Boarding a plane that has no pilots in the cockpit -- scary or exciting? Fictional or the future?

This wacky idea has been put out there by aviation experts in Australia who are in the process of introducing what could be the first unmanned cargo flights.

Australian website news.com.au says unmanned civilian planes could be only a short step away from that, as “drone” technology made famous by the United States military becomes more widespread and advanced.

Instead of being piloted from a cockpit in the plane, associate professor Duncan Campbell, director of the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation at the Queensland University of Technology, told news.com.au that planes could be piloted remotely from the ground.