I also don't see the great economic advantage to using the UAV in the
first place. You are replacing a 300k observation plane with a multi
million dollar UAV, and replacing a highly trained Cessna pilot with a
room full of highly trained UAV operators. It's a plan only a government
could love.


In combat.. you have a semi disposable observation platform that has long
loiter time and that can also provide laser targeting information (and some
have shot missiles at moving ground targets and hit them).. and you have
kept the "jellyware" (a.k.a. human life form) safely on the ground and not
flying over enemy territory. Combat by remote control is a good thing.

BT