Fordyce Maxwell: Pilots may make mistakes but give me that before sitting down in a pilotless plane

JUST when I thought priorities were sorted for that day’s worry list, from the war by any other name in Gaza to the probable weather for a walk, with a dozen or so other international and personal worries in between, I read an article about pilotless planes.

A mistake, lured in by the art of the headline writer’s “The drones are coming.”

OMG, as we like to say on social media networks. With so much justified coverage of the use of drones in the world’s trouble spots, including Gaza, had Merkel lost patience with Hollande, Obama with Iran, Lamont with Salmond, college heads with Russell?

Mercifully, no, because although I had so far associated unmanned air vehicles – drones – only with war and belligerent intent, engineers and scientists see them as the next boon and blessing to mankind.

Drones can, note the enthusiasts, be used for aerial surveys, search and rescue and carrying freight. With use and developing technology they will become as commonplace and relatively cheap as computers and cars.

The point at which my worry-meter moved into overdrive was the belief that they will also eventually be used for commercial passenger flights.

Not in these trousers, as a once popular song used to proclaim. Pilots may sometimes make mistakes or suffer from a hangover, but give me that or a cheap charter to Malaga any time before strapping on a seatbelt in a pilotless plane.

It’s not that I’m afraid of flying. I dislike airports so much that getting away from one is the only encouragement needed to board. Once airborne there is no point worrying – and I write that as someone who usually worries if there isn’t something to worry about – because there is nothing an individual passenger can do if anything goes wrong.

For all my distrust of statistics, I believe that going by plane is the safest form of travel. Probably, in steerage and/or by budget airline, the most likely to let us know how sheep, pigs or cattle feel on a packed lorry, but still the safest.

By definition, as the “flying with confidence” courses run by several airlines tell us, flying is an unusual experience. The body’s normal reaction in exaggerated form is to panic. That is a normal, if unpleasant, feeling that will pass if we tackle it in the right way: slow, deep breathing, positively relax, challenge the fear by looking out of the window, and remember that fear cannot go on indefinitely.

Oh yes it could, if I was told there was no pilot. «

Twitter: @fordycemaxwell