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First All-Drone USAF Air Wing
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."
This has been in the works for a while now, but I should mention that this is not the first all-drone USAF wing. The 432nd is. Last year when I visited Creech AFB and the 432nd wing, I was briefed on the Air Force's plans to start transitioning a number of wings to unmanned wings and the ANG wing from Syracuse was the first one on the list. Interestingly, it will not be the last either as the UAV mission has become the Air Forces single most requested asset. Additional ANG wings in California, Arizona, North Dakota, Alabama, Texas and Nevada are next. Look for additional changes at March AFB and Minot AFB.
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"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
The correct term is Unmanned American.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
What, they were all queens before?
That explains Top Gun, I suppose.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Inthis area the Air National Guard is also moving to UAV's. The 119th (Happy Hooligans) based in Fargo retired their F16s a while ago, and now flies Predators. The refueling wing based in Grand Forks also flies UAV's now.
...and fails to follow orders? Do they court-martial it?
Actually no. They make a movie about it with a hot babe.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Unwomanned would be as well.
Unhumanned.
Neocron!? That's an EVE-Online reference, you insensitive clod!
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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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."
The problem is that very few of the talented pilots want to do this stuff. I have quite a few friends that are either instructors or students in the USAF. Two I was talking with the other day said that if they were forced to do UAV flying, they'd have to find some way out of flying all together. For most of them, they signed up to be fighter pilots, so even flying a bomber would be a let down.
They're competitive as hell by nature... I'm interested to see how this turns out for the USAF considering the antipathy I've seen towards piloting these things.
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
Yes, but as the article says, its unmanned so you can't ride in it.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
SO when are these jobs getting Bangalored?
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."
I wonder if there were any sentiments against long range missiles (where you don't even see the enemy).
Sig. under reconstruction.
That's potentially. Right now drones are itty bitty things with props, meant for long times in the air essentially for surveillance.
Dogfighting requires situation awareness that is very difficult to achieve in a drone. One big problem is image throughput and controller display. It's not an unsolvable problem but it would cost a lot right now.
On the other hand, dogfighting is a rare occurrence in modern wars. I don't think there were even one instance in Iraq. I think the F-14 did dogfighting in anger exactly twice in its entire career with the US Navy (a lot more in the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s, of course).
I'm willing to bet that if you gathered some Falcon 4 gamers, they'd all do any training etc. required to pilot one of these bad boys. This, however, makes Ender's game spring to mind. In all seriousness, I wonder if gamers could make an ideal target for UAV pilots? Would said gamer have to become a fighter pilot to have the skills/knowledge to pilot said UAV, or could they be flying them while skipping the more intensive pilot stuff?
Are these things just remotely controlled or fully autonomous? I'm not sure which sounds worse safety wise but the idea of any fully autonomous system 'with weapons' strikes me as a bad move, not in any sort of T2 way, just that things will go wrong sometimes, no system is 100% perfect. (calm down Mac fans ;-) )
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
The pressure of flying and fighting half way across the globe whilst sitting in an air conditioned trailer somewhere in the USA can be a bit of a strain but don't worry the shrinks are on the job. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/flying-drones-f.html
"I was talking with the other day said that if they were forced to do UAV flying, they'd have to find some way out of flying all together. For most of them, they signed up to be fighter pilots, so even flying a bomber would be a let down."
That's why the Army needs to take over the drone program. The AF has shed a stunning number of missions and aircraft (it didn't originally want the A-10) and wants to only do air dominance.
Fine, take away all other missions and give them to the folks who need them most. Have Army and USMC UAV operators do rotations on the ground as forward controllers, and they will surely be motivated to fly UAVs effectively.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
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.
A drone is a male bee. Male bees do no work. Nor can they fight. They are stingless -- the female bee's sting is modified ovipositor (egg laying organ).
So an "unmanned drone" is a truly purposeless thing. Of course, they're heading there anyhow: their penises get ripped off during sexual intercourse, after which they die.
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And you think that the MQ-9 a faster more agile high G aircraft.
Fine in the future I can see that the fighter roll could be taked over by a drone but not the MQ-9
Which was my point
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
The Air Force has finally come out of denial on that point, and is creating a "UAV operator" career path that does not require rated pilots. Among other things, it will open the field up to a lot of people who have the technical chops but can't pass a pilot physical.
rj
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.
Until the US devises and deploys the first UGS (Unmanned Guilded Soldier) robots on the ground. Then going to war essentially means the US sets up a secure base on the ground and a bunch of highschool grads play video games until they run out of "lives" (err, UGS units) or the enemy all dies and they beat the level, err win the war
On a side note: why don't comments support the html DEL tag?
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
" That's why the Army needs to take over the drone program. The AF has shed a stunning number of missions and aircraft (it didn't originally want the A-10) and wants to only do air dominance".
I'll go further than that. I think we should re-integrate the USAF back into the Army. The Raison de "Etre of the USAF was long range strategic nuclear bombing, something that's now been replaced with ICBM/SLBM technology. USAF doesn't like doing the un-sexy missions that its called upon to do 95 percent of the time... especially grunt support. So bring back the Army Air Forces, and problem solved. The fighter mafia will scream, but let them. They'll either put on green suits, or leave. Their budget and priorities will come from the Army. The more I look at it, the more I question the wisdom of making the Air Force independent in the first place.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Army is getting its own Predator variant, the Sky Warrior (ERMP): http://www.defense-update.com/products/e/ermpUAV.htm