The ability to linger for many hours, as one poster above pointed out, makes them very useful for taking out certain targets when you have to watch some point on the ground for long periods. But most aviation mission will still require putting pilots in jeopardy.

Seriously, The quote I take away from the article, which, I think, is one of the most important,

“Today, fewer than one in a hundred serve in the military, and as the machines take over and that flesh-and-blood burden shrinks even more, the citizenry will disengage more and more.”

This is a a very unhealthy thing. We already have very serious problems with the civilian populace’s disconnection from military service and the obligations of citizenship. Such a thing brought Rome to empire, then dissolution. It looks like we are doing far faster than Rome did.

God, what an insight! If we let ACORN run things we’ll have a 13 million man force and 150 Ftr Wings! (Now about that personnel quality and QC on the production line…..hummmm…)

Navy policymakers in the Pentagon are seemingly unable to determine in which area Fleet needs lie relative to unmanned aviation. The efficacy of initiatives such as Broad Area Maritime Surveillance cannot be denied (once they reach a mature state), however significant questions remain as to exactly what Firescout will accomplish. The Pacific and Atlantic HSL squadrons are slowly being converted to use the MH-60R. The simple question of what shipboard CO will happily accept a halving of their manned SAR and ASW assets to make deck space for a UAV with no radar capabilities, no proven ability to carry weapons, and the same mission radius as a 60B or 60R is one that seems not to have been asked. Beyond that, no one seems to remember that the Navy has been down this road before with the Vietnam-era DASH system. One, I might add, that relied almost entirely on manual control and saw FC’s behind the sticks. These systems were taken out of commission in favor of the SH-2 Seasprite and LAMPS Mk I.

The Esquire article is okay, a little wordy in spots but as Virg so succinctly put it above it doesn’t come close to touching the thorny end of the plant: what we are expecting to do with unmanned systems in the future when you still need people on the ground. Additionally, what I was getting at here is that although the UAV has a place in the overall force it isn’t the panacea that some would make it out to be.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin.

Bob Dylan

If only ACORN made aircraft…

We need more of both manned and unmanned, and boats to put them on, big or small.

But we get healthcare reform that will bankrupt us.