Pilotless

Last year one of your (pilotless) prototype aircraft crashed in California.

The futuristic world of George Jetson and everyday travel by air hinges on some rather large leaps of faith, the biggest of which is whether passengers will eventually be willing to board such pilotless aircraft.

You cannot see it but some of it is there already - a 6.2-mile (10km) wide route for pilotless drones.

The concept has lain dormant for decades, but recent Pentagon research into the C-130 Hercules transport into a flying aircraft carrier for pilotless drones means the concept is still alive and well.

Pilotless planes are on their way, but would you fly in one?

Although pilotless surveillance aircraft were extensively used, often attack aircraft could not be brought to the scene quickly enough to hit targets of opportunity.

Because these tests were very promising, Boeing received a USAF contract in 1949 to develop a pilotless interceptor (a term then used by the USAF for air-defense guided missiles) under project MX-1599.

By 1950, Boeing had launched more than 100 test rockets in various configurations, all under the designator XSAM-A-1 GAPA (Ground-to-Air Pilotless Aircraft).

In 1951, the USAF decided to emphasize its point of view that missiles were nothing else than pilotless aircraft by assigning aircraft designators to its missile projects, and anti-aircraft missiles received F-for-Fighter designations.

Pilotless drone aircraft are increasingly used for reconnaissance.