The hot products at the recent Paris Air Show, apparently, included something called the UAV. It sounds innocuous as an acronym writes Frank McNally.
And since the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle - to use its full name - is still mainly a military product, it needn't concern most of us yet anyway. But the point is that the technology is evolving so fast, it already suggests one of the next exciting developments in low-cost air travel: the pilotless flight.
An industry expert, sanguine about the prospect, predicts that public confidence in the UAV will first be built up through its use in policing and emergency rescue. It will be like a Trojan horse, only without the soldiers. If you need to be airlifted to hospital in a hurry, for example, you may not be too particular about whether the miniature helicopter taking you there has a human at the controls.
The argument goes that once the UAV has become respectable through saving lives or chasing criminals, airline bosses will seize the initiative, excited by the potential of computerised pilots that work 24-hour shifts for nothing and never go on strike.
In any case, the manufacturers are already nudging them in that direction. An ultra-light UAV capable of carrying two people is promised for next year.
Arguably, the preparatory PR work for UAVs is already happening on the ground, in cars. We all know, because we've been told so often, that road travel is much more dangerous than flight. And precisely because of this, car manufacturers everywhere seem determined to wrest control of their products away from idiot drivers and devolve it to computers instead.
Most new cars are now vastly more intelligent than the people in them, and the gap is widening. They can give you directions to anywhere in the world and park for you when they get there. A car capable of breathalysing you and refusing to start if you test positive is on the way. And only the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic stands between manufacturers and the ultimate goal: the vehicle that cuts out the middle-man altogether and drives itself.
Their manufacturers' own legal departments may be an obstacle too, admittedly. A key question is whether these super-intelligent cars, equipped as they are with lasers, cameras, and sophisticated computer brains, will be able to swerve around the multi-million dollar lawsuit that happens the first time anything goes wrong. But if the self-driving car ever does take off - excuse the pun - the self-flying jumbo jet should be a formality.
The average passenger plane already flies itself much of the time, anyway. In fact, the term "autopilot" has acquired a strangely soothing effect, even for aerophobics, associated as it is with the most stress-free parts of a flight, when the plane is cruising and the cabin crew is free to serve alcohol.
But the autopilot has its limitations. At the first sign of turbulence, for example, you still want to hear a calm human voice from the cockpit assuring you that turbulence is all it is. A calm, computerised voice is not the same thing. We all remember what happened in 2001: a Space Odyssey.
Even for those who find it exciting in a good way, air travel is not nearly as enjoyable as it once was. In retrospect, I believe the industry took a wrong turn as long ago as 1970, when a newly founded French rival to Boeing started producing a product called the "Airbus". Flying was still glamorous and romantic at the time, and no-frills travel was decades away. But the new aircraft's name hinted at the shape of things to come.
Recently I saw a picture from around then, of a BOAC airline flying between London and Tokyo. The air hostesses - as female cabin crew were still called - wore full Japanese kimonos that took them half-an-hour to put on, either in their hotel beforehand or on the plane itself. Only then could they get around to doing their main job: serving the passenger's every whim while looking beautiful.
According to the accompanying article, BOAC merged with another airline in 1974 and, in the cost review, the kimonos were among the first things to go. But even without kimonos, the air hostess at the height of her powers was a fantasy woman. A recently published photographic tribute, "Stewardess: Come Fly With Me", records her evolution from the on-board nurse of the 1930s to the short-skirted sex kitten of the 1960s, before feminism and the oil crisis intervened.
It has been argued that the camped-up glamour of air travel in its golden age served a very practical function in persuading the masses to fly. Once that goal was achieved, the trappings of luxury could be gradually withdrawn and aeroplanes revealed to be what they really were: buses in the sky. But as we have seen, the shedding didn't stop with kimonos and smiles and real cutlery. It has since been discovered that most of the staff were luxuries too.
Soon we may be able to fly without meeting anyone from the airline. We'll buy our tickets online, check in automatically, and find our own seats. The safety demonstration will be on video. In-flight meals and drinks will be served by vending machines. Terrorists searching for the cockpit won't find one. There will be nobody on board except us and the computer. And we'll just have to hope that if the plane hits serious turbulence, we don't hear a voice on the intercom singing: "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do."
fmcnally@irish-times.ie