Well, not the the airport itself is unmanned exactly, but...

It seems that as Unmanned Arial Vehicles become more widely adopted by the non-military that they will need their own dedicated airports.

The fire service is experimenting with UAVs as are the border patrol, the National Weather Service...probably the police and the news won't be far behind.

I don't think it's a good idea for all the UAVs to share the same airports and traffic lanes with all the human traffic because: #1: Why risk crashing a UAV into an A380? #2: Who wants to sit and taxi while a UAV is cleared for takeoff?

I propose that we adopt a model of separate airfields designed for the unique issues with the UAVs, and keep them separate.

The airfield probably wouldn't need really big runways, nor accomodations for all the people but it would need huge data uplinks, and perhaps something akin to teleconferencing rooms and lots and lots of LCD screens. Ideally, the UAVport would transmit to nearby airports their flightpatterns etc.
-- ShawnBob, Apr 09 2010

catapult/butterfly-net.
-- FlyingToaster, Apr 09 2010


I see the autoboner's left his spoor. Here, let me fix that [+]
-- BunsenHoneydew, Apr 10 2010


Autoboner, hehe...thaks for the fix Bunsen...I think this is a particularly good idea, although I like flyingtoasters net and catapult idea. It will probably happen anyway as the need becomes obvious. We are in the early days of automated flight, much as they were back in the early early days of biplanes. It's not so much a field of dreams idea as the reverse. To cop a phrase from Houston Metro, "What happens if we don't build it and they come anyway."

I just envision the skys of the future pretty much shared by aircraft and drones alike, with very different traffic patterns and control needs.
-- ShawnBob, Apr 10 2010


UAV smuggling ?
-- 8th of 7, Apr 11 2010


In the US, the FAA agrees that UAVs should land on non-public runways. Many UAVs have home airport that they return to on loss of signal with a ground system. In Arizona, there have been mistakes that allowed the home airports to be a FAA controlled field. On loss of contact, the UAVs returned home causing reasonable alarm to airliners and ground controllers alike.

Because the larger of these devices are expensive and sometimes military assets, they typically are flown to private fields. But as their numbers grows, even restricted fields have competition for the same airspace.

Thus, coordination of the UAVs returning home, particularly if some are uncontrolled (autopilot) is important. It is not a difficult problem if those landing and taking off are controllable, but the issue is when they are not.

As for UAV smuggling, it has been going on for far longer that people realize. This includes shooting surplus WW2 missiles across borders, UAV boats, and submarines. Generally, these people want private runways…
-- CwP, Apr 12 2010


[+]

But won't someone think of the Unmanned Helvetica Vehicles?
-- notexactly, Feb 08 2016



random, halfbakery