Aircraft - GoKawiil

Autonomous machines face aviation's century-old safety playbook

An analysis argues that self-driving trucks and other autonomous 'physical AI' systems must work through the same set of trust-building questions that commercial aviation resolved over the past hundred years. Aviation once obsessed over engine count as a proxy for safety, a concern that eventually became irrelevant as reliability improved and regulation matured. The piece suggests robotics and autonomous vehicles are now at the start of a similar maturation curve.

fastcompany.com · 2026-08-26

Archive project revives BBC-era images of Britain's 1980s government science workforce

A researcher has assembled historical footage and photographs, including a BBC film of scientist Susan James testing helicopter noise levels at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, to document the scale of the UK's former scientific civil service. In the early 1980s that service employed tens of thousands of scientists and engineers across more than 70 research centres, including the RAE and the Building Research Establishment in Watford, running national programmes in aerodynamics, weaponry, acoustics and building science.

nature.com · 2026-08-25