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Unmanned Aircraft Pose US Airspace Problems
coondoggie writes to tell us that congressional watchdogs have called on Congress to create a body within the FAA to oversee unmanned aircraft development and integration. The group cited the rapidly growing unmanned aircraft community and is worried about the possible repercussions. "The GAO also called on the FAA to work with the Department of Defense, which has extensive unmanned aircraft experience, to issue its program plan. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assesses the security implications of routine unmanned aircraft access to commercial airspace, the GAO said. Even if all issues are addressed, and there are a number of critical problems, unmanned aircraft may not receive routine access to the national airspace system until 2020, the GAO concluded."
It might crash (not saying it's more likely to do so than a manned one)
Particles, stuff that matters.
Let's see ... if you can buy a UAV or overrun the control station, then you can target anyone within the fuel range. You can easily crash into an airliner in takeoff, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. You cane easily spread chemical weapons, not so easy, but quite plausibly.
And that's the bullshit security implications. More importantly, though, you'll have unseeing devices sharing airspace with pink squishy things that won't see them (like me). UAV's, by nature, are generally smaller then manned aircraft. That makes them very difficult to see.
Consider the glider pilot. Let's say that he has a transponder. He's not required to, but he does. His transponder fails. Now, he's invisible to the the UAV. His airplane is painted the same color as the clouds (white) because fiberglass and heat don't work well together. His fiberglass airplane is invisible to radar. if the UAV's coming out of the sun, he's never going to see it, and it won't see him. A person would have seen him, but the UAV doesn't have a person looking out all the windows.
How does the military do it? We block off huge chunks of airspace and keep manned aircraft far away from the UAV's. Oh yeah, and the larger UAV's are driven by certified pilots. The Army has folsk who aren't pilots flying the,m, and crashes a *LOT* of them. The idea of joe cop flying a UAV is bad in every imaginable way. People on the ground, people in the air, privacy, it's just a can of worms.
So let's get this straight...
We have a massive increase in the number of UAV flights. You know, because of the "terrorists". This is (allegedly) primarily to stop "terrorists" getting on board planes and turning them into giant fireballs that will fall on the population.
Now, these same UAV's are in danger of hitting planes and turning them into giant fireballs that will fall on the population.
I ask you, even if you believe in "terrorists", which is more dangerous: "terrorists", or your Government?
Well, there's your problem right there. We gotta find a way to put metal in them pesky birds. Most people would immediately suggest putting metal in bird feed but I think we need to encourage our winged friends to adopt the fashion trend of body piercing.
"Where's my other sock?" - A. Einstein
Loss of communications. If you lose comms in a manned aircraft, the pilot follows his flight plan as filed until he regains comms or is able to take appropriate action to land safely. If you lose comms with an unmanned aircraft, depending upon its programming, it may or may not follow a flight plan, avoid other aircraft, and/or land safely.
The biggest "security implication" perceived by the FAA is interference with air traffic. However, the FAA lumps all UAVs into one category, from the Predator on down to tiny biomimetic dragonflys. This makes it nearly impossible for us to test fly our new products, without hauling a truckload of gear up to the nearest military test range.
And contrary to the belief of many, very few UAVs are armed. Only two US UAVs in operation carry payloads. The rest carry cameras.
I can see the fnords!
See & Avoid is the process that aircraft in the US use to keep from running into one another. Only a small percentage of aircraft flying in the US at any given time are operated under positive radar control. The rest are all out there with pilots who are on the look out for other aircraft. With a UAV and a manned aircraft in the same area you have only one able to see & avoid. Cutting in half the effectivness of the process.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/01/AFpredcrash070126/
Look, its a joke.
The poster was making fun of the possible wordplay that "unmanned" did not necessarily mean robotic, it could have been women flying them. Now comedic timing is a difficult thing. Surely my statement above was not a funny description. The article stated that there was a serious problem with unmanned aircraft so there was already a sense that these unmanned craft were a bad thing because they were unmanned. There's an existing stereotype (certainly from a time when few women drove and rarely actually believed today) which when placed with the wordplay on "unmanned" makes a nice comedic delivery.
This is Slashdot. People make fun of things. Wordplay and poking fun at stereotypes is quite common here. If you've spent much time here, you've probably seen countless jokes made by Slashdotters about themselves: because they're all pimply faced 13-year-olds living in their mother's basement and dreadfully inept with girls. Now as a female programmer, I'll bet that you're already aware that this is a stereotype that is not necessarily true. Many programers are women. Most don't live at in their mother's basement (once they graduate college) as programming is one of the higher paid professions. Some even get married, too. They're jokes. Some of them quite funny, too.
When a joke like this is made, do you rush in to the rescue of pimply-faced nerds? Likely they've heard these stereotypes before and will hear them again. No one's going to melt away from hearing it again. If the stereotype fits the reader and it bothers them, they'll likely work hard to ensure that the stereotype is not true within themselves.
Now, as a female programmer, I would assume that you already know this. Or have you lived an extremely sheltered life and never heard the stereotype that women are not technical? Of course you've heard it before. It didn't stop you. Moreover, no one should stop doing what they love because it goes against a stereotype. I can't imagine that anyone thinks they should. But the stereotypes do exist in popular culture and they will be uttered by others.
Everyone will hear the stereotypes. It's always been a part of human nature and, trust me, it always will be. Everyone will always hear the stereotypes that they fight against whether it's because they're female, male, black, white, asian, blind, deaf, or from Texas. Everyone has heard stereotypes that includes them and are not true. Welcome to the club of everyone! The appropriate thing to do is to laugh it off and move on with your life. Especially when it's just a joke.
In the few cases where someone is so unbelievably stupid as to actually think the stereotype is a 100% true representation of reality and should be followed, then you should ignore them. Argument will not change the mind of someone that simple or they would already not believe in the truth of stereotypes. One should assume that everyone already knows you can't win that argument and people who still argue with them loom like fools.
Now, regarding your actions in the above post, you've made a serious error which I think you've may not have thought through. The stereotypes exist and will always exist, you can't put that genie back in the bottle. When you trace back some stereotypes you'll find they've existed for, quite literally, eons. Arguing about stereotypes will not make them go away it only gives them more exposure and greater traffic. Now, one of these common stereotypes is that women are weak and need to be protected. Every time you jump in and make statements like the one above you actually reinforce this very stereotype. You jump in to protect those poor, stupid, innocent women who are so weak that they'd simply crumble and stop their life's pursuit because someone uttered a simple stereotype. Thus, the great (and quite obviously rare) feminist needs to protect the other women who are naturally weak. And that's what I find truly offensive.
Talk about having to over-explain a joke. :(
You are asking me if I am comfortable with having a 15 meter wide killing machine in my vicinity?
No, no I am not.
Unless it provides me with a scan of the immediate surroundings showing all enemies on my minimap.
Particles, stuff that matters.