Probably depends what you assume about cost of fuel in the future.

Unlikely n my opinion the plane would fly much above 30,000 ft. Would take a long trip to justify that much climb.
As for visibility, Lindbergh did fine landing with a periscope.

I would disagree, for the exact same reasons the developer cited as his reason for designing it and sinking his own money and private funding into it.

I think it fills a cost and performance gap that exists. If it pans out and lives up to the promises, it would be a game changer for a lot of potential flyers.

If you're going from A->B and A and B are not on the hub and spoke system, then simple travel turns into an all-day affair on the airlines and usually, a long drive in a rental car.

Or you can fly or charter a turboprop for A->B, but the cost goes up more than 10x to do that.

How do you get from Gallup NM to Nacgogdoches TX, for instance, with 3 passengers, overnight bags and a couple of toolboxes?

There's quite an opportunity there.

in my view until an independent journalist is taken for a ride in it and verifies the actual performance it is still very questionable about its practicability.

this appears to be an aircraft where the computers predict great performance but when actually built and the various systems interact the performance is far from predicted.

as a comparison, the Avanti is a fully certified known ice etc aircraft with excellent numbers and it has had great difficulty selling and it is aiming at the same niche.

I dunno, the Avanti (and I've always been a fan) is in a whole another world of cost. The Avanti is the turboprop that competes against the jets.

While this is potentially the reciprocating engined plane that competes against the turboprops.

This looks more like a challenge to the King Airs, the SETPs and so on.

If it holds up to the expectations, it could be a game changer in the segment.

No tracks found on ADSB Exchange …

No tracks found on ADSB Exchange …

Search by the tail number. ADSB Exchange has their own netw of receivers and does not filter. So either ADSB Exchange has no coverage in the flight test area; or, Celera is using UAT and strictly squawking 1200 (staying out of the flight levels).

Autoland has been available in revenue passenger airlines since 1965. As has been mentioned, you can repeatedly and safely land a military drone from a windowless room. Modern tech can produce a high resolution image with sufficient redundancy to use in lieu of a window.

I have no stake in this game, and don’t really care how they address the issue, but I think it’s a lot more do-able than you guys are giving it credit for.

Cost per hour looks amazing even if it's only close, but what is the cost per aircraft?

If the opportunity is shipping packages rather than people, does the Celera have more potential?

Being a little slower and cheaper (vs. turbine) could make sense for cargo. They could also amortize a higher capital cost over many operational hours. However, I don't know how the economies of scale would stack up against a large freighter flying traditional hub and spoke.

I would disagree, for the exact same reasons the developer cited as his reason for designing it and sinking his own money and private funding into it.

I think it fills a cost and performance gap that exists. If it pans out and lives up to the promises, it would be a game changer for a lot of potential flyers.

If you're going from A->B and A and B are not on the hub and spoke system, then simple travel turns into an all-day affair on the airlines and usually, a long drive in a rental car.

Or you can fly or charter a turboprop for A->B, but the cost goes up more than 10x to do that.

How do you get from Gallup NM to Nacgogdoches TX, for instance, with 3 passengers, overnight bags and a couple of toolboxes?

There's quite an opportunity there.

Probably depends what you assume about cost of fuel in the future.

Hi Don, I agree with you but many people don't. We see right here on BT that there are people who take a bonanza/baron - a plane with exceptional visibility out the front - and mount a giant ipad up high blocking half the windscreen. Nuts. But the pictures prove it - and what's more those folks seem proud of their accomplishment.

Autoland is a very expensive system. Not all airliners are equipped, very far from it.
It's only multi-crew, requires 6 month-recurrent training (which is why many airlines choose to be Cat2 only).
It can only be flown at a rather limited set of CAT3 airports, and when one chooses to do that, the regulation/spacing crawls to a slow pace.
Not to mention that not all Cat3 planes are cat3c. Ours is autoland, but it requires pilot input a few seconds after touchdown. I'll spare you the rather lower xwind limitations* as well.

So you see, even 55 years later, it's not autonomous. Or single pilot.

As to mil drones (or civ), the reliability is nowhere in the ball park of every day operations at an airline.

Please feel free to believe modern tech is reliable enough, and that latency is not an issue. There is no question that you must think of solutions which elude me.
I am not saying it's not possible, just that your firmly-positive assertion should be, in my opinion (and much more modest experience, which I acknowledge ), a bit more nuanced.

*edit: oh and also headwind/tailwind limits: 25kts/10kts.