Drones have
increasingly been seen as a cheaper, more capable fighting aircraft that can be
used without risk to pilots. They can
also be used for long range reconnaissance missions, their light weight meaning
that they require less fuel and can be in the air longer than traditional
aircraft.
 |
| Picture 5. Military drones currently in use. |
Williams
(2013) explains the main benefits that come through the use of drone
aircraft. He states, “with their ability
to loiter for up to twenty-four hours and use high-resolution cameras to follow
their targets from afar, the UAV drones have added a level of precision to the
[Afghanistan] bombing campaign that has never been seen in previous aerial
campaigns” (page 5).
He continues
that “whereas in earlier bombing campaigns high flying jets dropped clumsy,
unguided ‘dumb bombs’ on their targets, the slower propeller-driven Predators
and Reapers hover over their targets, track their pattern-of-life movements
with high-resolution and infrared cameras and fire smaller missiles and
mini-bombs that are guided by lasers or satellites (page 5).
 |
| Picture 6. A Predator Drone |
As an
interesting and slightly worrying point, Benjamin (2012) notes that a drone can
‘go rouge’, meaning that the remote control is no longer communicating with the
drone. He gives the example of a 2008
drone used by Irish peacekeepers in Chad: “After losing communication, it [the
drone] decided on its own to start heading back to Ireland, thousands of miles
away, and crashed en route” (page 24).
The
Washington Post (2013) also notes in its special investigative report that
there is increasing international concern that some governments might not be
able to protect drones from hackers and terrorist. It provides an example in Iraq, where “insurgents,
using a $30.00 piece of software, intercepted live feeds from US drones” (page
14).
