What about flying unmanned drones.. i.e. The Predator

There has been some recent discussion (and I use that word loosely)
about the diffrerences between flying a real aircraft, an RC aircraft
and the MS flight simulator or any simulator for that matter.

One type of flying not brought up was what seems to be a hybrid of
those, the unmanned drone such as the Predator that was recently
deployed by NASA to help fight the fires in California. Flown by a
"pilot" (can you call him a pilot?) sitting in a building at Edwards
AF base it seems this could be a very difficult type of flying. The
pilot was interviewed on NPR a couple of days ago and commented that
when he first was learning to fly the drone, his instructor told him
that it's like flying a real airplane but without 4 of your 5 senses.
There is no sound of the engines to give him any feedback, no sense of
feel to give clues about attitude or performance, no sense of smell or
taste that could indicate something is leaking or burning. All of the
required sesory input and data is processed only with visual cues.

I have been doing a little research on the 'net, but can't yet find
any information on how they actully fly the drone. Does the pilot see
an image through a camera much like the view you get with a single
monitor in MSFS. Are there multiple cameras? Do they pan around? Or is
everthing flown IFR by instruments?

What about ATC and flying in and around commercial and GA traffic? Do
they contact ATC centers and airport approach controls? How would they
communicate with ATC? Would it be via telephone since the standard
radio frequencies are not going to work from a ground based station to
another far off ground based station?

Just some musings I have had since I read the NASA drone story.



Kirk Ellis
PP-ASEL
Jacksonville, FL