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..."

Comments

Re:requisite paranoid response

[buswolley]

or hacked into and then crashed into buildings in NY

This will interfere with the Black Helicopters

[burgburgburg]

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.

yeah but....

[_avs_007]

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 :)

Re:yeah but....

[MyHair]

What's the cargo capacity on one of those drones? I don't think FedEx will replace its 747 with those anytime soon.

There's nothing particularly special about a small drone versus a large drone. 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.

The issues I see are safety concerns and public outcry. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue; I intuitively feel that it's better to have a human at the controls, but most aviation accidents are human errors. The control systems are redundant, and almost always it's two or three human mistakes together that cause a crash. (Some of these mistakes are maintenance mistakes, though, and the drone mechanics will presumably still be human.)

And the cargo companies will probably be the first to fly drones. People are nervous about what they fly on, but cargo doesn't complain or care. And jet pilots are expensive and spoiled and bratty and demanding, generally speaking. The only roadblocks for cargo companies will be the public complaining they don't want a 200,000 lb plane falling out of the sky onto their houses.

Innocent until proven guilty ??

[Archfeld]

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.

Re:Great, except the crash rate is high...

[javahacker]

This is all great, except that during the Kosovo conflict, 10 times as many drones were lost as manned vehicles.
Isn't that the point. We use them for things that are either risky, or make demands (like many hours on station) that we wouldn't attemp with a crew on board.

Three of the Air Force's six Global Hawks, which cost about $35 million a piece, have crashed.
In the same amount of time as those Global Hawks you are talking about, the Air Force had a number of fighter aircraft go down during training missions. Those aircraft cost more than the Global Hawks do, cost way more to run, and involved the loss of some pilots. Aircraft are not risk free, gravity always wins, and sometimes not very nicely.

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.
We send up drones in conditions that we wouldn't send normal aircraft and pilots. The Predators have a limited flying altitude, limited flying speed, limited visibility for the remote pilot, and can't fly above some kinds of weather, which resulted in some of them coming down the hard way. If you need information, you don't want to risk a pilot, or you need on station capabilities that manned aircraft can't give you (like shifts of controllers), you send in a drone. Naturally more of them are lost than piloted aircraft. That's one of the reasons we use them. Remember, in a war situation, someone has to fly in with a helecopter to rescue the downed pilots, risking another multi-million dollar aircraft, and many more soldiers. The drone can be abandoned, people can't be.

Re:Great, except the crash rate is high...

[Guppy06]

"This is all great, except that during the Kosovo conflict, 10 times as many drones were lost as manned vehicles."

What does this have to do with civillian flights? How many UPS planes fly into combat zones regularly?

Re:Great, except the crash rate is high...

[Jon Abbott]

It's called forming an opinion based on facts. Most educated people are familiar with the concept.

No, in this case it's called plagiarism. The original poster intentionally copied and pasted from the article, changed the word "war" to "conflict", and removed the source reference. Most people, if caught doing this in a university setting, would be kicked out.

Here is the original text from the article (differences between this and the plagiarized text are bolded):

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.

Now, the plagiarized text:

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.

So this went from a set of quoted statements to a set of unquoted and misquoted statements, with a few occasional word changes. This entirely constitutes plagiarism, and it should not be tolerated by you, me, or slashdot moderators.