Slashdot Mirror
X-45 Makes Debut Flight
jonerik writes "The Associated Press (by way of MSNBC) reports the debut flight on Wednesday of Boeing's X-45A, the first unmanned aircraft designed from the start to carry weapons. According to the article, the X-45 - one of two being tested - flew for 14 minutes and will be able to carry 3,000 pounds of guided bombs. If eventually purchased by the Pentagon, expect to see it in service sometime between 2007 and 2010. The plane's relatively cheap cost ($10-15 million per aircraft), ease of maintenance, and lack of an onboard pilot will likely make it a staple of future U.S. war plans."
First the encryption the military uses is way advanced of anything in PGP or the civilian sector. Second this will most likely use frequency hopping radio technology. The US Army has had frequency hopping radios with encryption since the 80's. Any crypto the military uses first has to be approved by the NSA. And I haven't heard of anyone hacking into the NSA's classified systems yet.
Those numbers have been discredited a long time ago. See the section on civilian casualties at the end of this article for details.
More importantly, this is beside the point. In Afghanistan, we are doing our utmost to avoid civilian casualties by putting brave men in harms way, on the ground, to pinpoint targets to be hit. In contrast, the September 11 terrorists did their utmost to maximize the number of civilians killed. You don't see a difference?