Wrathmonk - agreed.
Toddbabe:
Agreed and have been arguing the case for UAVs for the past 18 years!
However, the utility is not in the number of airframes (although it's directly related to the amount of support) it is in the support personnel - particularly analysts where the greatest effect will come from. To keep a Pred B airborne for 24 hours requires 3 gusting 4 'drivers', with a similar number of sensor operators, but also
three shifts of up to
15 analysts.
Bearing in mind the fact that you're not going to have 8 on 16 off shifts that are effective for very long, this will require at least 2 teams of analysts, circa 90 personnel. Where are they going to come from? Our airships may have missed the point, but the ever diminishing budgets of our primary imagery analysis units have meant an ever decreasing number of analysts - we would be very hard pushed to support more than 3 aircraft.
