To: Hawkmoon who wrote (85880 ) 1/15/2012 3:25:43 AM From: Maurice Winn 2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) | Respond to The sky will be full of drones. With good quality satellite feedback [via Globalstar for example] and GPS and powerful on-board processors, there's no need to even consider putting 80kg of wet chemistry inside it. It's not just the 80kg either. An ejector seat, oxygen supplies, seat belts, lunch, and other stuff are needed to look after them. And acceleration can't be too fast or they'll conk out. Not that drones need to do tight turns normally though perhaps evasive action might require that. That said, I would rather avoid exposing a human pilot to hostile fire any day. > I had a colleague, Joseph Yim who was a fighter pilot [part time in Singapore]. I hadn't realized until talking with him just how valuable fighter pilots are. Without thinking about it, I had assumed the plane was the most valuable part. But in fact because the supply is so limited and the training so expensive, it's really important to keep the pilots alive [never mind the emotional stuff]. Aircraft can be replaced comparatively cheaply. A friend of our son's is also a fighter pilot [in UK] and he described similar ideas about the extent and cost of training.
