Slashdot Mirror
Droning On
MagnetarJones writes "Another washingtonpost.com article reports that Federal regulators have begun considering rules that would allow drones, the pilotless planes being used in the war in Afghanistan, to fly in U.S. airspace. Supporters envision the use of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, for such tasks as moving cargo, pinpointing traffic problems, patrolling the border, searching for fugitives or fighting forest fires..."
Droning On? More like CELDA!
Droning On
KATZ is back????
Who needs cameras on light posts anyway? They're too easy to avoid.....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I see these things flying around Indian Springs all the time when I'm driving out the the Test Site, and if they're talking about the Predator model, I really don't see how they would be much use hauling hauling cargo. They're meant to be a fast & light recon plane.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
I remember reading a story about using high altitude aircraft for broadband applications, basically getting most of the benefits of a satelite without a lot of the latency issues.
They could also be used for crowd control, or spying on dissidents, or attacking remote outposts of constitutionalist militias...
Federal Aviator cry "These are not the drones you are looking for."
BA DUM CHA!
For my next joke,
In Soviet Russia, Commercial Sectors Fly You!
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, GOOD NIGHT! *Fingers*
I have heard these things crash a lot more than a vehicle with a actual pilot. I don't want one crashing into me.
Considering the last time I saw a fully unmaned cargo jet land (it was landing in some trees).....
But then again perhaps we are ready for this sort of thing.
...and.... spying on our own citizens...
Judging by some of the pilots of met this shouldn't change much. People will site them as being hackable though.
I can see little unmanned craft flying around doing "chores" but carrying cargo and fighting fires? I think planes need a pilot for that.
Didn't they just recently invent a drone that could serve as President of the United States?
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
From what I've read, most of the newest autopilot software is much better than any human pilot. Shouldn't we be asking whether the human pilots are reliable enough to fly around with the drones?
How long untill we see commercial airlines that are un-manned? I can imagine flying from Seattle to California without a pilot, and a synthisised voice over the intercom announcing the wether.
1) 42
2) 42
3) 42
4) 42
5) (bonus question) do your own bloody homework
And they should equip them with computers, cameras, and lasers. That way, when they see an evildoer (drug dealer, or just a teenager smoking a J, or someone pirating a copy of the latest Britney), they can just zap them. Because they hate our freedom, you see.
except that these things still crash occasionally. No one cares if it lands on a afghani mud hut, but if it hits some power lines and crashes to the ground killing some americans in an city that might just be a problem..
This is old news, I read about this months ago in alt.conspiracy.black.unmanned.drones.
Yeah! This is a great idea! Next they could design A.I. for these babies and they wouldn't need any operators at all! Oh wait, wasn't there a movie about something like this going wrong?
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
I just saw an article about these drones on another site yesterday. What many of the stories forget to
mention is that each drone plane costs more than FOUR MILLION DOLLARS, so they are not the inexpensive
throw-away solution that it appears.
I think it will be many many years before FedEX and other freight haulers seriously consider using
something like an unmanned drone for delivery.
It's much cheaper to hire a pilot and use a plane, or hire a truck, and it will still be much cheaper for a long time to come.
How about tracking your speed and taking pictures of license plates? There goes the remaining points on my drivers license.
Worst. Sig. Ever.
Federal regulators have begun considering rules that would allow drones, the pilotless planes being used in the war in Afghanistan, to fly in U.S. airspace.
Supporters envision the use of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, for such tasks as moving cargo, pinpointing traffic problems, patrolling the border, searching for fugitives or fighting forest fires -- creating a domestic commercial market for drones that some believe could be worth more than $2 billion during this decade."There is a pent-up demand for civil and commercial application" of drones, said Scott Dann, president of an industry group that is pushing for commercial drones, which includes Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp.
But critics worry that they drones could endanger the millions of travelers who fly in thousands of private and commercial aircraft. They also question whether the aircraft are reliable enough to fly in domestic airspace.
"To even contemplate mixing unmanned vehicles with the commercial sector is widely premature at best," said John Carr, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "Yes, there has been some success in Afghanistan but that's a long way from Chicago O'Hare."
Drones are typically operated by pilots on the ground or computers. For years, the industry has tried to introduce drones to the domestic sky, but the limited track record of the aircraft failed to catch federal attention. Emboldened by military success in Afghanistan, industry groups have recently begun talking with the Federal Aviation Administration, hoping to turn greater public awareness into regulatory approval.
Already, some in Congress are beginning to consider the idea. "I have long supported the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) by the U.S. military, and I believe that the potential applications for this technology in the area of homeland defense are quite compelling," Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a prepared statement.
Warner called for a White House study on the use of drones by domestic federal agencies, acknowledging that there could also be privacy concerns -- drones are used by the military for surveillance in a way that might not be acceptable to American civilians at home. "We must . . . meet our national security needs without unduly sacrificing the privacy rights of our citizens," Warner said.
There is currently no commercial market for drones, but they are flown sporadically over the United States for testing. Flights require FAA approval, which sometimes comes with the caveat that the drones stick to a carefully constructed flight path that keeps them out of regular air traffic and be trailed by a "chase aircraft" -- a piloted plane that ensures that it stays clear of other traffic. The FAA has about 30 certificates outstanding allowing such flights in the past year, although some certificates cover more than one flight.
Acknowledging the potential of the market, the FAA is already contemplating how it would regulate such uses, said Alton Scott, manager of special operations, air traffic planning and procedures.
"The usefulness of this type of vehicle is infinite. Anything that a small aircraft can do, can be done with a remotely [operated] aircraft," Scott said. "I think one day we will get to that point . . . but the rules and regulations have to be put in place" first.
Critics worry that a commercial airplane encountering a drone would be in danger.
"The technology is not sophisticated enough to assure the safety of other vehicles," said Carr of the controllers group. "It is not the unmanned drone that I am worried about; it's the commercial aircraft that has to operate in the same airspace with 200 people on board."
The Pentagon has been experimenting with pilotless planes for half a century, and for the past 10 years has deployed them in combat missions in areas including the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. A Predator drone, which can linger for 20 hours over a battlefield beaming back information to commanders on the ground, recently fired on suspected al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen, killing six. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has labeled them a "transformational" weapons systems, ensuring them a place in his defense budget.
A drone can rival a 747 in size or weigh just 10 pounds with a nine-foot wingspan. The military is also experimenting with mini-drones that can be carried in a backpack, but they have not been deployed yet, according to Teal Group Inc., a research firm specializing in the defense industry.
Once drones reach mass production their cost will drop below that of manned aircraft, industry officials said. High-endurance drones, which can fly for days or weeks at a time, would be cheaper than a manned plane that has to be periodically brought down to refuel or change pilots, said Daryl Davidson of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
A fleet of drones could be operated by a relatively small number of operators on the ground, lowering personnel costs, he said. "A comparable-sized crew can operate multiple [drones] instead of operating one manned aircraft," Davidson said. But without pilots aboard, drones can't make the kinds of decisions pilots make every day, critics say. And they say drones were not designed to barrel through U.S. airspace, which can contain more than 8,000 planes at the busiest times.
Even if the drones were to fly at extremely high altitudes where commercial aircraft rarely venture, that would not be enough to satisfy some safety concerns, critics say. "They have to come up and they have to go down" passing through regular air traffic, said Warren Morningstar, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Further, critics point to the drones' spotty record in the military. During the Kosovo war, 10 times as many drones were lost as manned vehicles, according to a report from Teal Group Inc.. Three of the Air Force's six Global Hawks, which cost about $35 million each, have crashed. About half of the 50 much smaller, $4.5 million Predators, which can get closer to potential targets to send pictures and coordinates, have been lost, including some that were shot down, an Air Force spokesman said.
"If you look at the military, they have an extremely high attrition rate. Admittedly some of this is due to combat action, but accidents are also a major source of loss," said Steven Zaloga, a weapons expert with Teal Group. Such losses couldn't be sustained in the civilian market, he said.
Defense contractors acknowledge the safety issues, and say they are being addressed. The drones cannot detect aircraft and avoid them automatically, said Scott Dann, a program manager of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., "but that's something we're working on."
And if a pilot guiding a drone from the ground were to lose contact, there would be no way to guide it to a safe landing, Dann said. "The technology has improved leaps and bounds over the last 10 years, but flying over Los Angeles or New York is another ballgame," he said.
While they work on the safety issues, defense contractors say that federal regulations are keeping the drone flights rare and are inhibiting the industry's growth. It typically takes two months to get FAA approval and "chase aircraft" are costly, industry officials complain.
"There could be a lot of opportunities in the UAV marketplace. . . . We need to have free and ready access to national airspace for this to work," said Neil Kacena, deputy director of advanced development programs for Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin.
General Atomics, which makes the Predator, tests drones at an airport in El Mirage, Calif., but when one files more than three miles from its base, the company must launch a manned plane to follow it, adding hundreds of dollars an hour to the cost of tests, company officials said. And although the industry acknowledges some of the safety concerns that the air traffic controllers raise, they would eventually like to have the same freedom as small aircraft -- to just file a flight plan and take off.
"An ideal end point would be to be able to file and fly," said Todd Blecher, a Boeing spokesman. "Ultimately we need to get there for there to be a real market opportunity."
An industry group that wants to fly unfettered above 40,000 feet, proposed a five-year program involving industry, NASA, the FAA and the Defense Department. (The controllers group says commercial aircraft now cruise between 29,000 to 41,000 feet, and some jets can go higher.) Under the proposal, the FAA would initially establish stringent rules that govern the flights, but grant wider access, said spokeswoman Karen Robbins. Over several years, the rules would fall away, leaving a streamlined version similar to those that govern piloted planes, she said.
Among the restrictions likely to emerge is a requirement that the pilots who operate the drones from the ground be specially certified and that the planes themselves be certified as safe, Robbins said. The FAA would probably issue detailed rules governing takeoffs and landings, she added.
The Coast Guard, which wants to add drones to its arsenal, is contemplating similar restraints. Plans call for the Coast Guard to add a drone that lifts vertically from a ship deck by 2006, said John Williams, deputy chief in the Office of Aviation Forces. Another version that would take off from shore and patrol the coastline would arrive in 2016.
"These vehicles are too costly to be considered throwaways," said Bob Paulison, air systems integration manager for Deepwater, a planned overhaul of the Coast Guard's fleet. "It is certainly part of our acquisition plan to ensure that they are reliable for our operations and safe to fly over populated areas."
Ahh yes here comes the drone with today's oranges er I mean orange juice.. freshly squeezed!
Just realise the reality of the situation..... There is no reality.
This is all great, except that during the Kosovo conflict, 10 times as many drones were lost as manned vehicles.
Three of the Air Force's six Global Hawks, which cost about $35 million a piece, have crashed. About half of the 50 much smaller, $4.5 million Predators have been lost, including some that were shot down, according to the Air Force's own data.
I don't want to send my packages by drone, thanks.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Suddenly i feel like singing,
I am the Eye In the Sky, (...)
I can read your Mind.
Freedom is sinking.
Have you ever met a radical gun 'nut' who said that we all needed the right to have anti-aircraft guns for home defense??
THIS IS WHY.
The following is just a sig. (And truer everyday.)
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
Paging John Connor, Mr. John Connor...
I think for the first year the FAA should require the CEO of the company flying the drones to fly *on* the drones (without a parachute, of course).
... won't be the only application; you can bet they'll be patrolling internal areas too.
I don't mean to be a pessimist, but patrolling the border will most likely be one of many surveillance applications. Especially with the growing 'power' (so to speak) of the FBI, NSA, and other government agencies, there is a high likelihood that these will end up being used for domesetic spying too.
Are you a suspected terrorist? I'll bet these will show up shortly.
Supporters, of course, won't point out this application, for one of two reasons. One is that it never occurred to them, so they support it blindly, or they're such ardent supporters that they're ignoring and/or accepting this use.
I have nothing against unmanned aircraft, I think they have many wonderful applications. It's just there are some less-than-desirable applications, which we must all be aware of. They're just like guns - they have good applications (sports) and bad applications (as a lethal weapon); the better applications such as traffic monitoring are great, but it's potential uses as a spying mechanism are somewhat unnerving.
We've just got to be careful how we monitor the use of these. Just my $0.02.
I will now prepare for my first flamebait mod.
When one goes out of control and crashes into a commercial passenger jet?
The problem with drones is that they don't have a thinking pilot. Where as two pilots will do everything in their power to avoid a midair collision, a drone is not even aware that a collision is imminent in such a situation. Which basically leaves the pilot in the situation of having to "guess" which way the drone will steer next.
Now it is possible that these drones are radio controlled, however, that's even worse, as the terrorist will need do little more than hack the signal and fly the drone into a commercial aircraft, all from the safety of their white van...
Either way, it's a terrible safety threat. To allow unmanned drones to fly in U.S. airspace is bad safety practices at best, and potentially deadly at worst.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Will fly in to US airapace loaded with cocaine and other goodies. They will fly low and into sparsely inhabited areas to deliver the goods! What a concept. They will sound a bit like pissed-off bumblebees. Ain't science and technology wonderful!
These drones it just might eliminate those damn drunk pilots, just put a breathalyzer on the joystick of who gets to control it, if you're drunk....it won't let you fly it.
I wouldn't doubt that the individual states and counties are drooling over the idea of aerial reconnaissance drones. What could be better for monitoring traffic and collecting the money from... err I mean protecting the safety of motorists than a 24 hour unmanned aerial drone. I know that around Chicago the Illinois State Police like to call themselves the "Wolf Pack" and they have at least one unmarked Camaro. I wonder where they get the money to pay for these toys, oh yea. The fact they can pull you over in Illinois AND ticket you for not wearing your seat belt. These drones will just be one more way for the states, counties and police to take money out of our pockets and put it in their coffers under the pretense of protection.
well, consider the factors instead of just numbers. Otherwise you're just comparing apples and oranges based on your own taste buds.
1) Are manned aircrafts being exposed to the same dangers at the same time? (IE- are the unmanned in more hotspots than the manned ones are, thus being exposed to more dangerous and riskier missions?)
2) What's the value of human life + manned plane versus the $4.5M predators?
There's a line, and a point of diminishing returns where either manned or unmanned exceeds the other in financial and logistical values.
My biggest concern is for the safety of other pilots.
How does the drone make the decision to yeild right of way to another plane which might be crippled, or perhaps an ultralight that doesn't show up on on radar? A human pilot can easily make these complex descions, but how advanced is the AI in regards to collision avoidence? Has it even be tested in an air space that is busier and has less control compared to a military enviornment. I'm sure that the remote pilots will monitor things, but it's still not the same as being in the cockpit.
.. I see them all the time, especially at night.. up there buzzing about my house. They whisper things to me like "start a fire!" or "torture that field mouse!".. Sometimes they use a secret government mind control spray that smells like burnt toast...
Trolling is a art,
Supporters envision the use of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, for such tasks as moving cargo, pinpointing traffic problems
Yep, there's the problem right there; that clown in the Beemer that just cut me off.
Target lock acquired.... *poof*
Problem solved!
In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
-- Yun-Men
You think they're going to use a single vehicle for all purposes?
These guys already make airship based cargo drones:
http://www.ahausa.com/
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Three of the Air Force's six Global Hawks, which cost about $35 million each, have crashed." That's a much as manned aircraft, and I dare say they have a better than 50% survival rate.
Here is another unmanned vehicle that is quite cheap to make
and seems to do the job just as well called the aerosonde.
It is designed for gathering weather data etc. not probably what the military
wants.
Also it flew across the Atlantic.
Does anyone actually think about this stuff?
I used to live in Midland, Michigan, home of Dow Chemical, and recall that airspace above their plant was jealously guarded. Probably against industrial espionage ("Ah, I see where they store the brine!"), but nowadays most likely against some jerk trying to blow things up and poison the atmosphere with stuff that was safely contained in OSHA and EPA approved buckets and pipes.
Imagine anyone being able to pick up something like this (not like you couldn't already, someone build a flying Snoopy on his doghouse with RC stuff) and attaching mischevious exploding devices, with an X10 camera, and buzzing it around town looking for buses full of the children of Israel to blow up.
Yeah, it's a pretty good country, it hasn't had any serious weirdness since Tim McVeigh drove a truck to Oklahoma City and that kid flew a plane into a bank in Florida but I gotta wonder.
FWIW aviation still is a pretty unrestricted area. Expiremental aircraft can still be build and flown with minimal checks or license requirements. Anyone ever meet Five-Dollar Frank of Fayetteville, WV? The man had a pacemaker and was still flying, last I knew, and had a couple books out about training flyers for WWII.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Don't worry, politicians fly all the time... Having drones overhead has been fairly safe for many years now. :-)
i pose this question:
why do we need them to carry cargo??? so the unemployment rate skyrockets?? now, army transport i can understand, but domestic air freight??? why??? Remember, people, these things cost $25 million a pop.
recent sales of ESTES model rocketry kits have skyrocketed in apparent attempts to make shoulder based rocket lauchers young domestic terrorists (previously known as teenagers) have been trying to shoot down the drones seen flying over american neighborhoods. These drones have been enlisted to keep a watchful eye in "Operation Neighborhood Surveillance" but recently have come under attack as many of americans youth sees the drones as model aircraft targets for saturday afternoon rocketry studies.
Seriously though, do we really need this? I just see these as prime targets for getting your hands on some really great RC plane gear.
they aren't really "unmanned" - there are midgets that control them.
the midget union struck up the deal since they were getting fewer jobs in Hollywood these PC days.
so they get jobs and the military gets what looks to be high tech devices which are really controlled by an elite army of midgets.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Cos not everyone spends $30,000 on a lav seat.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
At long last a brilliant technology has arrived that will enable society to lower the salaries of overpaid pilots worldwide. In as little time as one decade, no more $100k-200k per year hotshot airliner pilots! wh00 h00!!
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I can only think of ways that the US government will use this technology to spy on its citizens. It isn't going to improve the safety of anything, and in fact will probably lead to less safety, at least for our liberties. So I ask, why do we need to say yes to this?
Take the money that would be spent on this and fix our educational system or something. And demand the resignation of the people that even suggested that the U.S. government should spy on its own citizens.
Is this related at all to the Helios Project? Would this re-zoning have to take place to allow them? As I recall, these were what they were discussing as potential satellite replacements, though I haven't heard anything about them in a long time. They were to be solar powered, and multipurpose, capable of remaining airborne for months at a time and carrying an array of emitters/receivers of various types, at a very low price tag compared to satellites that provide the same service. At the time they were being hailed as the ultimate broadband provider, possibly based on an 802.11 standard of some type.
Has anyone thought about the privacy issues related to this? Yes, there's the whole "big brother" thing, but there's also a concern about the security of the data these drones send back.
There was some guy from the UK that somehow, accidentally, tapped into unencrypted military communications on public satellites.
It seems that our military satellite infrastructure is somewhat overloaded, so they push some of the load onto commercial satellites.
This guy tried to tell the US Navy, maybe some other branches, and some of the British military about this. They all dismissed him. So, he went to the media...
I saw this on CNN from a hotel in Europe, and you could watch US troop movements right on this guy's TV.
Who thinks that something similar can, and probably will, happen if we have drones flying over our homes. I'm not sure what the immediate motivation for tapping into things like this is, but someone else probably knows...
Did anyone else see, or hear about, this story and have more specific info?
Now, I'm not saying this is a totally horrible idea. It has some merits, as well as drawbacks (high crash rate, and so on). Certainly, better monitoring of airspace and the ability to track certain events is of great value.
As for privacy in general, there's a happy medium (somewhere). You will never have total safety and total privacy. In fact, you'll probably never have just one of those things. We just need to find the right point in the middle...
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
But at least the drones will be armed with missles, as opposed to the helicopters which are just filled with multinational troops armed to the teeth. A few of those missles can sure clear up a traffic jam caused by those the administration have determined to be so obviously guilty that no trial is necessary. So don't even ask about it.
How about replacing drunk, overworked, sleep-deprived pilots?
those things from Dark Angel, yeah, 'nuff said.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The USA is sliding down the slippery slope to what it really wants to be, deep in it's belly: a xenophobic police state.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Drones seem like a good way to make 'problems' go away, say if someone questions King Bush, or Queen Cheney. Fly a bomb to the disident's door. "Oops! Sorry 'bout that!"
At least someone could make a hobby of dogfighting the drones...or load up a B-52 model with explosives and be a RC terrorist, like in that movie with Clint Eastwood.
I hear buzzing overhead, gotta go!
have arrived-- but no one is allowed to fly in them!
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Before adding to the air traffic control load, it might be a good idea to wait until the FAA has worked the bugs out of their controversial new STARS gear. Critics say it doesn't work and is being rushed into operation...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Now that we've reached cruising altitude, we again welcome to the first fully automated Transatlantic flight on Fantastic Future Airlines.
Our systems have been fully tested and developed to insure you the smoothest, safest flight you will ever experience. Sit back, enjoy the flight with our assurances that nothing will go wrong... go wrong...go wrong... go wrong....
--old joke mode off--
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
shooting hellfire missiles at your house! oops.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
... before we can begin using flying ISPs to supply high-bandwidth data streams to remote locales.
And I doubt that we would be using drones for cargo planes -- just modifications to existing autopilot programming that would permit pilotless 747s with optional remote access from a ground based pilot.
Hopefully, they won't be using unencrypted telnet, or we'll have a whole new set of air piracy problems.
moving cargo ... wow, the technological advancements spurred on by the popularity of eBay
... here in seattle no drone necessary: the traffic problems for 2003 have already been reported- I5 and I405, all day everyday.
... that one might be something, maybe a drone could lead authorities to people dying in the desert night
... face recognition at the entrance to a football game not enough? so, they'll have to have drones hovering in the stadium? It's interesting to see the technology of "future" sci-fi films as compared to actually possible. For example, would the Terminator use facial recognition to identify Sarah Conner? Apparently not, he killed her roommate first.
... with 6 ounces of water at a time.
pinpointing traffic problems
patrolling the border
searching for fugitives
fighting forest fires
For freight, better to invest the same amount of money in updating alot of the systems that make the man-machine interface for the railroads a week link, where unions have stifled a lot of innovation, and where drug use (primarily marijuana) has caused a faily significant number of fatalities and/or environmental hazards or disasters nationwide. How about deploying a network of sensors at crossings which signal a train to slow down well in advance of a stuck vehicle, etc. Or in developing a national freight controlling system a'la the ATC to open up the rails almost like highways, and made sure that the freights, etc. run on time and interface well timing wise with mass transit trains, like Japan has been doing for 30 or more years?
I'd love to see fire-fighting drones, but the huge updrafts caused by the fires would seem to make the reflexes of an in the craft pilot absolutely necessary, because in some ways the planes are in the air to only suppress the fires and save the ground "troops" lives. Missing by 30-40 meters (100-125 feet or so) in some of these cases isn't good enough -- and at 300-400 KmPH (200-300 MPH), that's what -- a third of a second?
Start with a more agile fire-tanker fleet more capable of performing the needed missions with more flexible mission profiles, faster turn times and a higher safety margin. Then add the remote piloting technology when everything else is exactly right -- and the technology isn't simply a drive, circle, and land proposition.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
The correct diagram address
Wouldn't a better title for this post be "Attack of the Drones?"
Created by P. G. Wodehouse, y'know.
What's the cargo capacity on one of those drones? I don't think FedEx will replace its 747 with those anytime soon. Its like saying look, this miata is bunches cheaper then that cargo-bus... Lets get Greyhound to swap out their fleets of busses with these self-driving miatas :)
...spying on Americans, er - suspected terrorists. More and more of our civil liberites are being deleted under the guise of national security, or "cargo hauling."
In America you use drones to execute foreign policy. In Soviet Russia, foreign policy is to execute drones!
It seems to me that a drone is an all-around better solution than a piloted aircraft. For one thing, they can be controlled from the ground and if there is a decent uplink, then reaction time should be negligible - this would obviously save human lives during combat. Does a pilot really get a lot of useful sensory data by looking out of the window at mach-whatever? Don't tell me military jets aren't drive-by-wire... Second, in the event of a partial mechanical failure, a drone AI will blissfully plunge to its death as it steers toward some unoccupied area, where a pilot would bail out. Plus a drone AI would be impervious to blackouts and other G-force effects.
"Supporters envision the use of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, for such tasks as moving cargo, pinpointing traffic problems, patrolling the border, searching for fugitives or fighting forest fires..."
:-)
Moving cargo? unlikely. You'll put the cargo where, exactly? Use a truck, train, or other land-based vehicle. If not, use a helicopter.
pinpointing traffic problems? Use a helicopter and overpass-mounted cameras instead.
searching for fugitives? Eh... it helps to know where to search. An unlikely application.
Fighting forest fires. Oh brother. I suppose this is a "do it for the children / spotted owls / cute trees" reason.
In short, too expensive, too unmaneuverable, too risky. We'll ignore all the creepy paranoid Skynet implications.
Where's my millimeter-wave radar?
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
If those passenger pilots are drunk, it won't matter much ;)
Besides, we've all heard about those near-misses on the run-way because somebody wasnt paying attention, you wound up with a guy trying to taxi across a runway someone is trying to takeoff/land, etc... I'd want the FAA to hurry up and upgrade/replace those aging flight control computers, before they even THINK about having drones flying in our airspace...
Heh. That's actually pretty damn funny!
"I don't want to send my packages by drone, thanks."
If my package is lost, I'd rather it be because someone has DIED.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
hasn't anyone here ever heard of posse comitatus?
The US military is not allowed to engage on US soil (within the states) unless so requested by the states themselves.
talk about flying below the radar...
this drone war has.
-Yoda
Supporters envision the use of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, for such tasks as moving cargo, pinpointing traffic problems, patrolling the border, searching for fugitives or fighting forest fires...
Boooring! Let's bomb someone!
"Or we will be forced to fire upon you with this HellFire missile (which was designed for attacking battle armour, but we found it very effective against automobiles)."
Littering, speeding, high speed chases, running red lights (among other things) would be a thing of the past.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear to be bright. Until you hear them speak.
A possible reason that these drones are lost more often than mannded flights in combat areas, is that the DoD may be more likely to send the drones into high-risk situtations, than they are to send manned flights.
And lets not forget the once or twice they allow the obsolete, almost-damaged-beyond replair units get shot down so they can find out where the enemy is hiding the missle launcher.
... where those of us with pellet guns live !-)
Or as in the case of "traffic control"
On the other hand, just like weather balloons in the 50's and 60's, I wonder how many drones will mistaken for aliens from another planet.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
This is already happening. At least I presume the Global Hawk flew through U.S. airspace to get from Edwards to Alaska. ;-)
Actually, Global Hawk flights over the continental US are now routine as I understand it. And these are not small drones, witness:
Global Hawk:
Wing span: 116 ft
Length: 44 ft
Height: 15 ft
Performance Goals
Range: 12,500 nmi
Approx. Endurance: 35 hrs
Endurance @1200nm: 24 hrs
Altitude: 65,000 ft
True Airspeed: 335 kts
Gross T/O wt: 26,750 lbs
Payload wt: 2,000 lbs
Payloads: EO/IR and SAR
I have no problem with this personally, but I can see how some might get a little nervous. ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
putting American pilots, firefighters and traffic reporters out of work!
Who doesn't deserve a trial ? You ? Who are we at war with ? I don't seem to recall congress declaring war, so the BEST we could have is a police action against an indeterminate group without a nationality. Don't get me wrong, we should be fighting terrorism but this "war" is a very poor attempt to cover up a grab for oil. If we were REALLY interested in weapons of mass destruction we'd be paying MUCH CLOSER attention to the former Soviet Union's arms and where they are going, not to mention Pakistan and India. This will be referred to as the Oil War in the future I bet, and I really doubt GWB will be remembered fondly in the years to come by anyone not a member of the Oil Cartel. The rest of us will recall him as the President who sold the US to the corp's for a bag of magic seeds. Speaking as someone who is disgusted with the Feds reversal of nearly every environmental edict on the books, the US is marching backwards in lock step stupidty.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Why do I think that civilian drones will be less secure then the military version?
Now if a pilot wants to crash a big plane into a target he/she must most likely commit suicide. Lucky for the world not that many pilots are ready to do this... On the other hand crashing a big drone into a target from a remote facility requires a lot less commitment.
I don't think big civilian drones are a good idea.
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
Initially, use them as cargo carriers in Alaska and northern canada. Have them fly in a certain airspace, perhaps 40K-45K. let this happen for 5-10 years. Then, move them over more populated areas after a successful probabtion period. Or give them a longer probabtion period as overseas cargo carriers.
Once, you remove the need for pilots and crew, these aircrafts are much easier to build and cheap to fly.
BTW, it will not be the politicians that will fight this but ALPA and other pilot unions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If I was in a plane crash, I would want the pilot to die first, not his flight sim equippment.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The last thing we need is a bunch of RF Weapon-armed super-secret flights that can blend in with the newly-allowed "cargo flights"...I mean, can anyone find anything in DoD documents ever even suggesting UAVs would be useful for CARGO????
I like the idea of drones just as long as I can fly my own....and give it a paintball gun....
I do security
I'm not allowed to bring nail clippers on a commercial flight, and now we're thinking of letting unmanned aircraft fly around the country? This sounds like a great idea. What happens when there's a glitch in the wireless system used to fly the planes? AI flying the planes would be even worse. One of my AI profs back in school had a great anecdote: he and his grad students spent months creating a rules based piloting system for a small aircraft. They took it outside after months of testing indoors, and prepared it for its maiden flight. Turned it on, and it refused to take off. Turns out that it decided that it was too dangerous to fly itself, under any conditions. Haven't we had enough aircraft flying into buildings for a while?
Paul Moller, is that you?
I'd think that secure communications would be A #1 priority with these things. You know the /. crowd is gonna spend hours upon hours trying to break the communications (what cooler way to get a girl than pick her up in your very own aircraft??). If you all are working on breaking communication for control purposes, you better bet your left nut others will be doing the same, and with far more advanced tools and bigger budgets that you all have. You'd almost have to go to a rotating frequency ala IFF systems to minimize the risk of hostile takeover. With a drone, you no longer have to screen for utility knives or blockade air cabin doors to keep terrorists out - but you do need to be wary the guy with communications equipment and an electrical engineering degree who may be interested in flying one into downtown Chicago...
Actually, you're not far off...
My brother is an intel officer in the USAF, and he told me about how all the pilots are b*tchin about how they are going to be reduced to remote-controlled airplane pilots just like their 8-year-old son. There's an on-going investigation into some pilots who may have purposefully crashed their drones to "demonstrate" how bad they are and how we still need planes...
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Apparently you aren't aware that there is a great surplus of unemployed ATP pilots right now. They aren't overworked or sleep deprived and there exists vastly more people who win the lotto jackpots than there are drunk pilots. You're just so gullible that you think since the news media shows you a couple of drunk pilots that this is commonplace behavior... it's exceedingly rare.
Don't worry, Lockheed Martin ATM is moving in on fixing Ratheon's disgrace.
And actually, the enroute computers that are currently in place are nice and solid (and were just installed under 2 years ago). Combine that with the reduced air traffic, and the FAA singing a contract for ERAM, and you will have your throughly modern ATC system in a few years.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Now here's where technology struggles...
How do the planes communicate? Wirelessly? Well then, we now have a wireless interface that could be "hijacked" so to speak, and thus putting control of the plane in someone else's hands. This seems to me to be a more complete and non-sacrificial type of hijacking. You'll have 13-year-old kids "having some fun" and cracking into the system that controls these planes. That's where I think we'll have a problem. I'm sure this will be introduced as a way to stop hijacking (since, as you noted, there's no pilot to threaten) but it will only encourage the non-crazy types to find a technological alternative.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Comment removed based on user account deletion
2)
(t^2 + t)*(t^-1/2) = (t^3/2 + t^1/2)
Integrate:
2/5*t^5/2 + 2/3*t^3/2 + C
Evaluate 1 to 2:
[(2/5*2^5/2 + 2/3*2^3/2) - (2/5*1^5/2 + 2/3*1^3/2)]
Because only a pilot can respond to situations the autopilot has not been programmed for.
paintball
man, i was already at 0... what a waste of mod points...
A GPS for the car,
A little microchip for the hand,
A drone in the skies,
And a television set to pacify you.
Rome has been rebuilt.
I can't for the life of me find it on google, but that remote-controlled 707 they crash tested didn't crash how they wanted it to.
They were testing a new kind of fuel they hoped wouldn't catch fire so easily, and the plan was to guide the instrumented plane onto a test area, which had "claws" to tear the wing tanks open.
Well, the pilot kinda lost in on approach, and the plane didn't crash "as planned". It also proved that the new fuel they were testing didn't do what was expected - there was an enormous fireball.
So that's just one entry in the history of (failed) "drone" planes. I'll take my flights with a pilot, please, not some blow-up autopilot thing.
Drones in the air will mean less people at risk, safer borders, and a safer country. And hey! Let's cut the cost a bit by having them pull advertising banners!
... I can see it now.
A - S A F E R - A M E R I C A - - - B R O U G H T - T O - Y O U - B Y - P I Z Z A - H U T
pulled by a 3.7 million dollar plane
Or better yet, they'll do surveillance and transmit broadband signals!
This is America, don't dare us - we'll call you on it.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Hun!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I had one that I was going to fly across the Atlantic but I wound the propeller too tight and the rubber band broke.
I'm kind of curious as to how these are remotely controlled. I'm wondering if a constant connection has to be maintained with these things, and what happens if that connection is broken. Seems it would possible to jam the signal, leaving these drons to make decisions on their own. What would they do, fly in circles till they run out of gas and crash? Or worse yet, fly in a straight line and crash into a structure, or cross into foreign airspace!
Reminds me of when a remote control car would go outside of my range, and would just keep on going in a straight line. I would end up chasing after the damn thing trying to get it to stop from hitting a wall/curb.
Drone craft ought to cut shipping costs and times.
Eventually they would reduce the cost (and risk) of human flight.
For extra safety, provide human monitoring of take-off and landing. Not remote control - just the ability to tell a drone that it is doing something stupid and needs to take evasive action, abort a landing, etc.
Full remote control should be rare - e.g give the drone a one-use key that a ground controller has to request from a high security facility in order to take control.
I new robotics company entitled "Cyberdyne Systems" has announced that it will provide the United States with a fleet of drones to patrol the nation.
These things have enormous potential, but one crash in real world use could set back their adoption by 20 years. Remember Three Mile Island; no matter how safe nuclear power becomes, as it has in Europe, Americans will fear it until the oil and coal run out.
Flying into buildings.
BeDoper -Be News For Dopers
between a war, and a War. Having spent several years in law enforcement, at the street level, I can honestly say the war on drugs is one of the more ignorant things this country has attempted, right up there with prohibition. If we legalized the drugs, regulated the growers, the so-called war on drugs would end next week, with the foriegn suppliers going broke, the US government generating huge funds, the prison population which is nearly 1/3 people involved in stupid possesion crimes, would return to a manageable level. The only real show stopper I can see is an on the spot test for drivers, similar to the DUI field sobriety tests, because NO ONE should operate a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs. The whole concept of the government trying to legislate morality is hypocritical in the extreme. Oh well that's my so-called .02, Happy New Year all and TGIF :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Already ground braking work has been done to automate other menial tasks, thereby freeing up precious man-hours so that we can focus on the things in life that matter :P
-Jason
There's actually quite a bit of work being done to try and enable UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to fly in the National Airsapce System without danger to other aircraft and the ground. Very cool systems are being developed to integrate them into normal airspace traffic; systems which allow them to communicate with air traffic control, "see" other aircraft and respond to them (SAA or see and avoid systems), contingency equipment for communications failures etc. It's really some fascinating stuff. I work along side one of the groups comissioned by NASA to develop a "cradle to grave" roadmap which outlines the steps that would be necessary to certify UAVs, individually and as classes of aircraft, from inception to the junkyard. One of the reports that goes with that roadmap is the concept of operations. For more information, you may want to check out AUVSI or google for "Unmanned Systems".
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Will these drones be used to take out Senators/Congressmen/Drugrunners?
that there were no airline fatalities AT ALL in the US last year?
Taking supplies to remote parts of Alaska, for instance. People won't have to risk their lives driving trucking convoys over frozen lakes.
Remote delivery in Alaska is largely done by small planes. These planes land on flat spaces in the bush (bush means Alaskan 'outback', 'wilderness', etc.), not airports. I believe drones could do well taking off and landing at airports but I seriously doubt they could handle short field landing on grass, snow, ice and water in places with no special equipment or even electricity. Snow landings require several touch-and-go passes with the skis to pack down the snow well enough to make a good landing/turnaround/takeoff surface. I think a drone plane would need a maintained and equipped takeoff and landing field. Even a drone helicopter could hardly be trusted due to the close proximity to tree branches at many landing sites.
There are no truck convoys over frozen lakes because there are no roads in the remote areas.
Drones to the 'larger' sites like Point Barrow might be feasible, though. Point Barrow has a lot of supply and person traffic due to the oil business and I believe has a small airport.
Local police departments will vie for the right to buzz around your neighborhood looking for loot from the sky, much the same way that they used to drive around with IR or microwave cameras looking into your houses (which they can't do (or at least use in court) anymore).
Maybe I'll start work on that jammer project...
What does this have to do with civillian flights? How many UPS planes fly into combat zones regularly?
A good number of the losses were due to weather. I think a better question would be "How many UPS planes fly in bad weather regularly?"
They do crash into cities accidentally
r as h.org/burnelli/images/crash_04.jpg&imgrefurl=http: //www.aircrash.org/burnelli/crash2.htm&h=312&w=400 &prev=/images%3Fq%3DDC%2B%2B10%2Bengine%2Bcrash%26 svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3Du tf-8%26sa%3DN
sometimes killing people on the ground.
A) not all airports are located far off on the
city outskirts. Washington International is
one thats not, and although Baltimore Washington Intl Airport is not in the middle of a city jets
in holding patterns fly over my house all of the time(not eccessively low but they are there).
B) after 9/11 an aircraft crashed in new york
(i believe the cause turned out to be wake turbulance) and landed in the middle of the
city, and I believe there were some killed on the ground. I remember when I was 8 when
the DC10s started having engines falloff
while in flight and I think that one was
over a city.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.airc
You know, the government needs to have some computer system to control all these flying drones. That way it'll be totally automated. They could call it, oh I don't know... SkyNet. Put some artifical intelligence in it and it'd be great system. Although I bet it wouldn't be until 2029 when a system like this really gets going.
The thought of an eye in the sky patroling around watching auto traffic, etc. freaks me out. All the camera's on the highway light poles freak me out already. Night vision, thermal vision, ultraviolet vision, etc. (see through walls, etc.) Radio interception, cordless or cell phone, 802.11, etc.
Wasn't there someone with grow lamps that got busted for growing pot because some survellance craft detected the unusual grow lights? I know I heard an urban legend about it also happening to someone with salt water reef tanks, a lot of them. He got raided by the DEA because his basement was full of fish tanks with lighting similar to hydroponic lighting. The issue being that in neither case was there any way for anyone to know about it without an invasive survellance camera that could see through your walls and easily detect the ultraviolet light.
Me being paranoid again... Just when you think, Nawww they wouldn't do that. Then the FBI gets clearance to see what books you check out at the library (like there weren't rumors they did that already). Next you hear that every phone call is recorded and analyzed. Secret listening posts all around the world recording data.
The Predator drones are rather simple cheap aircraft, the reason they cost so much is the extensive survellence electronics and the fact that relatively few are being produced on a regular basis. I would pose an educated guess that the camera system, radar, communications and weapon guidance systems are state of the art and most likely top secret. The SR-71 was built in the mid-to-late 60's and fully proven by the 70's. You could take a picture of a dime on the sidewalk and see the year imprinted on it from high altitude and rapid speed. (really makes you wonder what else is out there besides the publically known stealth bombers) The SR-71 was partially retired when satellite technology surpassed it. Every now and then it still gets used when satellites are not feasible and timely intel is required. There have been many reported sonic booms over Iraq recently that cannot be accounted for. Cloud cover existed each time a boom occurred. I would not be surprised to learn years later that SR-71's were buzzing Iraq and taking photos. The scary part is that the satellites are still superior in some ways or the risk of being shotdown is just too great.
Drone technology is still very new but any hobbiest who knows what they are doing will tell you a whole lot more is possible. The commercial possibilities are staggering. Safety is a rather big concern. Drone pilots should still be actual certified pilots (commercial pilots have greater training then private pilots).
What would be really neat is a highspeed attack fighter/bomber drone. Much of the reason for limits in flight is the human pilot. When you don't have to worry about too many G's you can make the drone do some amazing manuvers.
Embedded realtime systems will be needed for much of the electronics in a drone. Parachutes would also be an asset. If the drone loses contact or has a problem just chute it down (stupid pun). Yep there could be some damage, a heavy object with a chute will still be moving pretty damn fast, just not as fast as without a chute.
Lot's of rules and regulations will be required to operate a drone safely. It will happen when the technology improves in the future.
Think about this for a moment.
It's true that UAVs could provide 100% coverage above the US southern border more cheaply than the spotty coverage we have now. It follows that the border could be effectively closed. But would it happen?
Absolutely not! Anyone living in California or Texas will tell you that illegal immigrants are absolutely essential to the economy. Countless jobs at the wage floor of the labor market would go unfilled, because only the impoverished immigrant will take the below-minimum-wage janitorial and service jobs.
Unmanned aircraft will *not* be used border patrol-- the cost of actually closing the border would be too high.
--
Comment removed based on user account deletion
aerial maneuvers around large fires are VERY difficult so I would be impressed with the behavior modifying algorithms they would use since the time to transmit X 2 plus the time to interpret (not to mention sensory processing) is much greater than in the traditional piloted system.
This is disturbing. How can a headline with the phrase Drone On NOT include a story about the Spacemen 3 or Alpha Stone???
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Well, at least the government will be able to retire all those expensive black helicopters! They were getting so cliche anyway...
playing flight SIMs.
Where do I sign up to fly these drones?
Wait until the pilot's union's get ahold of this! HA!
No wait: The FreeMasons. No, ugh, the Knights Templar. Communists? Tri-Lateral Commission? Perhaps ...Satan?!?
They sit in traffic jams packing themselves into large cities for most likely mediocre work to support their "nice" stuff.
Ah, the drones [gorts].
--------
Free your mind.
..when the vast majority of military aircraft are drones. It won't happen in my lifetime, but it's inevitable. There are some things like G forces that you just can't adapt humans to. And the plus of not having a pilot in danger will seal the deal too.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I visited Chicago and while outside noticed four helicopters up in the sky. Gee now they want to put robots up there instead of people? wow I feel as if I'm being oppressed here. Anyone else?
The big planes already have autopilot for mostly straight flight and automated landing systems. Many newer large aircraft can land themselves in zero-visibility weather at properly equiped airports.
Very true. Takeoff, en-route flight and landing can be very cut-and-dried, predictable activities. Two elements that still require outside human intervention are the periods immediately following takeoff and prior to landing. At this point, the pilot is typically in very close communication with the airport's air traffic controllers [or directly with other pilots at smaller airports] in order to be properly sequenced into or out of the airport while maintaining safe levels of proximity to other aircraft.
Given this, how do we replicate the ATC/pilot control loop without the pilot? Giving ATC direct control of the drones doesn't seem practicable - they have enough to do as it is, and I doubt the airports would be willing to take on that level of liability in the event of ATC-induced mishaps. In addition, you then have a remote-control system that can be hijacked. Not cool. The only way to absolutely guarantee control of the airplane staying in "proper" hands from takeoff to landing is to have the flight route preprogrammed and unchangable. That gives rise to an entire host of problems, all of which point to the primary reason that a human pilot still exists in the first place: to make judgement calls when unforeseen events occur.
In short, I don't think non-manned aircraft will ever be accepted in and out of human-traveled airports. Perhaps special, drone-only airfields could be an option for ditribution hubs, but I need another cup of coffee or two to think that one through.
And yes, IAAP.
What a country!