"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Tarver Engineering" wrote:

That is the theory behind UCAVs. One pilot can fly until he/she is
tired and then someone else can fly.

Reliability-Availability-Revenue

...except that UAVs, for at least the next couple of decades, are going
to be missing the first and second parts of that chain.

That will be true for perhaps another ten years, but not beyond that.

"Reliability," in modern terms, means "all weather, day and night," as a
bare minimum. We have enough trouble keeping most of them in the air in
*good* weather. Until they get a decent self-piloting/return/defense
mode for when they lose their uplink, they're just big model airplanes.

The satellite sensors are in the que.

"Availability" implies "can do all of the jobs we need them to do."

Availability means they will fly at all.