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First All-Drone USAF Air Wing

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the going-for-the-high-score dept.

bfwebster writes "Strategy Page reports that the United States Air Force has announced its first air wing that will consist entirely of unmanned craft. The 174th Fighter Wing has flown its last manned combat sorties; its F-16s will be entirely replaced by MQ-9 Reapers. Reasons cited include costs (maintenance and fuel) and the drone's ability to stay in the air up to 14 hours, waiting for a target to show itself."

12 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. that really is a really bad development by jacquesm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As the personal cost of war for a country decreases the willingness to go to war goes up.

    From what I've read elsewhere the other day it seems though that drones have a 'hidden cost' attached to them, the people that control the drones get to see the result of their actions and they are having serious psychological issues as a result of that.

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    1. Re:that really is a really bad development by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      killing someone is still going to have an effect on you.

            May I suggest you visit some of the sites that host footage of the "war"... like liveleak, etc? There you will find out that "killing someone" is about as traumatic as watching a sporting event, complete with cheers, laughter and jokes. I can imagine someone yelling "fuck yeah" in a bunker in Nevada just as they do on a rooftop in Iraq.

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  2. Re:Fighter ?? by jcr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fighter Wing, no way

    Why not? The limit to the performance of a modern fighter aircraft is how many Gs the pilot can handle. Put the pilot on the ground, and you can make a far faster, more agile, smaller, lighter, and vastly cheaper weapon.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  3. Re:Fighter ?? by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem is that very few of the talented pilots want to do this stuff.

    So?

    Put the best pilot in the world in an F-16, and a much less skilled pilot on the ground, controlling an aircraft that can out climb, out turn, and out run him, and it's game over. Whatever his skills are, if he blacks out at 12 Gs, he loses.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  4. Re:Unmanned = Sexist by clickclickdrone · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They always used to be called pilotless which is
    A) Accurate
    B) keeps the PC idiots at bay.

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    I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
  5. career death, probably by misanthrope101 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Pilots in the AF want to grow up to be generals one day. Do you think a UAV pilot has the same shot at being Chief of Staff (with the subsequent job on the board of Boeing or whoever) as the YF-22 pilot? Neither do I, and neither do they.

    The fighter pilots are the aristocracy of the aristocracy of the AF. Even aside from the love of flying that drove them into that job, the perks of being a fighter pilot, the status and career path that conveys, are not things they're going to surrender willingly.

    1. Re:career death, probably by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      , the perks of being a fighter pilot, the status and career path that conveys, are not things they're going to surrender willingly. ...which is why mounted knights maintained their position and status when firearms made their favorite mode of battle obsolete, right?

      Oh, wait.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:career death, probably by jcr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The mounted knights were hardly the ones to throw their hands up and say "okay, I am redundant and resign" though.

      That's exactly my point. There will always be people who want to maintain the status quo, but things change. Technology advances, and eventually the advantages of new ways of doing things can't be ignored.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    3. Re:career death, probably by misanthrope101 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      All I said was that the fighter pilots aren't going to want to give up their perks and position. I think the organization will have to change to accomodate the new realities of UAVs being cheaper/better/whatever. But that change will have to be pushed from outside, from the DoD or whatever.

      Right now, fighter pilots are sitting at the top, and they decide who gets the thumbs-up or thumbs-down for the assignments/jobs that build the career of a future general. Change will not come from within the culture. UAV pilots are not in the club, and it will be a long long time before one is made wing commander, much less Numbered AF or MAJCOM. You might have one as commander of a UAV-only wing, which will be looked at, career-wise, as a junior jamboree.

      I'm not saying that change won't happen, only that the fighter pilots will balk, complain, sabotage, foot-drag, and all but revolt all the way down the line.

      Put anyone in a position of privelege, and they'll in short order think that the privelege is natural, and do everything in their power to keep it. It's human nature.

    4. Re:career death, probably by Deadstick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Armor went away fairly quickly, but cavalry persisted for half a millennium after the invention of firearms.

      rj

  6. More humans in the loop by DG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Call me a heretic, but I'm coming around to the idea that armed UAVs are a better way to do business.

    A traditional piloted ground-attack aircraft is an expensive, valuable thing with an expensive, amphetamine-fueled, scared-shitless pilot stuffed in it.

    That pilot has a handful of seconds to ID his target, execute the attack, and then evade ground fire. Even in an environment where the USAF had total air superiority, there have been case upon case of pilots attacking the wrong target at the wrong time.

    And modern air-ground weapons are so powerful that the smallest mistake can have catastrophically bad results.

    But with the UAV, that element of personal risk is gone. Furthermore, instead of just one hopped-up, terrified, sleep-deprived individual making the go/no go call (and aiming the weapon to boot) you can have a series of targeting experts watching the video feed and making a soberly analyzed decision on fire/no fire.

    And yet, as mentioned, while the people shooting the weapons may be isolated from personal risk, the incredible clarity of the visual feed does not isolate them from personal *cost* - and that's not a bad thing. Taking a human life should never be a painless endevour.

    If we have to drop explosives on people, I'd rather that the people pulling the trigger have the opportunity to do a proper job of IDing the target, of assessing the likely collateral damage, and then making a calm and unrushed shot.

    DG

    --
    Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
  7. Re:A sad, sad day by cowscows · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, I doubt it. The US is already in a position where it can start wars where it basically has unchallenged air-superiority. If all it wants to do is bomb the hell out of somewhere, it can do that basically risk-free with manned aircraft.

    The reality is that although airpower is an essential part of modern warfare, it's not the only thing that matters. Eventually you need soldiers on the ground holding territory, and that pretty much always gets messy.

    As far as I can tell, UAV's create a shift in tactics for both airpower and the ground support, but it doesn't radically change the overall equation of war, at least not for the US.

    --

    One time I threw a brick at a duck.