Posted on 11/23/2003 2:32:10 PM PST by Bobby777
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Wright Brothers demonstrated that man could fly. A century later, we're looking at a future in which planes fly without humans.
Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, are taking to the skies as military and civilian organizations turn to remote-operated planes or helicopters to perform tasks considered dull, dirty or dangerous.
Already, drones have dropped bombs in the Middle East, snapped images of dangerous terrain from thousands of feet in the air and monitored traffic on congested roads.
Some commentators have even suggested that Lockheed Martin's high-tech F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may be the last inhabited fighter plane needed. At the very least, analysts say, drones can be used for potentially dangerous environmental monitoring, such as checking air quality for chemical and biological weapons.
"It's no longer 'yes or no' -- the technology and the systems are accepted," says Daryl Davidson, executive director at the trade group Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). "These things are here to stay and they are proliferating."
Proliferating, yes, but not without doubts about their ability to operate safely over urban centers, their cost, and a crash rate that for some far outstrips fighter jets.
In addition, uninhabited vehicles demand extremely high bandwidth -- a measure of how much information can be carried at any given time -- so their use is limited until the technology catches up with the inspiration.
Most fears center on their safety for civilian use, such as monitoring traffic over urban areas.
"They don't have a pilot to get them out of trouble," notes Steve Zaloga, an analyst with Teal Group, an aerospace and defense research firm. "The local TV station isn't going to be happy to have a million-dollar plane crash into traffic or someone's house. It's going to be a hazard and it's going to be a cost issue."
DRONES
The use of drones took off during the Vietnam War, when soldiers strapped cameras onto target planes and flew them remotely through high-threat areas.
But real leaps have come recently amid breakthroughs in technology, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's clarion call for military transformation, and their success in action in the Balkans and elsewhere.
Advances in satellite-guided global positioning systems and wireless (news - web sites) communications have helped scientists jump numerous hurdles.
Networking technology and increasing bandwidth, too, have driven invention, since they allow the complex machines to communicate simultaneously with centers that send them directions, as well as other locations to which they beam their images.
These innovations have led to the development of combat UAVs like Boeing's formerly top-secret X45 plane, which can carry at least 1,000 pounds of precision-guided bombs and be either pre-programmed on the ground or have its mission plan changed mid-flight.
If operations go as hoped in 2006, the Department of Defense (news - web sites) will start fielding the systems in 2008, Boeing says.
The Marine Corps has also been testing 5-pound, backpack-portable UAVs called Dragon Eye for "over-the-hill" reconnaissance. Missions are programmed via wireless modem and the planes can be launched by hand or bungee cord.
The Marines plan to field at least 311 in coming years. Drones' successes at reconnaissance and bombing in Kosovo, Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq (news - web sites) have also garnered support for the technology.
"Much to the chagrin of fighter pilots in the Pentagon (news - web sites), UAVs are here to stay," says John Kutler, an industry watcher and chief executive of U.S.-based defense investment bank Quarterdeck Investment Partners.
Combat drones were used for the first time in Afghanistan, where the U.S. military deployed a Predator UAV armed with Hellfire anti-tank missiles.
But the biggest coup came in November 2002, when the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) used a Predator to blow up a car carrying six suspected al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, including one man suspected of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole (news - web sites) in 2000.
"Everyone saw their use in operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, so there's growing confidence in the systems," says George Guerra, deputy program manager for the Global Hawk at Northrop Grumman. "What we are able to do is remarkable."
Advances in technology attracted defense contractors and scientists to the UAV workshop.
Visions of huge profits are keeping them there: Rumsfeld's mandate for a fully connected, wired battlefield has directed billions of dollars into remote vehicle development.
The United States is expected to spend about $680 million on military applications alone for drones in 2002, estimates the Teal Group. In a mere two years, that figure is expected to almost double to about $1.1 billion.
Israel, Japan and Australia are getting into the act, too.
Worldwide spending on UAV development is likely to run to about $3.35 billion in 2012. That's up from $1.88 billion this year.
Wall Street is taking note.
"UAVs could be the next very big growth area," says Jun Zhao, a defense analyst for U.S.-based fund manager Federated Investors. "The Department of Defense has to make a decision whether they will fund legacy programs or skip a generation and go directly to transformation."
His bet? Traditional-platform budgets will suffer. "With civil aviation in the doldrums, drones represent an entirely new market," says Zaloga. "It's a great way to grow a business."
Some UAVs, like the Global Hawk, carry synthetic-aperture radar that can penetrate cloud-cover and sandstorms. Other, smaller drones carry electro-optical cameras, similar to TV cameras, that can capture details as small as helmets or hats from thousands of feet in the air. And they can do it for hours longer than any piloted plane.
The General Atomics reconnaissance Gnat 750, for example, can fly for 48 hours and reach altitudes of 26,250 feet.
COMMERCIAL USE
But while UAVs are becoming standard equipment in combat, their commercial use has far to go and they are still rare outside the military because of their high costs and the concerns over their safety.
NASA (news - web sites) has tested drones over California grape crops to monitor frost conditions and the U.S. forest service is considering using remote-operated planes to beam images of forest fires back to base camps.
Countries such as Australia are planning to buy drones to monitor their borders for illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Other nations are exploring the possibility of using drones to monitor the seas for both piracy and storms.
Even as the Pentagon and local governments in the United States are fast-tracking the technology, critics are raising some troubling issues.
For one, UAVs are expensive. The General Atomics Predator costs about $3 million for the plane alone, and the costs quickly skyrocket to tens of millions once the ground crew and other operating systems are added.
The Global Hawk system costs between $33 million and $35 million, while the futuristic manned F-35 Joint Strike Fighter costs about $37 million to $47 million, depending on its operating system. F-16s can be had for about $38 million.
The Global Hawk may cost slightly less than the JSF, but its crash potential is high compared to manned aircraft -- some 50 times higher than that of an F-16 fighter jet, says Victoria Samson at the think tank Center for Defense Information.
Of the 80 Predators in service as of March, 30 had crashed, says Samson. (Some had been crashed intentionally for testing purposes and others had been shot down by enemy fire.)
There are also worries about how well drones can communicate with civilian planes. In August, the Global Hawk finally won permission to fly in civilian airspace. That makes it the first pilot-less airplane to get such clearance, but it was on the condition that it takes off and lands in military areas, and stays thousands of feet above the path of most commercial planes.
Nonetheless, development of military and civil-use UAVs is driving ahead. "The future is promising," says AUVSI's Davidson. "It won't be The Jetsons," he says, referring to the science-fiction cartoon. "But we'll see very utilitarian uses of UAVs. We'll see them on every runway of every airport doing patrols and day-to-day routine tasks.
"They're going to be used in commercial markets for things we haven't even thought of."
(This feature appears in the current issue of REUTERS magazine, Issue 59, November/December 2003. Copyright Reuters Ltd 2003. www.reuters.com/magazine.)
Really. Then please explain to the rest of the audience one Bob Hammond, the best, damn B-52 pilot ever, who drove Czar 52 nose first into the runway of Fairchild AFB as he attempted to barrel roll the plane at 500' AGL. Afterall, he was the epitome of a right stuff pilot. (Incidentally, one of the crewmembers was on his flight fini).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
He's talking 300 hours TT. (incidentally, that's the point at which civilians trained as private pilots are over the greatest risk of splatting themselves).
Of course, time as a measure of skill is bogus. It stands in as a proxy because we haven't got a better metric in the industry.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F.
Bob Hammond = Bud Holland.
In no way, did Bud Holland have "the right stuff". He had Bomber disease, which appears two or three times during the course of a pilot's career. First in Basic-Flight, where you hope it is caught, because later it sometimes kills.
Bomber disease is what pilots have who are not good enough to be handed a fighter, but still believe they are. These are pilots who usually fly well enough to qualify, but have problems in other areas or are undisciplined and careless. These are good stick and rudder men, who cant manage to master emergency procedures, or they cant remember safefy procedures on the ground, or radio calls, things they see as less important, but enough to move them down on the selection list.
A lot of guys end up bitter and angry when the guy who they outflew in training ends up in a Hornet, while they themselves is handed the keys to a S-3 or even a COD. They get an attitude and try to use the rest of their career to prove their instructors wrong about them. So they fly the hell out of whatever crappy bird they were given, and some still manage to become good officers.
Bud Holland probably lived a nightmare whenever he saw old flight school buddies from F-15 squadrons living it up, while he, stuck in a old battleaxe of an airplane, having no real fun at all. Most of these guys get out as soon as they can, but those that stay in are a timebomb waiting to blow. They never accept their limitations, and some even die trying to prove what great pilots they really are.
I've met software developers. I work with software developers. They don't have to fly on their creations. You do.
Of the two groups, the latter is far more arrogant with far less reason to be.
See that kidult with the Cheetos ring around his mouth and the 'No War' sticker? He just programmed the Automated Fault Manager for the next generation of passenger jets.
How does that make you feel?
Doubtful.
Even if Boeing or Airbus, or associated contractors hired such an individual, I doubt that very many dangerous faults could make it through a comprehensive acceptance test and QA at Boeing. I recently attended a tour with other future 777 pilots at Boeing's Everett facility. I think their software is very sound.
Perhaps not on the passenger side, but on the Defense side, they don't give a f***... This is first hand. I should have specified 'defense'. I agree with you more on the passenger side... It's awful, just shameful.
I just heard today: "Why slow the coders down with safety and analysis, we can catch all that in testing!" OBTW, we are only going to test good day, go path scenarios... Besides, testing is 3 times more expensive and if they screw the pooch the first time, the gov punishes them with more time and money.
I recently attended a tour with other future 777 pilots at Boeing's Everett facility. I think their software is very sound.
Not on the defense side. No lawsuits, ya know...
"Open the pod bay doors, HAL!"
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