DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: The Revolution In Unmanned Aircraft Is Overrated
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - August 30, 2011: In the ten years since the 9-11 attacks, remotely-piloted aircraft have become the signature weapons of America’s global war on terrorists. As Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group aerospace consultancy observes in his August newsletter, the only stories concerning military aircraft that seem to make it into the news columns of most newspapers these days are reports about unmanned aircraft.
It isn’t hard to see why. From Boeing’s 40-pound Scan Eagle to Northrop Grumman’s ten-ton Global Hawk, unmanned aircraft have become ubiquitous on the modern battlefield. The military has bought literally thousands of them. They collect vital intelligence for warfighters at every level in the chain of command, sometimes loitering silently above enemy formations far longer than any manned aircraft could. They have killed hundreds (maybe thousands) of unsuspecting terrorists and insurgents with Hellfire missiles, often in places where other U.S. forces could not operate such as Pakistan and Yemen. Just last week, a CIA drone strike in Pakistan took out al Qaeda’s number-two leader.
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