical; it will be computers that do the piloting, but the FAA is set up to regulate human control of aircraft and they have to develop a whole new set of rules to regulate machines, which is an even tougher call.

Secondly,

welcome to civil aerospace regulations. What's the failure rate of that there FPV? Oh, well, that doesn't cut it by five orders of magnitude...

So build them to FAR23.

yes, exactly