New War Drones, Some as Small as Bugs

[marshabar1]

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio —

The base’s indoor flight lab is called the “microaviary,” and for good reason. The drones in development here are designed to replicate the flight mechanics of moths, hawks and other inhabitants of the natural world. “We’re looking at how you hide in plain sight,” said Greg Parker, an aerospace engineer, as he held up a prototype of a mechanical hawk that in the future might carry out espionage or kill.


The Pentagon now has some 7,000 aerial drones, compared with fewer than 50 a decade ago. Within the next decade the Air Force anticipates a decrease in manned aircraft but expects its number of “multirole” aerial drones like the Reaper — the ones that spy as well as strike — to nearly quadruple, to 536. Already the Air Force is training more remote pilots, 350 this year alone, than fighter and bomber pilots combined.


The Pentagon has asked Congress for nearly $5 billion for drones next year, and by 2030 envisions ever more stuff of science fiction: “spy flies” equipped with sensors and microcameras to detect enemies, nuclear weapons or victims in rubble. Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and the author of “Wired for War,” a book about military robotics, calls them “bugs with bugs.”

www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/20drones.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=print

[marshabar1]

If they have some that behave like miller moths those will be tough and stealthy little frakkers!

[Deleted]

Wow!! So the saying about being a fly on the wall could soon be true?? They could market those to rich people with teenagers, you know..

[marshabar1]

They might find an entirely new breed of enemy??


Oh frakk!! There goes another $million. . .

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

Uh oh ... What if the other side invests in really big fly swatters?