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

"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.

Nope. Some of the more-optimistic folks have claimed that, but all of
the current UAVs out there are showing just how weak that prediction is.
Heck, we had two of the current models crash in the same area, in the
same afternoon. Add in enemy jamming and other countermeasures (or even
a couple of guys in a light plane with shotguns), and UAVs stop looking
quite so nice.

They're great for loafing around in unchallenged airspace, but none of
the ones even in *development* are going to be anything near what we
need.

"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.

They're already using satellite-based uplinks. As anyone with any
satellite receiving experience can tell you, that's not exactly a
guarantee of 100% uptime. If someone figures out where your ground
station is and knocks it offline for more than a few minutes, it can
kill the whole mission.

*Then*, you have to come up with software and hardware that will let
that same UAV fly in heavy weather, when the rain is so heavy the
uplinks fail right after launch, with 30 knot crosswinds. We are
nowhere *near* that sort of capability right now, and nobody is even
attempting to predict when that's going to happen in the near future.

On top of all that, you have to start considering in-flight failures of
UAVs in heavy use. If you lose a few of the important instruments on a
manned fighter, the pilot has a chance of bringing it in by hand. If
you lose that with a Predator, it crashes.

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

Availability means they will fly at all.

Nope. If it flies, but can't do the job, it's not available for actual
use. Instead of "availability," use the term "mission capable."


Heck, long ago and far away...
We used to use UAVs of sorts just to tow targets around
for target practice and when they ran out of fuel they would
just pop the parachute and head out to retrieve it with a
motor whaleboat. We had a new XO on board and he
decided we would just boogey right up with our cruiser
and grapple the thing right up over the side. Guess he didn't
realize that the parachute might get sucked right up our
water intake forcing them to shut down the engines!
We were DIW for a couple hours while some SCUBA
divers labored to get the thing out. I heard we were only
45 min. from drifting aground on Sardinia before they finally
got the rag out. Didn't even need no enemy.

JK