It was a drizzly, miserable day with a low, grey blanket of cloud, heavy and oppressive.

Looking out the airport terminal window, the world seemed to end barely a kilometre away. Vague silhouettes of aircraft moved silently about in the misty rain.

I looked up at the arrivals screen to check my friend’s flight from Perth. It had already arrived, five minutes early, of course! Best get to the gate quickly...

As I walked to the arrivals gate I reflected on what I had just taken for granted. Just a few minutes ago, my friend’s plane had been hurtling towards the ground at 250km/hr with nothing but solid murky grey out all of the windows – including those of the cockpit.

In fact, the plane may have descended to as low as sixty metres above runway height with little, perhaps no, outside visibility.

We expect planes to land in all sorts of weather. In Europe and North America, a pilot can land an aeroplane on some runways without seeing the ground at all.

Automatic landing and taxying systems are continually becoming more capable. Today it is technically possible to safely and reliably land, slow down and taxi to the correct gate with no outside visibility and hardly any human intervention.