[DannyTN]

There's something about the idea of pilotless drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, that makes them seem both ominous cost effective and cool.

• No pilot - No labor
• No person - less fuel
• Multiple drones per monitor

  Smart

[Myrddin]

No pilot - No labor

The pilot is sitting on the ground. The drone is flown by a radio link. There is not only labor for the pilot doing the flying, but there is also maintenance to keep the UAV in good mechanical and electronic condition. The principal advantage is not having a live pilot in the aircraft. Less fuel. No risk to the life of the pilot. Ability to make high G maneuvers that a live pilot could not tolerate.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

All UAV currently flying today both in military hands and the hands of the CIA are flown by rated pilots.

One of the guys who worked for my former flight department left right after 9/11 to go and fly UAV’s.

They also require maintance technicians to boot, they do have moving parts ya know…

[Amerigomag]

There's something about the idea of pilotless drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, that makes them seem both ominous cost effective and cool.

At this stage of development these ABP "toys" may be "cost effective" but as these surveillance drones become useful thay are going to cost on the order of a thousand times more than they do now (>$30k/ unit).

The cost of the these aircraft lies not in their propulsion system or airframe but in their software and surveillance systems. Daylight imaging is cheap but night imaging of any useful resolution is astronomical. Reporting the position of the surveillance platform is realtively economical but reporting the position of the target in realtime is economically numbing for the private sector and their are only a limited number of sources for the navigation/flight/communication code. The individuals who developed this sophistocated software over the past 5 years aren't going to donate their work product to the ABP because they're patriotic.

One of the leaders in Micro UAV technology recently reminded me, when I broached the subject of ABP's experiments, that the cost of this technology is only justified by a free spending government because the system saves lives. The ABP will sadly conclude, after their experience, that it is cheaper to acquire, operate and maintain a light, civilian aircraft with a flight crew of two than it is to attempt to operate an autonomous, integrated, night surveillance system utilizing UAVs.