And yet they call it autopilot, instead of driver assist or something minor sounding.
Jets have autopilot, the pilot is still ultimately responsible for the plane.
Commercial aircraft autopilot systems are capable of taking off, flying the complete route, and landing without pilot assistance. It is a matter of corporate legal exposure and public opinion that requires human pilots to oversee all electronic operations. Pilots are licensed as a foundational component of their occupation. Most non-urban commuters view their use of vehicles as a mundane entitlement of adulthood and the State supports such a view with it's lax management of operational licensure.
Tesla has chosen to brand a system as autopilot, understanding full well what implications are bound to that word. In doing so, they have intentionally fostered the expectation of function associated with an autopilot system. If the system does not offer the functionality described, and the branding remains unchanged, then despite any wink and nod fines print disclaimers, expectations will continue to be held - particularly among those who are of limited cognitive potential, including entire racial populations who have been artificially elevated, not due to merit, but social blackmail and activist ideologies.
So, I agree about Tesla. I'd like to generalize with utility, rather than to obscure. There's been a culture of "damn the torpedoes" in Silicon Valley for too long. PayPal enabled payments without worrying about how to verify those transactions. Uber enabled gypsy cabs without worrying about who was driving them. Tesla enabled autopilot without worrying about who was behind the wheel. The people behind this have been rewarded -- not punished. I would expect more of this, absent any policy change.
Most people do not assume that autopilot systems on commercial aircraft are entirely capable of performing a flight including take-off and landing with out any pilot intervention. Furthermore, autopilot is a broad term for partially autonomous systems in many other aircraft. Some autopilot systems may have been demonstrated capability of performing specific flight maneuvers, but many only perform simple tasks such as holding altitude and/or heading.
Pilotage is defined in the FAA’s Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge as navigation by reference to landmarks or checkpoints. Therefore autopilot literally means [continous] automatic navigation by waypoints. It does not specifically deal with collision avoidance or interactions with traffic control devices.
The average car driver isn't familiar with jet airplanes and what autopilot does. What I still interpret that to mean for commercial jets is where the pilot turns control over to the computer and it navigates to do things like land the plane. Of course autopilot is infinitely easier with a plane, since other planes aren't anywhere near you thanks to the air traffic controllers, and there's lots of space when you're in three dimensions.
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