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US Air Force Prepares Drones to End Era of Fighter Pilots
The Pentagon aims to robotise 15% of US armed forces by 2015
As part of an expanding programme of battlefield automation, the US Air Force has said it is now training more drone operators than fighter and bomber pilots and signalled the end of the era of the fighter pilot is in sight.
(TARIQ MAHMOOD/AFP/Getty Images) In a controversial shift in military thinking - one encouraged by the now-confirmed death of Pakistani Taliban
leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone-strike on 5 August - the US air
force is looking to hugely expand its fleet of unmanned aircraft by
2047.
Just three years ago, the service was able to fly just 12 drones at a time; now it can fly more than 50. At a trade conference outside Washington last week, military contractors presented a future vision in which pilotless drones serve as fighters, bombers and transports, even automatic mini-drones programmed to attack in swarms.
Contractors made presentations for "nano-size" drones the size of moths that can flit into buildings to gather intelligence; drone helicopters; large aircraft that could be used as strategic bombers and new mid-sized drones could act as jet fighters.
This Terminator-like vision in which future generations of fighter aces become cubicle-bound drone operators thousands of miles from conflict is already here: the deployment that began during the Bush administration has accelerated during the first seven months of Obama's term.
Some 5,000 robotic vehicles and drones are now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. By 2015, the Pentagon's $230bn arms procurement programme Future Combat Systems expects to robotise around 15% of America's armed forces. In a recently published study, The Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Plan 2020-2047, air force generals predicted a boom in drone funding to $55bn by 2020 with the most exotic changes coming in the 2040s.
Last month, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates underscored the change in strategic thinking when he capped production of the F-22 Raptor, the US air force's most advanced interceptor, at just 187 planes, arguing that it was designed to fight 20th century super-power conflicts or "near-peer" engagements - and was not crucial to any future conflicts foreseen at the Pentagon.
In June Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said he couldn't envision a day when he had enough surveillance assets. "The capability provided by the unmanned aircraft is game-changing," offered General Norton Schwartz, the air force chief of staff. "We can have eyes 24/7 on our adversaries."
Some analysts view the Flight Plan study as a virtual death knell for the pilot profession and predict the F-22s' successor, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, could be the last piloted fighter program that is funded.
According to Oxford Analytica, the US is likely to account for 77% of global drone research and development and 64% of procurement over the next decade. US firms currently control more than 50% of the market and could gain a further 10% over the next decade.
As US domestic approval for the "Af-Pak" conflict slips (a new Washington Post poll found less than a quarter of the US public support sending more troops to Afghanistan), the reliance of drones is likely to grow, analysts say.
But with mounting civilian casualties, even as an estimated 100 Taliban militants and perhaps one half of al-Qaida leadership have been killed in drones attacks since September, there is rising Pakistani opposition to US strikes on its soil. Prime Minister Gilani repeated his requests this week for the transfer of drone technology to the Pakistani military. US officials have yet to publicly respond.
The air force study suggests areas of warfare too critical for automation, including dogfighting and nuclear-bombing, could eventually be handled by drones.
For now the numbers are overwhelming - 550 drone operators compared with 3,700 fighter and 900 bomber pilots - but a future in which pilots merely direct planes remotely is unsettling to many in 61-year-old service.
"Many aviators, in particular, believe that a 'man in the loop' should remain an integral part of the nuclear mission because of the psychological perception that there is a higher degree of accountability and moral certainty with a manned bomber," wrote Adam Lowther in Armed Forces Journal in June.
Colonel Eric Mathewson, who directs the air force task force on pilotless aerial systems, has sought to downplay the study's most futuristic predictions. "We do not envision replacing all air force aircraft with UAS (unmanned aircraft systems)," he says.
The CIA runs its Pakistan-focused drone programme from its headquarters in Langley, Virginia, while the air force has designated Creech AFB, 35 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada, as centre for operations for flights over Iraq and Afghanistan. No after-burners; no G-Force; no opportunity for "Top Gun" flair.
Currently, airborne drones are directed by trained pilots who then return to their assigned aircraft. This year, the service started training career drone operators with no airborne experience - they go to war in cubicles with a computer-game joystick and eight video screens.
"It is safe to say most pilots will always miss getting back in the air," Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Turner, who leads Predator and Reaper training at Creech, told the LA Times. "But we see where the air force is going."
The rapid development of drone aircraft has given smaller defence industry players, including General Atomics, makers of the MQ-1 Predator and the new, heavily armed MQ-9 Reaper that carries 14 Hellfire missiles and guided bombs, the chance to challenge established military contractors.
A British developer, QinetiQ, is currently developing an ultra long duration Zephyr high-altitude drone; another, Insitu, was recently acquired by Boeing after developing the Scan Eagle, a basic aerial platform originally designed for spotting ocean-going tuna.
Last April, BAE Systems announced it has won a contract to lead the development of crawling or flying robots designed to go into areas too dangerous for troops. General Atomics, in San Diego, has announced plans for the MQ-X, a three-in-one surveillance, attack and cargo drone.
Wonder at the sci-fi inspired technology, including the 2.3 gigapixel, Predator-mounted camera Gorgon Stare and Northrop Grumman's high-altitude Global Hawk, is not shared on the ground where it widely viewed as cowardice.
Plans for drones that could be directed autonomously present the military with a dilemma. Autonomous swarms of drones preprogrammed to attack on their own is, at the least, unnerving and legally problematic.
In Wired for War, author Pete Singer speculates the machines are harbingers of a new era of "cost-free war". In the Washington Post poll showing a majority of US public view the war in Afghanistan as "not worthing fighting", the detached appeal of drone combat is self-evident.
"It's a historic change," says Singer. "Going to war has meant the same thing for 5,000 years. Now going to war means sitting in front of a computer screen for 12 hours. Then you go home and talk to your kids about their homework."
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25 Comments so far
Show AllThis is just scary, disgusting and unjust. You know the next step coul be using those moth thingys to spy on Americans.
The world my kids will be adults in is one I wouldn't want to have to function in. Going completely off grid looks better every day. But with this kind of technology, there may be no place to hide...
When USAans say they do not believe it is not worth fighting in Afghanistan alot of the respondents have reasons other than the deaths of the robokiller stromtrooper invader.
55 billion for drones and 6 billion for renewable R&D.
If the USA deployed renewables it would not feel so insecure as to feel compelled to slaughter innocents in its oil invasions and occupations.
"new era of "cost-free war"" God damn did we get suckered. $3,000 billion in 3 illegal wars and it could have been free?
I'd like to know how in this country a pathological pimple-faced punk can pilot in real time from Arizona or New Mexico an aircraft that kills a wedding party in Pakistan but rural America cann't get wireless connectivity to the internet?
It finally slapped me in the face that this gov. and its scumbag adherents,they are not elites to any but themselves,have no moral compass but to money and power and the rest of us are screwed along with any other part of the world that they can intimidate or overrun.Tony
Tony,
You've got a whole lot of truth packed into your concise remark.
In a controversial shift in military thinking - one encouraged by the now-confirmed death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone-strike on 5 August - the US air force is looking to hugely expand its fleet of unmanned aircraft by 2047.
DRONE, as you know, is an acronym for Democrats and Republicans Order New Exterminations. The drone, fleets of them, the highest expression of American technological ingenuity and worship of Death, will defeat the enemy in Af-Pak and we will emerge Victorious. If not, then, in the words of General Patton, "Let no man come back alive."
We are becoming more insignificant everyday!
Corporations patent our genetics, listen in on our conversations, monitor our finances and watch you from the skies. There is not a darn thing you can do about it!
I sure miss the old days!
Kids today will never know how it was to grow up in a suburb where your parents encouraged you to go out and play. We would be out well after dark in the winter time, and the folks didn't worry. We learned to be responsible!
Now everything you do is watched be cameras, you obey not because you learned to be responsible, but because you don't want to get caught.
It's a whole different kind of thinking.
We are installing a "New Government" into the countries we occupy, identifying & data basing it's people and flying drones to enforce obedience.
BUT, that's over there right? For NOW!
How long before our local "police" start using unmanned robots instead of helicopters? It's coming folks... it's coming HERE! It's more cost effective!
It's not more moral, people will learn to live with drones, they will plan their lives around the fact they are being watch all the time.
The first half is already in place.Everything you do on your computer is pretty much logged somewhere. All your other transactions are logged and available to authorities.
All that's left is to have a paranoid government believe that YOU are a threat and it can all turn against the interest of the people. The government will judge you from the air so to speak!
The government we install in other countries will be the same government that we get in the United States, it's just a matter of time.
It's better to learn to be moral and live together than be terrorized into behaving according to a corporate model that serves society. There are no shortcuts to moral behavior, if we don't learn to live together on this planet, the planet will end up being, Wolves(01%) Sheeple(99%), or endless fighting.
Moral behavior is NOT judging your neighbor from 30,000ft and a paid informant.
"BUT, that's over there right? For NOW!"
You got it! The "over there" is just a testing ground for technologies that can remove, or at least distance, the human element from activities in which there might be some reluctance to participate directly where real humans (i.e. fellow Americans) might be the targets.
Frankly, based on historical precedent, I tend to think that concern is somewhat overblown, but it's best not to rely too heavily on the indoctrination of human military robots I suppose.
Besides, modern kids really like their killing games to be "sanitized" with digital electronic interfaces. Real blood and guts, especially their own, tend to make some of them queasy, not to mention the physical effort involved.
If you ever get a chance look up the huge Army recruiting station in Philadelphia--It has a multiM$$$ video center for our kids to come to like little sheeple to the best clovered pasture...it's totally OBSCENE, man! And ya know they'll be opening more and recruiting in the schools for Obama's new ARMY and Air Force, little cubicle heros...ain't 'Merika just peachy?
Yes NMBill - how disconnected we are! And ain't it a kick that while we do these gigantic egregious things, people are mired in minutae - worried about sanitizing the inside of their toilet bowl (hey I don't eat from there, do you?) and removing every tiny element of risk from playgrounds?
We have given up so much freedom, joy and common sense in the futile search for total safety.
Joe
Cost free? The blood of thousands will still be on the hands of Americans, however far they distance themselves from the business end of their weapons. This is what I call a broken society - and I judge it by the numbers of its victims, at home and abroad.
I agree with NMBill...there was a totally different time in our culture when we played out doors all the time...didn't have to worry about drive-by's, crack dealers, and the like. Now KRB has been sub-contracted to do sub-standard electrical work that kills our own soldiers. Our trops in Vietnam cooked their own food and washed their own dishes, if we had dishes. Corporations are spying on eveything, under the 'guise of national security. Even this reply, will probably be monitored....ain't this a bitch.
Cost free.
Except for the contracts that will suck money from schools, health and infrastructure.
Except for the perversion of scientific research away from environmental issues, health, water, agriculture.
Except for the actual folks killed by our nifty machines.
Except for the hatred that will engender worldwide.
Except for our lost souls as we play with the world like it's our little video game.
Cost free, except for the bankruptcy of our material and spiritual treasure.
Joe
Please don't tell me their network runs on microsoft.
Well at least we still make somethin here in the good Ol USA.
the mother of WarFARe.
oops.... I hit er twice...
and When I think of Drones it makes me wonder.... Is this as scary as it's supposed to be?
a virus takes over the bots.... then what?
Then is now. If ya loved GI Joe, the killer robots will win your hearts and minds.
Wonder what kinda soda the operators drink?
The only certainty is that it'll happen. It doesn't even have to be a virus. Just ask any programmer or look at all the "bug fixes" that are posted daily.
My understanding is that the drones need satellites to control them. If the satellites go down the drones would be useless. Electromagnetic pulses (EMP) are a way to disrupt satellites. Nuclear bombs exploded in space make a lot of EMP. The nuclear bombs don't have to any where close to the drones. Just shooting a rocket straight up and having it explode at high altitudes would likely make the drones useless. Thus you can see why our leaders are sort of nervous about countries that just have a bomb or two. Satellites can be made resistant to EMP, and there are reports out there in internet land that discuss this, but it would be very expensive to replace old satellites, so I don't think that it is likely that this has been done.
In the news this morning, there was the report that the billion dollar football stadium in Texas has a monster video for people to view, that can get in the way when a team punts. Unintended consequences all around!
Have a nice day and keep looking up.
How about just scramble the communication with the drone?
I'm sure the military is aware and working on the problem, but if something scrambled the communications it would be like the pilot passed out!
Drones are primarily designed for population-control occupation-style wars against relatively poor opponents.
They don't often have such resources.
If China was attacked by the US they could easily knock out satellites with EMP, as has been known.... so could North Korea.
Now i think that you don't have to have nukes even to be able to-inflict unacceptable damage to any super power or little country.
Man against Machine may be our fate.
Keep lookin up anyway.
Neither the State's Robots nor the State's Politicians care who they kill.
Just the thing for our Fascist Dictatorship to put down the inevitable civilian insurrections.
Who will fly airline planes? Robots? I'd much rather that my tax money went to training school teachers and nurses and GPs.
Just when I thought the US could not become more perverted......fooled again...damn! Is this the beginning of a new reality series?.....how LOW can the US GO.....?
All the way down...apparently....Despite Obama's election (meh!) and perceived win for democracy, nothing fundamental changes for the better... These robotic adventures today will be the norm tomorrow and the military Beast will roll on and on much to the joy of the MIC, Congress and our corporate masters. FUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!
Drones--that's adding cowardice on top of the evil that is war.