According to the The Daily Planet, the blog of Air & Space Smithsonian, in November troops in Afghanistan will likely be resupplied by the K-Max, an automated cargo helicopter. The video is from a test earlier this year where the unmanned helo exceeded the Navy’s requirement to carry at least 6,000 pounds of cargo per day for five days. Over that period, the K-Max delivered 33,400 pounds of cargo to different locations on a single flight, and nearly 3,500 pounds on one mission.
Not the Navy’s only unmanned aircraft project, its carrier-based stealth UAV, the X-47B, made its first flight earlier this year. I think most will agree that flying a helicopter, especially in squirrely mountain winds, and carrier ops are two of aviation’s more difficult challenges.
So what future do you see for more prosaic forms of flight now that machines are taking over from humans in military operations? And before you dismiss the question, consider this headline in the November 27 Los Angeles Times: Idea of Civilians Using Drone Aircraft May Soon Fly with FAA.
A more pressing question should be, even though we can do this, should we? Have we gotten too smart for our own good? On one hand, the technology and its capabilities are really cool. But what are the consequences, and have we considered them, especially for civilian applications? If history offers us a clue, the answer is clearly a nope.
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