UAV

A Future View of UAV Safety & Surveillance

February 7, 2013 by Scott Spangler

The 1.8 gigapixel looks at 20 square miles at once.

Comments on last week’s post on UAVs focused on safety and privacy, and rightly so. Most offered valid examples of why UAVs won’t work today, and I won’t argue because I agree. At the same time, I can see how UAVs will safely integrate with populated aircraft in the not too distant future. As for the privacy concerns, watch the video, and then we’ll talk.

The 1.8 gigapixel ARGUS-IS sensor is impressive, isn’t it. Imagine, a 20-square-mile view with the ability to focus on objects as small as 6 inches in 65 different windows while not losing the larger view. Each UAV equipped with this system streams a million terabytes of data, equal to 5,000 hours of video, a day.

It sounds threatening and scary until you think about who’s going to watch it. Don’t give the government too much credit. It’s as disorganized and dysfunctional as any civilian operation. I’m sure the government workers at all levels only wish their technology was as cutting edge and capable of finding and displaying needle in the haystack aerial surveillance video in any multiple of the time it takes in the movies.

As for safely integrating UAVs into a sky filled with populated planes, remember one word: NextGen. Yes, I know, it is not yet fully operational and it has its problems, but like the antiquated ATC technology we now depend on, engineers will work all the bugs out NextGen.

If you dig into the NextGen systems that keep everyone from bumping into each other in positive control airspace, it’s easy to see that the only real difference between a populated plane and UAV is where the pilot sits, cockpit or cubicle. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Technorati Tags: UAV,Drone Pilots,Aerial Surveillance,Aviation Safety

Is Rise of Civilian Drones Accelerating?

January 28, 2013 by Scott Spangler

Many would not expect a prediction of aviation’s future on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but there it was on January 23. The guest, Missy Cummings, one of the Navy’s first female F-18 drivers and now an association professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, said within five or 10 years that FedEx and UPS would be carrying packages with unmanned aerial vehicles.

Watching the extended Cummings interview online, she supported this possibility with the accurate observations that airliners flying today are UAVs whose pilots push buttons and program the flight management system from the cockpit rather than some strip-mall cubicle. And this plays right into a previous post about the FAA SAFO urging pilots to get hands-on with more than buttons and switches.

Always a well-prepared interviewer, Stewart focused on the military mission of UAV because that is their most visible mission. Cummings countered with civilian and humanitarian missions. One she is working on for the Navy is a rescue helicopter that those in need can summon to their remote location with a smart phone. Stewart was understandably skeptical, until Cummings told him about the Navy’s Cargo Resupply Unmanned Aerial System. Shown above, the K-Max helo has delivered cargo to remotest Afghanistan by the millions of tons.

Signs of New Aviation Era are Unmistakable

January 30, 2012 by Scott Spangler

From aviation’s infancy, the US military has been a leading source of aerial innovations and educator of those who put those winged aviation innovations to work. With the end of each conflict, pilots, technicians, and engineers used their training and experience in commercial endeavors.

This cyclical birth of new aviation eras is tied to the end of America’s conflicts. World War I gave life to commercial aviation. Barnstormers became air mail pilots who became airline pilots. The industry made a quantum leap after World War II, in both technology and personnel. This process is again at work, but this time the new technology is replacing the old.

Yes, I’m talking about unmanned aerial vehicles. Drones are in ascendancy, replacing manned aircraft with increasing speed. It is quite possible that the manned military fleet will never again see a new design. Given the cuts facing the defense budget, and the delays and cost overruns that have plagued it, the F-35 joint strike fighter faces an uncertain future.

The signs of change are unmistakable: GlobalPost cites a Congressional report that says, “1 in 3 US Warplanes a drone.” With a fleet of 7,494 UAVs of all types, the fleet has increased 40-fold since 2005. In 2011, reports National Defense, “For the first time in its history, the Air Force trained more UAV pilots than fighter and bomber pilots combined.”

In the same article, looking forward a short way, to 2020, a former commander of the Naval Air System Command said, “The Air Force and Navy will always have [fighter and bomber] pilots, but you can debate whether future operators will be airborne.” Picking up the slack, a number of collegiate aviation program have created UAV programs.

If aviation stays true to its historical precedents, commercial operations will follow the military’s lead. In coming full circle, pilots who want to get old school and actually climb into the sky will do so for personal enjoyment in a GA aircraft. Most likely it’ll be a Cessna 172, which like the B-52, is an ageless and irreplaceable vet. — Scott Spangler

Technorati Tags: UAV,Drone Pilots,Aviation History,F-35,Defense Budget,Cessna 172,General Aviation

Will Army Drones Spark Interservice Rivalry?

January 11, 2012 by Scott Spangler

Wandering through a Google collection of aviation news, Combat Aviation Brigade Welcomes a New Unit, New Aircraft, grabbed my attention. I’m a dedicated rotorhead, helicopters comprise the majority of the US Army’s fleet, and I was hoping to learn about some new helo.

Combat Aviation Brigade welcomes a new unit, new aircraft Nope. In March, the Combat Aviation Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division (aka The Big Red One, based at Fort Riley, Kansas) is getting the Gray Eagle, an “unmanned aerial system” that will be operated and maintained by Company F.

Unfamiliar with the full array of military drones, I assumed that the Gray Eagle was one of the smaller models, like the RQ-7 Shadow, which has a 14-foot wing span. Nope. The Gray Eagle is an upgraded MQ-1 Predator, built specifically for the Army’s recon and air support missions.

In short, when up to speed, the Gray Eagle will do everything the Air Force Predator now does and more, like integrating with Apache attack helos. What’s more, as far as I can tell, the Army drones will be flown by enlisted soldiers, not officers trained first in aircraft they get into.

Given the history of the US Air Force and its aviation battles with the US Army, the service that gave it life. I wonder if the Army drones will be the start of another interservice budget battle and turf war over who flies what aircraft.

Unmanned & Automated Aircraft: Are We Getting Too Smart for Our Own Good?

November 28, 2011 by Scott Spangler

Serving the military in Afghanistan

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.