Paths towards autonomy in commercial air operations

The path towards vehicle autonomy in commercial air operations creates a trove of interesting problems, some of which may not be fully well-understood by new entrants in the business. In particular, there is the potential to misunderstand the constraints associated with introducing new vehicle operations under the purview of the Federal Aviation Administration and other historically significant institutions in charge of commercial air transportation safety. In this paper, we remind the reader of the various notions of safety captured by certification authorities and the evolution of safety in commercial air transportation over the years. We then informally explore possible paths from today’s to desired levels of aircraft autonomy, which we define in this paper, and in this paper only, as "removing the pilot from the cockpit".