UAVs and The Future of Our Military - Essay Example

The question that might come to the mind of the reader is “What are the factors that made the US Air Force turn completely from rejecting the UAVs as a viable technology in the 1970s to declaring them as a key to the future of this countrys defenses?”  The focus of our military is to have the best possible control over all aspects of warfare. The focus, then, is on technology. Technology and cost go side by side. An economic comparison of UAVs with manned aircraft is also done in the study to put everything into perspective.

Following are some reasons for which UAVs are the future of our military in the light of technology and economy: Warfare is the name of knowing what your opponent might do next. Whoever knows that has a higher chance of winning the war than the ignorant party. UAVs provide the best technological solution for constant surveillance – even better than satellites. UAVs have flight times over days. Even if manned aerial vehicles have such endurance, the human can never stay in flight for so long.

Thus, this gives UAVs an edge in their surveillance capability and ease of operation over manned systems. A plane can stay in flight over enemy territory only for as long as the enemy cannot shoot it down. The only way to prevent that is to be invisible to radar. The low speeds along with very high flight altitude of UAVs make them that (Pappalardo, 2010). Airframes can be designed to magnanimous limits, but a human is capable of sustaining only so much physical strain.