Interesting article about UAV pilots

[mellestad]

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

[Perd Hapley]

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. 

[Fly320s]

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.

[mellestad]

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.

[MechAg94]

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. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

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.

[mellestad]

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.

[Gewehr98]

Good from a cost point of view.

Bad from an SA point of view.

[mellestad]

Good from a cost point of view.

Bad from an SA point of view.

SA?

[Gewehr98]

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? 

[mellestad]

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.

[French G.]

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.

[roo_ster]

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.

[Antibubba]

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!   

[Hawkmoon]

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.

[Perd Hapley]

Link unwork.  Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_%28film%29

[RevDisk]

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.

[Cromlech]

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!  ) 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. 

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.

[roo_ster]

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.

[Fly320s]

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.

[Physics]

Anybody else have the sudden urge to go build a UAV in their backyard?  I'm kidding, I swear. 

[seeker_two]

Anybody else have the sudden urge to go build a UAV in their backyard?  I'm kidding, I swear. 

Only if it accomodates small children....