UAVs could dominate hostile, friendly skies

If military decision-makers have their way, the heyday of aerial dogfighting performed by hot shot pilots will be a thing of the past. UAVs already play an integral role in the country’s current conflicts, having already logged over half a million flight hours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given these surprising statistics, many military pilots fear that their jobs may be in jeopardy. It’s borderline science-fiction to think that a pilot, who has trained for hundreds of hours, could be replaced by an autonomous flying machine.

But are military strategists letting their enthusiasm for unmanned vehicles run wild

Some want to begin to employ autonomous robots capable of making their own kill decisions—a scary prospect for industry experts.

Funny there is concern about midairs. Remote piloted aircraft have been involved in busy combat airspace for years with not one single midair. Combat airspace is more dynamic than the structured civilian airspace with victor airways and jet routes. There is always a pilot at the controls of these “unmanned” aircraft. They have radios to be in constant two way comms with air traffic control and other pilots. The larger remote piloted aircraft have transponders. What’s the concern for traffic collision avoidance? A pilot is controlling the machine at all times. In comms and squawking. The only difference is the man machine interface. The cockpit isn’t in the aircraft. Other than that, no difference. The amount of computers and airspace/traffic/weather data available to the pilot is limited only to the size of the room the ‘cockpit’ is in.

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