UNMANNED TIMES

If I hadn’t just spent the last month work­ing on a mag­a­zine fea­ture along very sim­i­lar lines, I’d say this New York Times story on unmanned aer­ial vehi­cles was pretty damn good.

There are nearly a dozen vari­eties in ser­vice now, from the 4.5-pound Ravens that fly just above tree­tops, to the giant Global Hawks that can soar at 60,000 feet and take on sophis­ti­cated recon­nais­sance mis­sions. And while much of the appeal of the air­craft is that they keep air­crews out of the line of fire, there are now so many of them buzzing around com­bat areas that, in fact, the air­space can get dan­ger­ously crowded.
In November, for exam­ple, a tiny Army Raven sur­veil­lance air­craft plowed into a Kiowa scout heli­copter, caus­ing no injuries or seri­ous dam­age, but rais­ing safety concerns…

Read the whole thing. Grrrr.

April 4th, 2005 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.