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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..."
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 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...
Didn't they just recently invent a drone that could serve as President of the United States?
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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..
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
Ah, yes. I have seen these as well going back years. In fact, drones have been used by the military since the '50's I think, for target testing by converting old fighters (F-4's currently) to remote control. (I also seem to remember my grandfather telling me about a B-17 that was converted to remote control for the testing of some of the first air to air missiles. Additionally, NASA has also outfitted larger planes including a 707 for crash testing. There is nothing that limits the size of a drone and they do not have to be necessarily fast and light to be a recon plane. Look up the Global Hawk and Darkstar to see what I mean.
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... 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.
I wonder if drones crash more because the penalty for operator error is not FLAMING DEATH.
Think about it: the ground-based drone operator decides that, due to the staggeringly boring nature of his job, he needs to take a few minutes now and then to smoke a bowl or surf for pr0n.
Real pilots have a lot more invested in the ship's safe return.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
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.
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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!
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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.
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!!
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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?
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...
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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 :)
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. ;-)
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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 ?
It's possible to fly a R/C plane using only the view from the camera (and not being able to see the plane) but it's certainly not easy. People have made autopilots for R/C planes (and even tried to fly them across the Atlantic) but there's still many hurdles to overcome.
You're probably already aware of this, but others may not bePeople do that now with R/C planes. Either they shoot beams of light at the other plane or they try to cut a ribbon trailing from the other plane, or they'll even deliberately ram your plane and try to make it crash.
I haven't tried it myself (I usually just fly around and poke holes in the sky) but hope to someday. Need to make a nice slope soaring combat wing and try the `full contact' style at the local slope ...
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...
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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.
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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 ?
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".
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.