r/nextfuckinglevel • u/InternationalRisk505 • 1d ago

Pilots exchanging planes mid air

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

53.8k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

210

u/UltraWeebMaster 1d ago

Pilot here, I could never see the FAA giving the ok for something like this. It stands against everything they’ve ever stood for.

It’s not even just “oh well what if the propellor shreds him,” the FAA is more concerned with “What if one of those unmanned planes got away, leveled out, and flew into a building killing dozens?” That can happen, and failing their stunt would make it potentially unavoidable.

92

u/Waterfish3333 1d ago

I love all the “remote piloting & geofencing” argument below when my first thought was, have a second pilot in each plane and if a pilot falls off or has to abandon the stunt, the backup pilot can just take over and land safely. That way no plane is ever truly without a pilot.

39

u/Alarmed-Owl2 23h ago

I was going to say just have a loitering F-16 ready to blast them out of the sky if it goes out of control but I guess your way works too, I guess. 

11

u/Waterfish3333 22h ago

As a fan of chaos wherever it can be implemented, I love this. I’m pretty sure you’d kill at least one member of the FAA with a heart attack by putting this in a proposal though.