Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: mellestad on October 14, 2009, 04:43:32 PM
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http://www.esquire.com/features/unmanned-aircraft-1109
Article has some rough language and non-descriptive adult situations.
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It always cracks me up that in every internal military mag, and also in this article, the pilots of the UAVs always are sporting flight suits. Just in case their computer console bursts into flames I suppose. :lol: The CDI factor is ever present it seems. I am trying to imagine the leather aircrew jacketed UAV jockey flying the bar pick-up mission. Will he be careful to mention that he never leaves the ground? Will the story be enthralling, with a hint of cool in the face of mortal danger? Or will the F-15 driver out him amid much raucous laughter. Tune in next time on "So there I was..."
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Ahem.
Know of which y'all speak, ok?
USAF UAV pilots are indeed rated pilots who've earned their wings in the cockpit of manned aircraft via Undergraduate and Graduate Pilot Training. Some go right to UAVs, others fly manned aircraft then rotate to that duty later. They are, in fact, real pilots in every sense of the word. I cannot speak for Navy and USMC UAV pilots, but I do know how it works for bluesuiters.
I think it's safe to say they can wear flight suits with no disgrace, even though their current jobs lack the substance of G-forces and JP-8.
Before I retired from the B-52 and WC-135 world, I heard many sob stories about pilots who were being relegated to flying UAVs from trailers. Due to the demands on the platforms by their customers, cockpit aviators have no choice when assigned UAV duties - the needs of the Air Force outweigh an individual's personal preferences. Until such time as they can create a non-rated UAV pilot career field, that's how it'll be. In the meantime, I wouldn't disparage the airmanship skills of UAV pilots, because chances are good the guy/gal was a former Fighter/Tanker/Transport/Bomber/Recce pilot before getting assigned his video game job...
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Ahem.
Know of which y'all speak, ok?
USAF UAV pilots are indeed rated pilots who've earned their wings in the cockpit of manned aircraft via Undergraduate and Graduate Pilot Training. They are, in fact, real pilots in every sense of the word.
Yea, it even states in the article that there is not a single large-UAV pilot in the Air Force that is not a 'real' pilot. It does say they have a pilot program where they are training people to fly UAVs who have never been in a cockpit though, and that they seem to be performing as well as the traditionally trained pilots.
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Yea, it even states in the article that there is not a single large-UAV pilot in the Air Force that is not a 'real' pilot. It does say they have a pilot program where they are training people to fly UAVs who have never been in a cockpit though, and that they seem to be performing as well as the traditionally trained pilots.
I have read about this also. It is being done due to the shortage of UAV pilots. It is thought that skipping conventional pilot training will dramatically shorten the training times. I will be real interested to follow this to see the results.
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So, an unmanned air force can be deployed 24/7 around the world by 9-5 soccer dad pilots.
Hundreds of aircraft, tens of thousands of miles apart, can be controlled from a single facility in the Nevada desert.
So you can knock out all those UAV's by nuking the Nevada control facility.
Or bombing any single communications relay point that has no immediate redundancy.
I giggled at the guy in the flight suit, too. This particular pilot happened to be a former F-16 jockey. The next generation of 'em won't be though.
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So, an unmanned air force can be deployed 24/7 around the world by 9-5 soccer dad pilots.
Hundreds of aircraft, tens of thousands of miles apart, can be controlled from a single facility in the Nevada desert.
So you can knock out all those UAV's by nuking the Nevada control facility.
Or bombing any single communications relay point that has no immediate redundancy.
I giggled at the guy in the flight suit, too. This particular pilot happened to be a former F-16 jockey. The next generation of 'em won't be though.
I doubt they plan on using human-controlled UAVs in any serious high-tech war, because of the limitations mentioned they seem to be more for 'counter-insurgency'. They have great points about how much more effective a UAV is for that work than a F-16 though. Cheaper ('only' a few million per aircraft), more hours in the sky (24 opposed to 1 or 2) and more accurate (because they can spend more time lining things up). They are just using a more appropriate tool for the jobs in question.
It will be interesting to see if the next generation of air to air fighters start leaning towards local computer control. From my lay-persons perspective, it seems like you could make a good fighter platform by having a person tell the drone to go hot, then letting local programming take over to engage the target. Even if it is not as effective on a 1-1 basis, you can probably get a handful of drones in the air for the price of every manned fighter. Especially since 'dogfights' seem to have fallen to missile engagements. I might be talking out my butt though.
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I might be talking out my butt though.
I doubt it. It seems to me that the advantages of full or partially self-controlled AI aircraft will be in a position to beat the hell out of manned craft before too long. especially since their will be no need for highly experienced pilots who are all too mortal.
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It's also a culture issue.
The Army is having no problems with teenaged UAV pilots who are enlisted. The operating paramaters and difficulty of certain UAV systems may well be different and require an expereinced pilot, but this is not the way things are headded.
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It really depends on what enemy we are preparing to fight.
Somalia, Afghan, etc are not going to break our encrypted controls for remote UAVs. Remote UAVs are the way to go for these fights.
But a China could definitely put remote directed UAVs in disadvantage by cracking or jamming the communications signal.
To counter a superior threat like that, we would require real pilots or self directed AI. As far as I know, both are available. I do not know how much the AI has been deployed/tested. [Aerial AI is much easier than the ground combat AI that is still in development.]
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Interesting issue.
As an attack pilot, I tend to giggle at the presumptive fighter jock wannabees. But they do a good job at what they do. I would say this: some warfare is changing. UAVs are useful tools for some combat situations--long, boring surveillance missions with a limited strike capability for instance.
They're still fighting for our country; don't lose sight of that.
TC
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It really depends on what enemy we are preparing to fight.
Somalia, Afghan, etc are not going to break our encrypted controls for remote UAVs. Remote UAVs are the way to go for these fights.
But a China could definitely put remote directed UAVs in disadvantage by cracking or jamming the communications signal.
To counter a superior threat like that, we would require real pilots or self directed AI. As far as I know, both are available. I do not know how much the AI has been deployed/tested. [Aerial AI is much easier than the ground combat AI that is still in development.]
Interesting issue.
As an attack pilot, I tend to giggle at the presumptive fighter jock wannabees. But they do a good job at what they do. I would say this: some warfare is changing. UAVs are useful tools for some combat situations--long, boring surveillance missions with a limited strike capability for instance.
They're still fighting for our country; don't lose sight of that.
TC
Those two posts pretty much sum it up. The military as a whole needs two separate doctrines, one for first world confrontations and one for the kind of thing going on in Afghanistan.
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UAVs are useful tools for some combat situations--long, boring surveillance missions with a limited strike capability for instance.
TC
And frontline recon both land and sea. Smaller UAVs like the Silver Fox can be launched from a 50 cal mount and operated with pretty minimal training. The ground station goes wherever you go, and the UAV is expendable if recovery isn't an option.
As for the flightsuits, I'd expect those are simply the assigned Uniform of the Day, no?
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I know they are real pilots ok! I was just cracking wise about the propensity for pilots to wear flight suits at any possible excuse. Technically in the Navy you wear them if you are on the flight schedule that day. At sea, who cares, just wear something more than shower shoes please. It was always hilarious watching the CO(also a pilot) of our shore squadron get irritated when the entire stick puller legion would show up to a no-fly day safety standdown in flight suits. If asked they would to a (wo)man claim to be on the duty crew. =D
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It's also a culture issue.
The Army is having no problems with teenaged UAV pilots who are enlisted. The operating paramaters and difficulty of certain UAV systems may well be different and require an expereinced pilot, but this is not the way things are headded.
Army enlisted teenagers have a better track record than rated USAF pilots on not bending the birds. No, I'm not kidding.
1) Apparently the kiddos are willing to let the drone autopilot more often. They're comfortable punching in "Point A, Point B, go" Rated pilots tend to statistically want more direct control, which increases the likelihood of an accident.
2) The teens have autoland on their UAV's. The USAF expressly did not want that feature. Single biggest cause of UAV fatalities is landing.
3) Culture. The Army kiddos love their shiney UAV's and it's not unlikely they know at least someone that they are supporting. It's a voluntary MOS, with a lot of folks who want to do it. Few if any US Army UAV operators were forced into the job. USAF pilots tend to be less than pleased about being assigned to UAV duty. I'm not claiming the USAF personnel are unprofessional, but motivation does matter.
And I've never heard it publicly stated, but I think communication matters. The teens piloting a UAV tend to be deployed in theater. USAF domestically operate deployed UAV's. The kiddos generally have more complete information as they're physically in the same country as the UAV's, as they are often within stone's throw of the TOC if not in the same building.
Another problem for the USAF is that the US Army did not fully disclose information and lessons learned to the USAF. It has been alleged that this was retaliation for the USAF trying to dismantle the US Army UAV project.
LC, you remember John Young's comments?
Disclaimer: I work for a UAV manufacturer. All comments and opinions are my own, and I do not speak for any current, past or future employers.
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Must be a Navy thing. I seldom wore anything other than the Nomex flight suit in day-to-day operations, save for when we had formal occasions requiring dress blues, or on details requiring BDU/ACU uniforms. If you're rated, you're also going by the "gate" system, and drawing flight pay regardless of how many hours/month you've accrued once you've met certain "gates". So you're still earning your flight pay while wearing the uniform.
After 9/11, even the rated aircrew types assigned to Air Staff were required to wear their flight suits as their everyday uniform. I liken it to occupational badges/uniforms, and the requirement to wear what your career field calls for.
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My experience in the Army & later in industry mirrors RevDisk's. In teh Army, it is enlisted folk who jockey the UAVs. And a lot of them are gals. There is no stigma or second-rated-ness attached to the job.
Do not expect autonomous engagement any time soon. Our .mil leaders still want a human in the loop to drop the hammer and will until some enemy shows that to be untenable.
Tack on appropriate disclaimers.
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Do not expect autonomous engagement any time soon. Our .mil leaders still want a human in the loop to drop the hammer and will until some enemy shows that to be untenable.
Can you imagine the PR nightmare about the headline, "Military robot goes berserk, kills busload of nuns"?
Still, it has to be awfully tempting to let the genie out of the bottle in some limited capacity.
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Can you imagine the PR nightmare about the headline, "Military robot goes berserk, kills busload of nuns"?
Still, it has to be awfully tempting to let the genie out of the bottle in some limited capacity.
My stock phrase with regard to the "CNN Effect" and strict rules of engagement often is "busload of hemophiliac nuns."
Think about it:
1. We use some sort of autonomous engagement.
2. Either through espionage or trial & error, the enemy figures out what sets off the engagement logic.
3. Enemy dresses up the "busload of hemophiliac nuns" with heat sources and/or IR masking to look like a threat to an IR sensor--but still obviously a busload of nuns to the naked eye. Say, an AAA unit or C2 unit.
4. Our Robo-plane blasts the hell of it while hte enemy videotapes it.
5. Footage ends up on CNN of our UAVs cruelly and deliberately targeting hemophiliac nuns, orphans, and the Iranian delegation to the Special Olympics.
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My stock phrase with regard to the "CNN Effect" and strict rules of engagement often is "busload of hemophiliac nuns."
Think about it:
1. We use some sort of autonomous engagement.
2. Either through espionage or trial & error, the enemy figures out what sets off the engagement logic.
3. Enemy dresses up the "busload of hemophiliac nuns" with heat sources and/or IR masking to look like a threat to an IR sensor--but still obviously a busload of nuns to the naked eye. Say, an AAA unit or C2 unit.
4. Our Robo-plane blasts the hell of it while hte enemy videotapes it.
5. Footage ends up on CNN of our UAVs cruelly and deliberately targeting hemophiliac nuns, orphans, and the Iranian delegation to the Special Olympics.
The article has a good quote where the UAV pilots have video demonstrating that already. They hit a guy who was launching mortars and his buddies throw all the weapons away so it looks like a civilian casualty.
I think you might see engagements though where a human hits the go button and then the machine takes over actual combat, especially in the air where IFF is probably simpler.
Terminator is a long ways away though...just because of what you are saying. From a technical standpoint, there really isn't any reason why we couldn't plunk a machine down right now that follows a patrol path and shoots anything that moves, and do so far faster than a human can react.
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Over the past year or so, I have read a number of articles in Aviation Week and Space Technology arguing that the F-22/F-35/Foreign equivalents may be the last generation of manned fighters. Given the long service life of contemporary airframes and the advances in UAVs, human- or autonomous- controlled UAV fighter or attack airframes may come within our lifetimes or almost certainly that of our children.
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This thread discussion brings to mind this quote by Gen. Patton.
"All of this talk about super-weapons and push-button warfare is a pile of junk. Man is the only war machine. Man has to drive tanks, fly planes, crawl through the mud, pull the triggers, and push the buttons. We must train to be strong in body and in mind. Always remember man is the only war machine."
General George S. Patton, Jr.
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From a technical standpoint, there really isn't any reason why we couldn't plunk a machine down right now that follows a patrol path and shoots anything that moves, and do so far faster than a human can react.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybaPJ51u1sI
And that was made by a kid. A bored kid.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybaPJ51u1sI
And that was made by a kid. A bored kid.
Yes, with an motion-tracking security camera, an airsoft gun and duct tape.
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Duct tape. Is there anything it can't do?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybaPJ51u1sI
And that was made by a kid. A bored kid.
Then combine that with military tracking systems and the pure speed and precision of these systems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KxjVlaLBmk&feature=player_embedded
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Scary hunter-predator robot-dog. Run for your lives!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHJJQ0zNNOM
Someone was going to post it eventually, might as well get it out of the way now.
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Can you imagine the PR nightmare about the headline, "Military robot goes berserk, kills busload of nuns"?
Still, it has to be awfully tempting to let the genie out of the bottle in some limited capacity.
The US signed a treaty that prohibits autonomous warfare. Not that that would stop any country.
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The US signed a treaty that prohibits autonomous warfare. Not that that would stop any country.
Do you know which treaty it is? I would be curious about the actual language.
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I have seen Dogfights on the History Channel looking at Iraq War dog fights and one recently I remember. A couple of F-15's were patrolling and got a call to go check out unidentified aircraft. Apparently, one guy the pilot had to fly by him before he was sure it was an Iraqui plane. Autonomous fighters are going to have to live with that sort of reality and have some human control/support involved.
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From an engineering standpoint it makes more sense to keep the pilot on the ground. The need to place a human inside a fighter plane, and keep him alive and able to control the craft, places an awful lot of constraints on the design.
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From an engineering standpoint it makes more sense to keep the pilot on the ground. The need to place a human inside a fighter plane, and keep him alive and able to control the craft, places an awful lot of constraints on the design.
And enormous added expense. Everything has to be redundant in triplicate. Without those requirements you get lighter and far cheaper airframes. They don't even have to be as 'good' as a traditional fighter plane because you can throw up more aircraft.
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Good from a cost point of view.
Bad from an SA point of view.
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Good from a cost point of view.
Bad from an SA point of view.
SA?
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Situational Awareness - mantra of aircrews, and especially important for those combat aviators on the pointy end of the spear.
That's why I honestly believe that although UAVs have their place in the DoD arsenal, they're not the be-all, end-all of combat aviation, not by a long shot.
Leatherneck alluded to this earlier.
And yes, there is a culture issue involved with UAV pilots. I can see an Army grunt aspiring to play the ultimate video game vs. being cannon fodder or an infantry type dodging incoming bullets, it's definitely a step up in his world. He'll go balls-out to be the best damned Army UAV pilot that he can be, I have no doubt. Now take a commissioned and post-graduate educated Air Force pilot, with X-amount of hours logged in high-performance aircraft and perhaps more than a few combat sorties under his belt, and tell him that if he wants to make it past the rank of Major during his career, he's either got to fly a desk at a staff position in the Pentagon or go sit in a trailer in Nevada and fly drones via satellite uplink as they loiter around Ickystan. Do you think his motivations are going to be the same as that Army grunt's? ;)
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Situational Awareness - mantra of aircrews, and especially important for those combat aviators on the pointy end of the spear.
That's why I honestly believe that although UAVs have their place in the DoD arsenal, they're not the be-all, end-all of combat aviation, not by a long shot.
Honest question: The stuff I have read (Just stuff like Popular Science, I am obviously not an expert) seems to indicate that platforms like the F-22 are being used as missile platforms at ranges well beyond what the naked eye can see, even for air to air engagements. If the human pilot is engaging a target based on a radar hit from sixty miles away, why couldn't a ground operator tell the computer flying the drone to engage the targets itself? Plus, if you have a bunch of drones up you don't even have to worry as much about first strike survivability because even if the enemy launches first you would have an expendable drone fleet able to return fire. It seems like the necessity of maintaining a first strike capability is diminished because you would not be as concerned about the asset. That is assuming the human pilot can add something significant to future SA (I have no idea), or that a human pilot will be able to add enough to offset the additional cost.
I don't think it is about 1v1 effectiveness, the question will be whether or not one human in a traditional fighter is better than his equivalent cost in drones.
There are serious problems though...if they are using wireless, it can be jammed and the spectrum can be flooded. If we fought a 'real' opponent, our satellites would be one of the first targets. So drones might not even be viable in that scenario, who knows.
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It will be a very long time before we can replace eyes in the cockpit coupled to a brain that makes the decision right there. Even if we do get that level of tech. I don't really think we should put it in the air, anything good enough to react and make life or death decisions as fast as a live pilot will probably be good enough to cause us all sorts of problems. In short, lets keep the AI out of the armory.
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mellestad:
Folks dead & buried have predicted the end of manned war aircraft for decades.
There are some cases where there is no substitute for a man and a man's brain.
Then, toss in rules of engagement that sometimes require visual ID and, sometimes, hostile action on the part of the enemy aircraft.
You end up with in-your-face dogfights like the days of old.
Vietnam is the example to use. Planes like the F-4 entered service with no guns, just guided missiles, since everything was going to be at a distance, blah blah blah, no need to get that close, etc.
Well, turns out that circumstances dictated that we get cheek-by-jowl with the N Vietnamese aircraft and we ended up losing way to many men due to the lack of guns and lack of training in close-combat.
Like others have written, UAVs will be part of hte arsenal and will thrive in certain niches, not all of which will involve shooting with missiles or observing with sensors.
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And yes, there is a culture issue involved with UAV pilots. I can see an Army grunt aspiring to play the ultimate video game vs. being cannon fodder or an infantry type dodging incoming bullets, it's definitely a step up in his world.
And as an added bonus he can live in his colonel's basement for free! =D
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Interesting, the directions things go. UAV is, an many respects, the polar opposite of Firefox (1982), the Clint Eastwood film about a Russian fighter that the pilot controlled by thought. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(film)
Dale Brown had a book around much the same theme.
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Link unwork. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_%28film%29
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Like others have written, UAVs will be part of hte arsenal and will thrive in certain niches, not all of which will involve shooting with missiles or observing with sensors.
Agreed. However, I think the niches exceed the current usage. Cargo hauling, etc.
Another interesting "twist". One human pilot "pilotting" a swarm of aircraft, with automation handling the background stuff. I don't mean a pilot switching between control of different aircraft, I mean the pilot does his thing and the rest of the aircraft follow his lead.
Now take a commissioned and post-graduate educated Air Force pilot, with X-amount of hours logged in high-performance aircraft and perhaps more than a few combat sorties under his belt, and tell him that if he wants to make it past the rank of Major during his career, he's either got to fly a desk at a staff position in the Pentagon or go sit in a trailer in Nevada and fly drones via satellite uplink as they loiter around Ickystan. Do you think his motivations are going to be the same as that Army grunt's?
And now you know why the US Army intentionally sabotaged the USAF UAV program by withholding vital information consisting of flight data, training data, crash statistics, field feedback, etc. UAV's may not be the end all be all of combat, but they are extremely useful and have been credited with saving lives. If the USAF had been successful in appropriating all UAV assets, a large number of those lives would have been lost.
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mellestad:
There are some cases where there is no substitute for a man and a man's brain.
Then, toss in rules of engagement that sometimes require visual ID and, sometimes, hostile action on the part of the enemy aircraft.
Things like that definitely need to be taken into consideration.
A manually controlled UAV has a human brain thinking about things that AI probably won't do for a long time.
Consider a scenario in which a UAV controlled solely by AI spots a patrol of SAS troops. Now, they are supposed to have some kind of way (some tech stuff, don't ask me! :lol:) for the UAV to spot them as friendly despite being garbed in local attire. Well, knowing my government they would probably give our boys crappy ones that don't work. UAV sends down some firepower. :O
If an American operator was in control, assuming he has been told about friendlies in the area he is covering, he will be more likely to consider whether looking like an enemy, with enemy weapons, in enemy territory, is in fact an enemy.
Or am I being a little naive? I am just a civvie.
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Cromlech:
No, you are not being naive. The human brain is much more flexible than any AI. The SAS unit may not be saved every time, but they'll have a better chance with a human in th eloop.
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Do you know which treaty it is? I would be curious about the actual language.
No, I don't. It came up during a discussion I had with an Air Force officer. Sorry, I don't have more details.
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Anybody else have the sudden urge to go build a UAV in their backyard? I'm kidding, I swear. =D
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Anybody else have the sudden urge to go build a UAV in their backyard? I'm kidding, I swear. =D
Only if it accomodates small children.... =D