Politics and the UAV community, are you kidding??? Politics is scrapping every current fighter and bomber so we can buy 187 F-22s and have the hope of some F-35s. Politics is withholding funding to the F-15 in the '90s so the F-22 could look more critical. Politics is retiring the USAF heavy-lift helos before the V-22 had even entered OT&E to influence any considerations of cancelations.

There is certainly room for discussion on the merits of RPA, but I haven't seen it lately. Most people's discussions are guided by a lack of direct knowledge of what RPA means (Scan Eagle, Raven, MQ-1, MQ-9, RQ-4, etc are NOT all the same) and how they are used. They are also motivated by nothing more than having a person in the cockpit.

Fortunately, there are those who see that their allegiances go more to the destruction of the enemy than to the ability of any individual to fly an airplane. There are real fiscal constraints, whether we choose to ignore them or not. There are real ROE constraints that prevent the wholesale destruction seen in wars 60 years ago. There are real political constraints both within and outside of our nation that limit what we can do and where we can do it.

There is still a requirement for manned assets, but not for the reasons that are usually articulated. The current anti-RPA argument on this board has many parallels to the argument the calvary people put up in the 20's, 30's, and 40's. Had Gen LeMay been told he could have technology at the advanced state that it is now and that the technology could lead him to and even kill Hitler or any of his or Japan's leadership, he would have jumped on it even had it cost him 25% of his B-29 fleet. He, as all military people should be, was concerned more about killing the enemy than he was about anyone's ability to log flight hours.

I begrudge no one's desire to fly, I was one of those people; but the military is the military. Even when I got in, there were no guarantees of anything. If flying is ALL that one wants to do, there are other routes.