Unmanned v manned
Unmanned is coming.
The UK Defence R&D Board has mandated that £13 million pounds of research money be spent on UAS technologies, each year, for 5 years. This resource is funding research into autonomy, airspace integration, system survivability and many other areas.
An additional £10 million pounds of UK Defence research money is being spent, each year, for 5 years, specifically on UCAV technologies.
The US has spent, and is continuing to spend, significantly more than that.
This is not being done out of some sort of naive love of technology but because unmanned solutions provide capabilities that manned can't. The operational evidence to that effect is manifest. As a matter of open record, H450 has >60,000hrs in Th, REAPER has more and that doesn't satisfy the operational demand. God knows the figures for DHIII and T Hawk.
Debate on the merits or otherwise of unmanned is healthy. This is a paradigm shifting suite of technologies and associated approach to warfare - the operational community needs to mature and adjust its thinking.
However, most of the debate on this thread is poorly informed - on both sides. Unless you have involvement in UAS either as an operator, scientist, engineer or informed policy maker, I would counsel sticking to asking questions.
Sun.