Unmanned Aerial Vehicles essays

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles essays Air Power will take a new form in the use of UAVs. They will change lives, save lives, and reduce costs. Airplanes have increasingly become a major part of humanities since the Great War (World War I), being able to go faster than the speed of sound, carry tons of items, they are equipped with major electronic systems, and can perform more acrobatics than the human body can withstand. But one common denominator has stayed the same; it requires a human to control the vehicle in flight causing risks to the pilots and crew. Today, however, technology has advanced to such a state that communicative links are now available around the world, allowing the control of an unmanned aircraft from a base station. A vision is that an operator would first plan the attack on a mission support computer and load the strike profile into the vehicle. During the mission, changes could be data-linked via a secure communications system. Sitting at a control station an operator would be able to coor dinate not just one vehicles action, but those of an entire package of unmanned aircraft. This topic of UAVs has mixed opinions between combat pilots to business executives on their use in the armed forces and use for commercial ventures. The current times show that unmanned aircraft technology is breaking into new frontiers just like when "the Wright Brothers flew their first manned airplane at Kitty Hawk in December of 1903, which only traveled 120 feet, less than half a football field in distance" (Hirsch 376), and now look where society is! UAVs are not new, they have a long history in aviation stretching back to the First World War. They were used in reconnaissance during the Korean War, and then as highly classified special purpose aircraft during the conflict in Southeast Asia. History shows that it usually takes an international incident threatening national security to highlight a military deficiency and to stir a desire for new, innovativ...