Are airplane pilots destined for the same fate as flight navigators and engineers? Will they be replaced by lines of code, electrons and data-linked commands from faceless controllers beyond the horizon? However unlikely that scenario, the trend is worth noting. As is being demonstrated daily in thousands of operations around the world, the black boxes on a growing number of aircraft are so "smart," they obviate the need to have a human operator on board to complete a given mission. Pointing to the hundreds of automated takeoffs and landings performed by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) every day, David Vos, senior...