Recently, autopilot systems have been generally installed in the functions of automobiles, and when driving on highways, they are often It's in use. According to this trend, the automatic driving system has become a very important factor in the competitiveness of automobiles, Tesla is also a late automobile company, but it is the leading company in the autonomous driving sector and has become a competitive company in the automobile market. 

Then, you may wonder if these automatic driving systems and similar functions apply to aircraft. Contrary to our expectations, these automatic takeoff and landing systems were already developed and used in the 1960s in the aircraft sector. In the 1960s, Europe used coal as fuel in all industries. As a result, air pollution became severe, and from late fall to spring, smog combined with carbon and smoke particles caused very poor visibility, resulting in frequent aircraft landing accidents at metropolitan airports. To solve this problem, the UK succeeded in designing and putting an automatic landing system into practical use. 

For automatic landing, there must be an instrument landing system at the airport, and pilots must also have an autolanding license. In addition, due to various problems, most of them use manual landing rather than auto landing, and in the case of auto landing, is used only in one case when the view is so bad that the runway cannot be seen from the cockpit. Unlike self-driving cars aimed at driver convenience, aircraft are used for safe landing. In addition, using this automatic landing system will reduce the number of aircraft landing at the airport by 50% compared to usual because other aircraft or vehicles that interfere with the autonomous landing system must be blocked from access, and other aircraft waiting to land. For this reason, the auto-landing system is used on a limited basis only when necessary. 

On the other hand, an automatic cruise system, like autonomous driving of a car, is almost used during operation and is used to understand the overall operation status of the aircraft rather than the convenience of the pilot. However, in the near future, we look forward to the development of an autolanding system that can guarantee both pilot convenience and aircraft stability, just like cars.

황재훈 강남포스트 학생기자  webmaster@ignnews.kr

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