Drone Carriers

[tincansailor]

Interesting news story. Could be a game changer, or at least mix things up. The recovery of drones so you can reuse them will certainly make them more cost effective.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/air-force ... r-cm898778

[southernphantom]

I guess the old AAC design studies from the 70s make a lot more sense with UCAVs than manned fighters. If anyone here has not done so already, I strongly recommend reading this document:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/529372.pdf

[sferrin]

Interesting news story. Could be a game changer, or at least mix things up. The recovery of drones so you can reuse them will certainly make them more cost effective.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/air-force ... r-cm898778

FFS I get tired of people throwing the term "game changer" around for every damn thing that comes around, simply because they've never heard of something. The wheel was a game changer. Nuclear weapons were a game changer. Computers were a game changer. The jet engine was a game changer. This here is nothing more than the next step in spy-vs-spy.

And that article sounds like it was written by a 14 year old COD warrior.

"That's a nice looking aircraft carrier you've got there -- but can it fly? "

Really? That's a nice looking Gremlin you've got there - how many 2000lb bombs can it carry? Jesus.

[KamenRiderBlade]

60 lb payload, that's it?

Our Predator / Reaper UAS can do better than that

The Predator can be armed with 4x AGM-114 Hellfire missile's that weigh 100-108lb each

The Reapers payload is 3,800 lb

And we can field ALOT more them right now if we wanted to for the same price of Mother Plane + Mini Drones.

What they are offering doesn't make sense.

If you're talking about latency from the CNC to the drone, we can position the troops anywhere closer to lower latency.

Do you really think they can make the cost of these Gremlins cheap enough that a Predator / Reaper armed with the latest ARGUS / IS wide area persistent view can't beat?
That's 39 square mile area circle of Monitoring + Armed Weapons on a Reaper.

ARGUS-IS achieved IOC in 2014 as well

We also have variable payload weapon sizes in our arsenal as well.

As far as contested territory, we have the F-35 + F-22.

Once we eliminate AA assets, the Predator / Reaper combo can take over.

[tincansailor]

Interesting news story. Could be a game changer, or at least mix things up. The recovery of drones so you can reuse them will certainly make them more cost effective.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/air-force ... r-cm898778

FFS I get tired of people throwing the term "game changer" around for every damn thing that comes around, simply because they've never heard of something. The wheel was a game changer. Nuclear weapons were a game changer. Computers were a game changer. The jet engine was a game changer. This here is nothing more than the next step in spy-vs-spy.

And that article sounds like it was written by a 14 year old COD warrior.

"That's a nice looking aircraft carrier you've got there -- but can it fly? "

Really? That's a nice looking Gremlin you've got there - how many 2000lb bombs can it carry? Jesus.

As I said a game changer, or at least a mix things up. No I've never heard of an aircraft that collected drones that would have otherwise crashed in enemy territory. Have you? What is the cost of 50 MALD or MALD-J? How much money would it save if they could be reused? Space X now reuses it's boosters. Are reusable boosters nothing more then the next step in spy-vs-spy?