Well, I’m sure it’s not a mys­tery to some peo­ple, but when I saw this video on Military​.com, I scratched my head won­der­ing: “Is this a new SkunkWorks project or am I hav­ing Terminator flashbacks?”

Let’s put it this way…when the JSF gets canned, at least Lockheed has a fallback.

– Christian

Not that many years ago if you wanted to hear a lec­ture on how wars will be fought by remotely con­trolled or increas­ingly autonomous machines you’d prob­a­bly have to go to a sci-​​fi con­ven­tion and sit next to some­one with paste-​​on Vulcan ears.

Not any­more.

Peter Singer, author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century,” pre­sented the futur­is­tic sce­nario in a very mat­ter of fact way at the Air Force Association this month in Maryland. And he made it clear that it’s not all that far into the future.

If tech­nol­ogy con­tin­ues to develop in the same time­frame it has his­tor­i­cally — with the num­ber of tran­sis­tors per square inch on inte­grated cir­cuits about dou­bling every two years — then the world of 2034 will be one in which a today’s com­puter and weapons sys­tems will a bil­lion times the power they have now. The gen­er­ally accepted view of tech­no­log­i­cal growth is called Moore’s Law, named for Intel co-​​founder Gordon Moore.

“If you gave your spouse a Valentine’s card or birth­day card that played music or sounds when you opened it up, that card had more com­puter power than the entire Air Force had in 1960,” Singer said. “So what hap­pens, pro­ject­ing for­ward [25 years] … then our com­put­ers, our unmanned sys­tems, will be a bil­lion times more pow­er­ful than today.

“I don’t mean ‘bil­lion’ in that amor­phous way peo­ple talk about it — but lit­er­ally,” he said. “Take the power of that device or that com­puter, of that Predator, and mul­ti­ply it by 1 with nine zeros behind it.”

By that mea­sure­ment, he said, today’s unmanned vehi­cles are the equiv­a­lent of the Wright Brothers’ plane or the Model T.

– Bryant Jordan

The boys from DoD Buzz are all over the Air Force Association’s 2009 annual con­fer­ence out­side DC for the next few days and I thought I’d pre­view one of the videos they shot.

Bryant Jordan shot a quick floor video of Aurora Flight Sciences’ Scate, or what we like to call the “drone in a bag.”

It looks like a pli­able, fold­able mini-​​drone that is per­fect for urban recon­nais­sance and small unit employment.

I’m sure Bryant will have a post on this at DoD Buzz, but for now, I thought I’d post the video for your enjoy­ment.

Be sure to keep a close eye on DoD Buzz for more tech­nol­ogy inno­va­tions and pol­icy pro­nounce­ments at this year’s AFA.

– Christian

We posted a pretty inter­est­ing video over at DoD Buzz yes­ter­day that I wanted to bring to your attention.

It’s fairly detailed look at a Predator/​Reaper strike sim­u­lated by what looks like com­pany offi­cials, though I’d bet this is what a CIA strike might look like.

The video is both fas­ci­nat­ing and at the same time disturbing.

For one, it’s amaz­ing the con­trol and detailed view avail­able to the “pilot” and “sen­sor.” It just blows me away that two peo­ple can con­trol sev­eral drones from an air con­di­tioned trailer 2,000 miles away — or 100 miles away. The abil­ity for the oper­a­tors to dis­tin­guish tar­gets, coor­di­nate with con­trollers in the­ater and speak with spot­ters on the ground is just sur­real and a real tes­ta­ment to America’s tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties and adaptation.

Of course, the video is also creepy in the almost clin­i­cal way in which the pilot and sen­sor deliver their lethal blow. Calm, col­lected — and totally detached from any impact of what they’ve done. It’s one thing to launch dooms­day out of a Minuteman mis­sile tube — talk about detach­ment! …it’s another to launch a mis­sile at a pickup truck you’ve never seen with your own eyes and have no real sense of the impact of that death on your daily life. A pilot return­ing to an air base safer because there’s one less SVBID on the road has more of a sense of his strike’s impact than the con­trac­tor in the trailer at Langley.

This is clearly the way aer­ial war­fare is going — I get it. But it’s going to raise many eth­i­cal dilem­mas along the way.

– Christian

The Los Angeles Times’ Julian E. Barnes reports that the Air Force “is prepar­ing to grad­u­ate its first pilots of unmanned drones from the elite U.S. Air Force Weapons School — a ver­sion of the Navy’s Top Gun pro­gram — in a bid to ele­vate the skills and sta­tus of the offi­cers who fly Predators, one of the military’s fastest grow­ing air­craft pro­grams.“
The arti­cle goes on to state that “until recently, pilots would work on the Predators and Reapers, then return to their assigned air­craft. But the Air Force would like offi­cers to make a career out of fly­ing unmanned craft and become experts at oper­at­ing the drones.”

Nothing like a new fork in the career matrix to keep a mil­i­tary career inter­est­ing. But what kind of self-​​respecting fighter jock would vol­un­tar­ily take off his speed jeans and strap on a lap­top for the rest of his time in uni­form? No more Gs? No more suck­ing back the O-​​2?

The arti­cle also quotes a cou­ple of future generals:

“It is safe to say most pilots will always miss get­ting back in the air,” said Lt. Col. Daniel “D.J.” Turner, who leads the Predator and Reaper train­ing at the weapons school. “But we see where the Air Force is going. We under­stand we are adding to the mis­sion in a cru­cial way.“
“I would love to go back and fly,” said Maj. Geoff Fukumoto, a F-​​15 pilot nick­named “Admiral” who was one of the first to go through the Air Force Weapons School for the Predator and Reaper. “But I think I have found the place the Air Force needs me. Right now, I am com­mit­ted to this job.”

Okay, DJ and Admiral. The Chief of Staff and SECAF thank you … along with your fel­low Eagle dri­vers who will be fly­ing those sor­ties (in a jet, not at a con­sole) you opted out of. We’ll be see­ing you in the movies. Er, maybe not.

Read the entire LA Times arti­cle here.

– Ward

A pro­to­type for an unmanned aer­ial vehi­cle that may one day insert spe­cial oper­a­tors, kill bad guys or fly a wounded Soldier from the bat­tle­field to a base hos­pi­tal gets a try-​​out some­time over the next sev­eral weeks.

The Excalibur will be tested in a proof of prin­ci­pal flight at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland under con­tract from the Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate at Fort Eustis, Va. Don’t expect the robot plane to be car­ry­ing any­one — at just around 700 pounds the pro­to­type is intended only to give the Army a demon­stra­tion of its ver­ti­cal take-​​off and land­ing capabilities.

Patti Woodside, a spokes­woman for the com­pany, told Military​.com that Excalibur-​​maker Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Va., “will be look­ing for cus­tomers and fund­ing” to con­tinue the UAV’s development.

She believes the test flight prob­a­bly will hap­pen in early July, but after July Fourth.

The test ver­sion will only be about 13 feet long, have a wingspan of 10 feet and weigh in at just about 700 pounds. The com­pany envi­sions an oper­a­tional Excalibur to be 23 feet long, with a wingspan of 21 feet and weigh 2,900 pounds. Though Excalibur’s dimension’s would be shorter than the RQ-​​1 Predator, it would weigh more than twice as much.

Aurora says Excalibur would fill a gap between weapon-​​toting UAVs such as the Predator, which can carry Hellfire mis­siles, and manned strike air­craft used for tac­ti­cal air sup­port. The Excalibur would be able to carry any of sev­eral types of ord­nance, includ­ing Hellfire, Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System mis­siles, Viper Strike laser-​​guided glide weapons and other small, precision-​​guided muni­tions devel­oped or under devel­op­ment by the Pentagon, accord­ing to Aurora’s Web site.

Company offi­cials at the Air Force Association’s sym­po­sium in Washington last fall said the UAV also could be used to insert spe­cial oper­a­tors into an area, as well as carry wounded troops out of a com­bat zone. In addi­tion to its VTOL capa­bil­i­ties, the UAV would be able to take off and land using short run­ways.
Unlike other UAVs, the Excalibur will not be remotely piloted by some­one man­ning a com­puter, the com­pany says. The plane will have a high level of auton­omy, it says, which means offi­cials can con­cen­trate on mis­sion plan­ning, includ­ing find­ing and des­ig­nat­ing targets.

The com­pany says Excalibur will reach speeds in excess of 400 knots, but with the abil­ity to loi­ter at 100 knots.

Bryant Jordan

Its six feet long, has seven foot wings, comes in its own launch­ing case and weighs 135 pounds. Commanders will be able to fly eyes well over the hori­zon at sea or land with­out a pilot or even a run­way with a new, portable unmanned aer­ial vehi­cle called the Neptune under devel­op­ment by DRS Technologies. The bat­tle­ship gray bird with col­lapsi­ble wings for easy stor­age can be set up for pneu­matic launched within min­utes, says Jeff Singleton, busi­ness devel­op­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ager for Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.-based DRS.

In the air, its pow­ered by a two-​​stroke, 15 horse­power engine and can stay up for about three-​​and-​​a-​​half hours before it drops to the sur­face via para­chute for recov­ery. Singleton says it has an oper­a­tional range of about 50 nau­ti­cal miles, with an ISR plat­form that is able to note dis­tin­guish vehi­cle or ship details from about five kilo­me­ters away.

At about 1 1/​2 kilo­me­ters it can rec­og­nize peo­ple, and can tell from about 600 meters what theyre doing, he says.
While the UAV is capa­ble of being flown remotely and even landed on skids, typ­i­cal mis­sions would include a pro­grammed flight and recov­ery after para­chute drop, Singleton said.

– Bryant Jordan

Just when you didn’t think things could get any more non­sen­si­cal, here’s a story that makes you just shake your head with frustration.

Now, I’ll caveat this by say­ing I’m wel­come to be con­vinced oth­er­wise, but it strikes me as down­right stu­pid that the Air Force insists on hav­ing Airmen pilot their Predators all the way to touchdown.

Now, I can under­stand hav­ing a close-​​tethered “man-​​in-​​the-​​loop” for weapons releases or snap recon taskers, but my report­ing on auto­matic land­ing sys­tems leads me to believe that there’s no rea­son what­so­ever to have pilots land­ing drones from Nevada (or wher­ever else they’re remotely pilot­ing those drones) every time.

Colin reports in his inter­view with out­go­ing AT&L chief John Young that the Pentagon pur­chas­ing czar was miffed that the Air Force declined to retro­fit their Predators with autonomous land­ing sys­tems. He cites dozens of crashes that might have been avoided had the ser­vice embraced the system.

Youngs spokesman, Chris Isleib, later sent an email to reporters slightly chang­ing the num­bers. “Since 1994 the Air Force has pro­cured 195 Predators. 65 have been lost due to Class A mishaps,” he said. Isleib added that of the 65 mishaps, 36 per­cent are laid at the door of human error and “many of those attrib­ut­able to ground sta­tion prob­lems.” About 15 per­cent of the total was destroyed dur­ing the land­ing phase, Isleib clar­i­fied in his email. 

The Army, on the other hand, typ­i­cally uses ALS for their Warrior drones and has a lower casu­alty rate, Colin reports.

Is this a direct causal rela­tion­ship? I’m sure there are mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances and opin­ions on the mat­ter with some of the mishaps. But it seems to me a need­less attempt to cling to the Red Scarf men­tal­ity of a ser­vice that’s evolv­ing more and more into a dig­i­tal force of sys­tems oper­a­tors than the swash­buck­ling zoomies of yore — and that’s really not a bad thing at all.

Let’s hope there’s some other log­i­cal and prac­ti­cal rea­son than tra­di­tion here, but I’m wor­ried Occam’s Razor is at play.

– Christian