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The Remote Controlled Military and the Future of Warfare
Posted on: Jan. 5th, 2006 || www.digitaljournal.com

Digital Journal - In a secluded desert in California, two sleek 27-foot-long planes zip across the sky, dipping and swerving like air-show hotshots. But the flying turns vicious when a pop-up target appears and the Boeing aircraft quickly communicate with each other to determine which has the better chance of destroying it. One plane drops a 250-pound GPS-guided bomb from 35,000 feet, hitting the bull’s-eye. Before the planes can react, an anti-aircraft missile zooms towards them, and they each safely roll out of the missile’s path.

A mouth creases into a triumphant smile. But it doesn’t belong to any pilot, because no humans sit in these cockpits. These are autonomous robotic aircraft called the X-45A, whose successful test flights give project leader Dr. Michael S. Francis enough reason to grin.

“We’re putting fewer soldiers in harm’s way,” says Francis, director of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS). In partnership with the U.S. Air Force, the Navy and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), J-UCAS is looking to put more robo-planes in the air so pilots can avoid insurgency attacks such as those in Iraq’s messy battlefield.

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