Slashdot Mirror
Demand For Unmanned Aircraft Outstripping Their Capabilities
coondoggie writes "Has the highly successful but disparate unmanned aircraft strategy deployed by the military outstripped the Department of Defense's ability to handle its growth? The Air Force, Army, and Navy have requested approximately $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 for new systems and expanded capabilities. The Pentagon's fiscal year 2010 budget request wants to increase the Air Force's Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft programs to 50 combat air patrols by fiscal year 2011 — an increase of nearly 300% since fiscal year 2007. In 2000, the DoD had fewer than 50 unmanned aircraft in its inventory; as of October 2009, this number had grown to more than 6,800. The program's success, however, is causing some big cracks in the system. According to a report issued this week by congressional watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office. The military is facing a number of challenges — including training, accessing national air space, and improving aircraft communications systems — that must be overcome if unmanned aircraft are to take their place as a central piece of the military's future, the GAO stated."
Seems like this works so well they want more of it... but in order for it to do all that they want it to do they'll have to divert resources from the manned flights that exist now. Some programs win, some programs lose. Typical Washington debate about to come up...
These thing remove the human element to much, from dropping missiles onto weddings and random cars they target from "intel" received.
I think you should have to send in meat soldiers if you want a war, get verification of who your killing, this is making it to easy to unclear to dangerous morally
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
And yet they still try to convince you that playing video games all day doesn't teach you any marketable skills!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They could develop a computer system which combines sensor input and calculates optimal control output. For resilience it should be distributed and connected through a network. A network for the sky controlling machines which terminate enemy combatants.
I can tell you the answer to that. They are facing stresses that a normal soldier isn't facing. A Predator pilot in Las Vegas has to fight a war for 10 hours a day and deal with all the stress that comes with that, AND THEN go home and deal with all the stress of family life. When deployed you 'turn off' after you fly and recover. Flying from home means you have to constantly deal with much more stress than normal. And you have to separate your military life from your family life even more. You can't talk about the problems you deal with at work with your wife because missions are classified. And you can't talk about your kid failing a math test because you are busy tracking a high priority target. No down time means no recovery. And add all to that this problems mentioned in the article above. Then to top it all off, good luck getting out of an unmanned plane. Without enough training, assignments are lasting much longer than normal. Pilots are getting called back from manned planes to fly drones. It's a no win situation for those who need a break.I did it for a while, and life is rough,
I was a Predator pilot in the AF for 5 years, and I can tell you it's not a pretty picture.
Seems like this works so well they want more of it... but in order for it to do all that they want it to do they'll have to divert resources from the manned flights that exist now. Some programs win, some programs lose. Typical Washington debate about to come up...
No, more than that, UAV's are such a contentious issue because of the tremendous culture clash it's causing in the Air Force. In the Army, Navy, and Marines, UAV's are just another military tech tool to use in battle. But in the Air Force, which bases its entire identity on the old Knights of the Air thing, UAV's aren't seen as a valuable tool so much as they're seen as a threat to the very existence of the Air Force itself.
Think about it. If the day is coming when you can train young, non pilot computer geeks to do what current pilots do.... at less cost and less training time, too.... then why have an independent Air Force at all? Because sooner or later, we'll be able to make UAV fighters that can maneuver better, fly farther, and hit harder than any manned craft of today. It's just a matter of time
I think the dawn of the UAV era may well herald the end of the independent Air Force, and I think the current crop of pilots know it too. And it begs the question, did a seperate Air Force ever really make that much sense? It was a branch based on a particular technology.... akin to the Army splitting Tanks off into their own separate service, or the Navy doing the same with submarines. Airpower really isn't a doctrine so much as it's just one more weapon in your arsenal.
I think by our children or grandchildren's lifetimes, the Air Force may be long gone, and looked at the same way jousting knights in armor are looked at... a glamorous, romantic period that was relatively brief, and brought to an end by technology that made it obsolete.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
We did not choose it? You might want to do a little studying about the "peace" conditions imposed on Germany after World War 1.
By the same logic, women deserve to get raped because they wear skimpy clothing.
I think that's a bad analogy in this case. I'm pretty patriotic, and pro-military. I'm a vet as well. And as I've read more about WWI over the years, I've become more and more convinced that WWII didn't have to happen, and that we in the west... including the United States... bear some responsibility for WWII. How? First off, it's becoming harder and harder to convince me that the US had to fight in Europe, that we had any real interest there. The Germans didn't start it, and looking back, was an ascendent Germany really a threat to the US? No, I don't think so. When you get right down to it, I thinking more and more that WWI was just another European Great-Power pissing match.
Further, the absolute draconian position that we put Germany in after the war created an atmosphere perfect for the rise of Adolf Hitler. Had we not tipped the balance in favor of the UK and France... had Germany fared better after the war.... I think there's a good chance Hitler never rises to power. He wasn't inevitable. He took advantage of the utter desperation Germans were feeling.
Woodrow Wilson should have never agreed to the draconian demands of our fellow allies. Despite his best intentions, all he helped accomplish was the implosion of one empire in favor of two others in Europe.
So I think the analogy is more along the lines of a combatant being raped by the victors... and then becoming so twisted by the experience that they embrace total evil to have the satisfaction of their revenge.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Mod this +1e100 insightful. I'm away from home right now (in Tampa, no less. building a data center) so when I'm stressed because some piece of gear is borked I can just go back to the hotel and zone in the hot tub, quick call home, all is good, cool.
But, if I was at home I'd have all the honey-do's and familial interactions (step-daughter in treatment, African Grey parrot, four cats, oh, and the wife, need to stack that firewood, the toilet downstairs is making a funny sound...) needing to be taken care of, and I couldn't get in the space I need to solve the problem, nor could I talk to my wife about the intricacies of the setup (like talking about classified.)
It may be better to just put these pilots on some other base away from their families, a nice TDY, to let them deal with their job and give them the excuse to slack off on the family front for a while. Kind of a toss up. Give them the option, just don't let the spouse know whow asked for the TDY.
What these remote pilots have to deal is so much more REAL and INTENSE than what you or I deal with, unless you are in combat, it is NOTHING, FUCKING NOTHING compared what these Airmen have to deal with.
Sirs. My most humble thanks for your service! (this from an ex-USAF desk jockey, circa '79)
-Joe
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Really? Citation, please? This idea gets thrown around a lot, but I have yet to see evidence.
One can argue that unless the articles of incorporation suggest otherwise the fiduciary duty of the management is to maximize shareholder value (NOT to be confused with instantaneous profit) and that shareholders could sue the management in civil court over perceived failures to do so. It'd be a pretty hard suit to win, I bet.
But in general, the purpose of a corporation will be outlined in its articles of incorporation. It might have nothing whatsoever to do with shareholder value, much less profit; plenty of non-profit incorporated entities out there.
Perhaps they chose to serve their country, and upon finding out the job they chose to do was worse than expected, didn't abandon it and beg for something easier?
Military people are crazy, they do things like that. I hear some of them even get shot at and go back out to get shot at again!
"I think by our children or grandchildren's lifetimes, the Air Force may be long gone"
Ah, ye of little faith in this country's military-industrial complex. It is the engine that drives our economy. We spend more on military junk than the rest of the world combined. We have, almost constantly, for the past 50 years, been invading some country or another for no particular reason. The day we see our military shrink one red cent will be the day we see Duke Nuke'Em Forever released.
I don't respond to AC's.