The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV, is a relatively new feature in the US Air Force's inventory. It's features are revolutionary and open the Air Force up to many new possibilities. Unfortunately, even though working with the state of the art technology, I dislike the UAV's to a pretty intensive degree. The UAV's are piloted by normal USAF pilot. Therefore, those pilots that are selected from Air Force ROTC Cadets that want to fly fighters like the F-35 or A-10, can be made to sit in a room instead of being out there in the fight. Technically, UAV's are a safer way to conduct operations. This may be true however, when a Cadet makes that decision that he wants to be a pilot and understands that he will serve a minimum of eleven years, he is excepting a huge commitment hoping do do what he loves and feel the exhilaration of flying up high in the sky.

The USAF had initially utilized the UAV primarily for reconnaissance purposes. However, as technology is ever advancing, the UAV has slowly made its way into the fighter theatre. The first UAV that the USAF put up that actually had the capability of firing two Hellfire missiles was the well known MQ-1, or commonly know as the Predator. However, recently introduced is the brand new MQ-9, called the Reaper. This new UAV is much more capable than its predecessor. It contains a 900 hp turbo prop engine unlike the Predator's 119 hp engine. It can also hold up to fourteen Hellfire II anti-armor missiles or an assortment of other guided missiles. Finally, it has an extended service ceiling of up to 50,000 ft. That's pretty high for such a small and somewhat light vehicle. The Reaper, "is designed to go after time-sensitive targets with persistence and precision, and should the Reaper ever be assigned your case, you are indeed very likely to become toast." - http://www.gizmag.com/go/6149/

Gen. T. Michael Moseley stressed that the key advantage of the UAV is not keeping pilots out of harm's way, but the persistence UAV's can inherently provide. The new UAV may be accurate from a much greater distance up in the air. However, what about close air support? It cannot do that and therefore is very limited I believe. The technology is no doubt state of the art, but I must be partially biased against it since I want a "real" pilot slot. What I think they should do is instead of making selection pilots fly UAV's in some closed room where their SEER training becomes useless and pointless, they should just make it a whole other category to choose from for anyone. Its basically like being really really really good at Flight Sim. for the computer. You can see from this picture that as the guy is doing is sitting there for hours flying this incredible machine with two small screens. Overall, the UAV is an incredible aerial vehicle, but they way that its being incorporated I don't necessarily agree with. We all know that obviously it won't change, so.....better start practicing MS Flight Sim more haha.
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/predator/