> Sounds more like very simple cruise control, at least for the main leg of the flight.
And it is.
Although it had been already abused to hell and back, see "children of the magenta", ca 1997.
Turbulence is undetectable, TCAS is shit and there is no replacement for a warm butt in the chair which hopefully understands how the thing handles, especially in the hell on the ground that the major airports are.
Not inherently, and we're getting there. See e.g. https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/18/3/798 for the use of time-of-flight sensor sampling (i.e. a depth-of-field camera) to build a picture of local turbulence (in water rather than air, but the principle translates.)
Not inherently, but not practical either. The paper talks about refractive index , and while that may be useful for liquids, it does nothing for low-pressure low-density gas like the air. Eh, it water I think phased array sonar could depict turbulence better than an optical system. In air -- no such luck. It's just centuries-old rule of "do not fly into clouds and otherwise hope the plane doesn't break apart".
And it is.
Although it had been already abused to hell and back, see "children of the magenta", ca 1997.
Turbulence is undetectable, TCAS is shit and there is no replacement for a warm butt in the chair which hopefully understands how the thing handles, especially in the hell on the ground that the major airports are.