Posted by John Keller
I'm hearing a lot of different names lately for unmanned aircraft. The mainstream media seems to like the word "drone" to describe the kind of sophisticated pilotless aircraft able to find and attack elusive targets in rugged terrain. Many in the trade press use "unmanned aerial system," or UAS, to describe pilotless aircraft. At Military & Aerospace Electronics, we tend to use "unmanned aerial vehicle," or UAV.
So what's in a name? To the unbiased, perhaps not much, but I've been covering the developing UAV industry for a long time now, and to me, there are some subtle yet substantial differences.
The biggest problem I have is with the use of the word drone to describe today's advanced-technology UAVs. To me, drone describes a remotely operated aircraft, often used for tracking and target practice, and has no role in describing UAV technology that often as not can operate autonomously. We used to call these kinds of flying targets "remotely piloted vehicles," or RPVs -- a term I haven't seen or heard in several years.
I remember visiting China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in Ridgecrest, Calif., back in the early '80s, and saw old Air Force North American F-86 Sabre jet fighters flying around the area. I couldn't figure that one out; F-86s gained fame in the Korean War in the early 1950s during dogfights in famed Mig Alley. These aircraft were hopelessly obsolete even 30 years ago when I was visiting China Lake.
The people there told me those F-86s I saw in the sky had no pilots in them, but instead were remotely operated -- much like a radio-controlled model plane. Navy fighter pilots in what were new aircraft like the F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter used those remote-control F-86s to practice locking weapons on target during air combat maneuvering exercised. Occasionally, I heard, they used to blow those remote-control F-86s out of the sky, but I never saw them do it.
My point is, the word drone describes something simple and unsophisticated, and has no place describing today's UAVs.
Now for the term UAS. I know the Pentagon loves this term, and its officials are encouraging everyone to use it when describing advanced unmanned aircraft. My reasons for not using it are selfish and simple. The term UAV gets about a million searches on Google every month. UAS gets about half that.
I want Google to sweep as many readers to the Military & Aerospace Electronics Website at www.militaryaerospace.com as possible, and I'll continue using UAV for as long as it draws the most online search traffic.
I'll keep an eye on it, though. The minute that UAS gets more search traffic than UAV is when you'll see UAS through the online and print pages of Military & Aerospace Electronics. We'll see how well -- and how soon -- the Pentagon's UAS campaign pays off.
Couple more: Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), Unmanned Aircraft (UA)... I'm sure I'm forgetting 10 or so more.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Webster, the first definition of drone is a male honeybee that has no sting and does not gather pollen for honey, ergo, it does nothing. Likewise, the original man-made drones were aircraft that did nothing --- their function was simply to be a target. To use the word "drone" for current technology UAS/UAVs is, in my mind, completely inappropriate and is improper word usage.
ReplyDeleteDrone is inaccurate, but simple for the "lower brow line" of the mainstream media. Notice that I did not say "Neanderthal".
ReplyDeleteThe term UAV was originally linked to Cruise Missiles. During the early adoption of Remotely Controlled Aircraft for purposes other than guiding a warhead down a chimney stack, the Air force wanted to articulate the fact that the vehicles were being controlled by Rated Pilots and not by an Intel Chip a la Terminator Style. I believe it was Gen Wald that initially approved the term Remotely Pilotrd Aircraft (RPA) which lasted a couple of years. It was under pressure of the FAA that the term UAS was adopted as the Air Force attempted to secure airspace access. The distinction between vehicle and system (UAV vs UAS) was a way to deal with the fact that in the event of an investigation, not only did the board have to look at the vehicle itself, but the other componets such as the ground control system and the communications system. After 6 years of using the term UAS, the Air Force is again reverting back to the term RPA, again to counter the arguments that the aircraft are not being actively controlled and operated by individuals. There should be no distinction between an F-16 and an MQ-9 flying and launhing weapons other than the physical location of the pilot at the time.
ReplyDeleteFirst if you have been working with UAS for a long time then you would know that at the Program Management Office for Unmanned Aircraft at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama they are called "Unmanned Aircraft Systems", we quit calling them Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles a few years ago. The term "Drone" comes from those that are ignorant of what they are. "Drones" are rocket type devices that we shoot out of the air with our missiles and Field artillery for training.
ReplyDeleteAnother point that I want to POINT out is that the Air Force has very few Unmanned Aircraft Systems!!! The Army has 90% of these systems and the one used for over 700,000 Combat hours is the Shadow RQ7B! It is the most widely used and most reliable; the Army also has the Warrior Alpha and the Gray Eagle and the Hunter. Point is I am tired of the Airforce and the media, neither have a clue when it comes to Unmanned Aircraft Systems.
ReplyDeleteComedian Bill Maher has sarcastically called UAV's "flying killer robots" which brings up memories of the 1960's Japanese manga and tokusatsu series "Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot". ("Giant Robot" did carry quite an arsenal aboard and Johnny could control it remotely.)
ReplyDeleteSeems that the platform capability is resembling automata and they are now essentially flying robots.