As a youngster, I built and flew model aircraft, similar in principle to the one above, but we didn't call them drones. We called them radio-controlled airplanes and if you have a son or daughter with a flair for building things and an interest in flight, I cannot recommend this hobby enough. RC aircraft aren't just a blast to build and fly, they're a superb, safe way for anyone of any age to soak up the engineering principles behind the art of flight without the significant expense of owning a real aircraft.
Thanks to advances in electronics and engines, RC modeling has never been cheaper or more diverse. Today, hobbyists can choose between sleek, scale model SR-71 reconnaissance jets with ducted fan engines or RC gliders that can ride thermals for hours just like the real thing. With a little research you can find them ready to fly, right out of the box, for less than a hundred bucks.
Unmanned aircraft have become ubiquitous; they now hover with cameras over sporting events, collect data for businesses, and even guard people and property. It seems like everyone, from Google to Amazon, is exploring further commercial applications. Needless to say there are more sinister uses ... Jump below the fold for a review of those lethal versions and look at a few of the disturbing questions they raise.
The Reaper is larger and more heavily armed than the MQ-1 Predator and attacks time-sensitive targets with persistence and precision, to destroy or disable those targets.
One important distinction is between remote-controlled (RC) and autonomous aircraft (UAV). The first requires a pilot of sorts, the second operates independently using GPS, terrain recognition, and other methods. Today's combat drones are a combination of both and we use the terms below interchangeably. The current state of the art in UAVs is the General Atomics
MQ-9 Reaper, shown above. It's the latest incarnation of the iconic Predator. The Reaper is powered by a 950-horsepower engine, compared to the earlier Predator's 115-hp engine. It can carry more than a dozen times the deadly payload of earlier models and fly about three times faster. This aircraft is well-named—it is a killing machine. But in a sense, the Reaper has become a target in its own right as defense aerospace companies are scrambling to develop replacements that fly faster, higher, and farther.
They include prototypes we've heard something about, like Global Hawk or the SR-72. Others are mere rumor or highly classified. The name that comes up the most often there is Northrop Grumman's RQ-180, not too secret after it appeared on a 2013 cover of Aviation Weekly, at least in artistic concept. While it's not clear which of these aircraft are intended to be armed versions versus pure reconnaissance efforts, the platforms in general are likely highly scalable to either role.
But another fascinating field of UAV design that doesn't get nearly as much attention is the Micro Air Vehicle or MAV. How small can they get? Tiny drones, the size of hummingbirds, junebugs, or even houseflies would certainly have their uses and advantages. They could blend in with their living counterparts, slip by sophisticated electronic defenses or sharp-eyed sentries effortlessly in large numbers, and deliver key reconnaissance, the literal fly on the wall. Such devices could even act as an assassin—a horsefly-sized aerial spy might be plenty large enough to pack a fatal wallop were it to detonate after flying up inside someone's ear. It could easily hold enough nerve gas or other deadly poison to kill dozens of people under the right conditions.
The U.S. Air Force, indeed the military industrial complex as a whole, is not keen on giving up traditional manned combat aircraft, or unmanned tanks or ships, for now. But some forward-looking industry analysts say the writing is on the wall. Drones are orders of magnitude cheaper, they can be tiny and stealthy, and can in principle perform maneuvers so extreme it would incapacitate or kill any human being. They can operate in places far too dangerous to risk a pilot, thus avoiding the political fallout of a dead service member or a live hostage.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Combat drones are already changing warfare, beyond the usual worry over killing innocent bystanders in hope of hitting genuine bad guys, in ways you might not expect.
They can extract a price from the men and women who operate them. Drones are able to linger over the battlefield for hours after a strike, performing "damage assessment," while the crew, safely ensconced in an unmarked cubicle half a world away, watches the grisly aftermath play out on live TV. That assessment takes place in real time, it is done by the same people who pulled the trigger seconds earlier, and it can be done from a much lower altitude providing far greater, gory detail than ever before. It's no surprise there's been some talk that drone crews are reporting a new type of PTSD and burning out quickly.
Another worry concerns the future of wars, which currently are usually difficult to sustain. They are bloody, ruinous campaigns, and the political and economic damage alone can quickly sink a president or party or even a dictator. But if a nation can fight a flesh-and-blood enemy on the cheap without putting their own people at risk, especially in remote regions under the veil of secrecy, it can go on much longer. Maybe forever. Combine that with a powerful profit motive, political posturing, and a political process captured by corporations—it's hard to imagine a better arena for perpetual war via combat drones than the War on Terror.
Last but certainly not least, other countries, even relatively small ones, and in theory even individual people, could build and deploy drones. We could find ourselves in a drone arms race. Or an adversary might learn how to hack ours. And because those designs and vulnerabilities are not something we would want widely known, it will prove difficult for politicians overseeing these programs to really know how safe and reliable they will turn out to be.
These are profound questions that evade simple answers, and more and more people are asking them. Which is why, next month, we'll be featuring an exclusive, extended piece speaking with some of the cast and crew of the new movie, Good Kill, written and directed by Andrew Niccol, whose prior credits include Gattaca and Lord of War, and starring Ethan Hawke as a combat drone pilot, that brilliantly examines some of these very real worries.
This project was in the pipeline before the news of two hostages killed by drone strikes broke last week. Sad to say, now its more timely than ever.
Collect your thoughts and let 'em rip below! It's long past time to figure this out and the clock is ticking.
