Self-flying planes may arrive sooner than you think

The article was surprisingly balanced, information-wise. Yes the technology is already here; witness the Global Hawk UAV that can taxi out, take off, fly, land, and taxi itself back into a hanger across an ocean. On my flight back from my first deployment, we flew direct from Kuwait City Int'l to Fort Drum. The flight crew opened the cockpit to everyone aboard, and I spent the better part of 3 hours in the cockpit (of the 747) talking to the pilot and co-pilot. They spent the entire trip rearranging their Jeppesen charts and monitoring the radio.

The downside of automation is that computer code can be wrong. Early Airbus flight computers allowed or caused several crashes by not allowing the pilots to increase throttle during certain phases of flight. The article also brought up the subject of being hacked. Several of our military UAVs have been hacked in the past. I don't know if this problem has been solved, or can be solved.

Personally I think there should always be a human pilot aboard, as creativity is not something that computers have been able to master thus far. Yes they are faster and can access information better than we can, but they cannot come up with out of the box creative solutions to unique situations. As the article mentioned, acceptance of a totally automated passenger jet may not come easily. At worst there should be the capability for a human to jump into the seat if necessary (computer failure, etc.) and at least initially have a licensed pilot aboard for emergencies.