UAVs SUCK: Can't Fly Enough and Crash Often
Video description:
The USAF recently admitted they could only get less than a dozen UAVs up into the air over Iraq/Afghanistan! Is it a wonder the rebels are free to lay land mines on roads to blow up lazy Americans in wheeled trucks? As we have been saying all along, (since 1997) UAVs cannot be flown in enough numbers, can't see beyond a "soda straw" that wears out operator's eyes on the ground looking at TV screens (see 1:37 into the video) and are constantly getting shot-down and crashing at a 50% rate:http://www.geocities.com/usarmyaviationdigest/grasshoppersmustreurn.htm
How did we get into such a mess where we'd misguide ourselves into thinking UAVs are a panacea?
1. Pilot Egos
2. Corporate Greed
Pilots of fast jets are threatened by slower observation/attack (O/A) aircraft getting all the action and glory, and helicopter pilots fear the long loiter time/efficiency of fixed-wing planes so both ego groups got rid of all our O/A aircraft: no more O-1s, O-2s, OV-1s, OV-10s. To WORK AROUND these egomaniacs, pilot-less UAVs are sought by GROUND maneuver units needing air surveillance since the aviators don't want to do it.
http://www.combatreform.org/killerbees.htm
The sad fact is it doesn't work and all the chest beating when an UAV finds a bad guy pales in comparison to when we routinely KILLED BAD GUYS DAILY in O/A aircraft! We had over 300 x O/A aircraft at one time over Vietnam!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZKiuZkSHdI
http://www.combatreform.org/johnpaulvann.htm
Corporations like UAVs because they can charge more than a manned aircraft while providing LESS aircraft = MORE PROFITS FOR THEM. That UAVs crash constantly only sweetens their pots even more because they need to build replacements! Ka-CHING! $$$$
We need MANNED O/A aircraft that can be flown en masse without colliding, have survival instincts to get back to base, that can see with human eyesight plus sensors to get 24/7/365, comprehensive, air pressure on the enemy in sub-national conflicts and to find well-camouflaged enemies in nation-state wars. UAVs have a role to play helping manned O/A aircraft as long as they don't become cash-cows for greed and work-arounds to ego rackets. Congress should re-establish the U.S. Army to have its own Air Force and mandate that it flies its own fixed-wing aircraft for O/A, CAS and short-range tactical transport by creating a new social class of pilots and enlisted observers who are there to serve ground units.
http://www.combatreform.org/enlistedpilots.htm
http://www.combatreform.org/aircommandos.htm
Having ALL air power functions in the central USAF bureaucracy using the 1943 North Africa paranoia
http://www.combatreform.org/killerbees3.htm
or even the alleged "TacAir friendly" USMC bureaucracy has resulted in O/A and CAS aircraft to nearly vanish from our arsenal with our troops paying for it with their lives and limbs.
