Why predator drones are bad

If you read international news — or have watched Eye in the Sky or Homeland — you'll be familiar with drone warfare. A drone loiters in the sky.

A crew controls from a distance, hunting for targets. A strike is launched, the explosion tearing apart buildings, vehicles and people with shocking ease. The first thing to know is that the drone — the unmanned aerial vehicle — is only one part of the system. These crews work out of ground control stations loaded with screens and computers, but also depend on a massive network infrastructure of satellites, data centres and optical fibre cables.

Depending on the mission, dozens of image analysts might be involved. If a lethal strike is on the table, the so-called "kill chain" brings military lawyers and commanders into the process. In short, a huge amount of equipment and labour goes into operating military drones. That's one reason why militaries prefer terms like "remotely piloted aerial system" RPAS to "drone". Large drones like the Predator and Reaper help the US exert power across the globe. Equipped with high-tech surveillance gear, these drones can provide support for soldiers on the ground as well as launch their own strikes.

And they can do all that without exposing their own crews to danger. Supporters also claim drones make war safer for civilians and soldiers by making it more technical and precise. People living under drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Gaza and elsewhere report constant anxiety , never sure when the next strike will come.

And there is evidence to suggest drone strikes alienate and radicalise locals, sowing the seeds for further violence. The world's most iconic military drones are on their way out. The US officially ended Predator operations three years ago and last year announced it would wind down production of Reapers faster than expected.

That's partly because the technology is getting old. But it's also because future wars may be very different to the recent American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa.

These wars pitted an advanced military machine against poorly equipped armies, insurgents and terrorist groups. Now, ISIS is largely defeated and hunting terrorists across the planet has lost its lustre.

Military planners are looking to the conflicts of the future. The classic Reaper drone is basically a huge glider with a fancy lawn mower motor strapped to the middle. That makes them target practice for an advanced air force like China's or Russia's.

Training for UAVs is less expensive and exacting than for jets. The Predator has been publicly praised by the Pentagon as a versatile and low-risk means of gathering intelligence and striking targets. But an internal Pentagon report completed in October concluded that tests conducted in "found that the Predator performed well only in daylight and in clear weather," according to the New York Times.

According to the Project on Government Oversight, the Predator "cannot be launched in adverse weather, including any visible moisture such as rain, snow, ice, frost or fog; nor can it take off or land in crosswinds of greater than 17 knots. The drones' cameras are unreliable. Further, PGO concluded, "Because it cannot evade radar detection, flies slow, is noisy, and must often hover at relatively low altitudes, the Predator is vulnerable to being shot down by enemy fire.

In fact, an estimated 11 of the 25 Predators destroyed in crashes reportedly were caused by enemy ground fire or missiles. The drones do put people on the ground at risk when the planes malfunction and crash, which they do , and when they fire their missiles, often at the wrong targets. The first flight of the Predator in Afghanistan took place on Sept.

Several times it had Osama bin Laden in its sights, its weapons ready to fire. Then-CIA Director George Tenet refused to authorize the strikes either for fear of killing civilians or of the political fallout from a missile that didn't hit its target.

It can cruise at a maximum speed of miles per hour and carry almost 4, pounds of laser-guided bombs, missiles, and other ordnance. The Sky Warrior is smaller, with a weapons payload of four Hellfire missiles.

It can fly at a maximum of 29, feet and at miles per hour, for 30 hours on a single fuel tank. The plane, which completed its first flight in March , has a wingspan of feet about half that of a Boeing , a payload of 2, pounds and can fly at a maximum altitude of 65, feet and at more than miles per hour.

It can cruise between 24 and 35 hours on one tank of fuel. An earlier version of the Global Hawk was approved for use in Afghanistan as far back as Insitu Inc. Its ScanEagle is an extremely small flying machine noted for its stealthiness. It has a wingspan of It can fly at an altitude of up to 19, feet for more than 24 hours.

The Pentagon has launched a major program to build a new artificial intelligence for controlling its own drone efforts, and Google is helping it. Legal experts and military tacticians have both debated how the use of remote autonomous vehicles could challenge existing views on the use of force across the military and in civilian encounters.

But our view of a military drone as an expensive, large, fixed-wing aircraft with a bevy of sophisticated onboard sensors and capabilities may rapidly be as obsolescent as the idea of wooden-hulled battleships. The subsequent report wasted few words, stating :.

The U. This is because potential adversaries are improving their sUAS capabilities on commercial and consumer developmental timelines.

A simple drone built out of plywood can carry and drop a hand grenade.