ERJ Driver

WASHINGTON - The military's reliance on unmanned aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, The Associated Press has learned. And new Defense Department figures obtained by The AP show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones between January and October, forcing it to take pilots out of the air and shift them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand. The dramatic increase in the development and use of drones across the armed services reflects what will be an even more aggressive effort over the next 25 years, according to the new report.
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This is really interesting. Wonder if that means the number of real military pilots will diminish dramatically in the future? Hmm. I guess the pilot shortage will just keep growing...

L'il J.Seinfeld

And unmanned cargo planes will take jobs at UPS/FDX within 15 years, IMO.

Cooperd0g

Dude, I am a fighter guy and as I type this I just got off shift at the CAOC (combined air operations center) in Qatar keeping watch over Iraq so here are my thoughts:

While I don't know the exact number of hours of use, UAVs are being used extensively. Not only by the Air Force, the Army has their own as well. These assets provide a capability that are of tremendous advantage to the ground commanders (Army and Marines) and also provide incredible amounts of information to the intel world as a whole for planning and conducting "other" things as well.

The arming of these assets is extremely limited and their long on station time generally prevents serious weapon loadout (things that will actually kill and destroy things). This doesn't mean they won't be able to figure that out in the future though. In fact, if they could carry some real bombs while retaining their current capabilities, they would be the ultimate COIN (counter insurgency) aircraft and possibly CAS (close air support) aircraft in a permissive environment.

Because of the UAV's inability to carry significant destructive loads, fighters are still the preferred aircraft when the boys in cammo are doing some serious work. F-22 and F-35 are the jets of the future along with the higher block F-16s and F/A-18 E/F that will stick around for a while and none of those are planned to be unmanned at this time.

As the future progresses (thinking 30-40 years here) there may indeed be less manned fighters and big bombers. Despite that, there will be a need for a long time to have manned aircraft for the dynamic large force environment. Satellite relays take time to process information, requests, and aircraft commands - the speed of light is only so fast when trying to operate jets from half way around the world and bouncing signals off of satellites.

UAVs will replace some assets, but not all. I think they are mostly an enhancement into areas that we didn't even think about 10 years ago. That might lead to fewer military pilots overall though and contribute to the pilot shortage you are referring to as I don't think anyone will be allowed to count Predator time.

rickair7777

This assessment is right on. There are many things which a human mind on scene can simply do better. UAS's (UAV's) will continue to grow into their niche: long endurance endurance loitering missions, either purely sensor or sensor w/ weapons ready on-station.

I would expect to see combat UAV's working in close coordination and under the direction of manned tactical aircraft. This allows an optimal mix of capabilities.

The Isrealis have stated flat out that they do NOT forsee a future without manned combat aircraft... and they are planning accordingly. Unmanned aircraft capabilities are not limited by engineering constraints...they are limited by the fact that we cannot build artificial minds with human-like capabilities. Modern computers are not even in the same universe with our own minds. They can do more bulk processing in a quantity sense, but they cannot exercise imagination or creativity, or really learn on their own...and there is no indication that this is going to change any time soon.

Unmanned civilian freighters will likely only be fielded after the military does it...the airlines cannot afford on their own the R&D and reengineering of the national airspace system just to eliminate the jobs of a few thousand pilots. And the military is very unlikely to bother for these reasons:

- It would be almost inconceivable that we would operate military pax/troop transports where human pax are flown without human pilots on board. Human nature won't go there.

- Most military transports have two or three purposes: Cargo, Troop Transport, Ariel Refueling. Our transport fleet is flexible, and we are not likely to want to deploy transport/refueler aircraft which cannot shift missions to carry troops because they are unmanned! We are supposed to be doing more with less...

- Since military transports operate largely in civil airspace, you still have the problem of re-engineering the domestic AND global airspace systems.

Deuce130

No way. Maybe in our lifetime, but certainly not while we're flying at FDX or UPS. The accident rate on UAVs is nowhere near safe enough to allow extensive CONUS flying into large regional or international airports. All it would take is one unmanned A300 plowing into downtown Detroit while on short final to shut it all down for good. Single man cockpits I could imagine, but unmanned flight decks? I don't think so. If you truly believe that way, what are you doing to plan for being out of a job?

1Seat 1Engine

We can't even get rid of all the flight engineers....

FNG1

Do you log any type of time during UAVs ops?.....at least simmulated time?

GunshipGuy

I disagree with the thought that UAV's will be under the direction of manned tactical aircraft. Perhaps a manned control ship of some sort, but not tactical aircraft. The big boss on the ground wants the UAVs giving him eyes on what he wants to see and putting that under the control of a guy out in the field is not the type of decentralized command he's looking for. Think about it--he's already telling you what he wants you to do in your cockpit. If you're not SATCOM capable then someone who is is relaying the instructions.

So, yes, unmanned aircraft ops will continue to soar, and IMHO you can not limit your vision to what's acceptable in today's world. Future transport of cargo will come after the DOD has demonstrated the ability to keep ISR platforms up with a satisfactory safety record, followed by faster moving aircraft (read: more agile and Mk 84-like capable UAVs [not to mention other non-kinetic unmanned weapon systems]). Some would like to think this will happen over the next 10 - 20 years. I don't know what the time line will be, but I don't see it ever coming to the point that any commander is going to let his troops board an aircraft that doesn't have a qualified pilot on board in some capacity in case everything goes to hell. Which means if the Army isn't letting the troops go out on unmanned aircraft the general public sure as hell isn't going to do it.

GunshipGuy

Preferred when the LDHD assets aren't available.

Cooperd0g

Yes, that is true. I meant preferred to a UAV. A gunship is almost always the best for supporting ground troops, but they do have some limitations as well that we can't really go into here.