General warns of unmanned aircraft 'infatuation'

The Air Force officer in charge of overseeing the service's growing inventory of unmanned aerial vehicles on Thursday cautioned the military must use "common sense" in charting the way ahead for drone aircraft.

During a conference sponsored by Aviation Week, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, said there has been a "degree of infatuation" with unmanned technologies, which have been used in increasing numbers in eight years of war.

But he signaled that certain missions, such as carrying nuclear weapons, would likely require a pilot.

"Sure, we could do it. Why would you?" he said of using an unmanned aircraft for a nuclear mission. "Technology might allow us to do something, but we have to apply common sense as to whether or not it fits into the overall defense equation."

The Air Force is studying how to proceed on a next-generation bomber, which is expected to replace some older nuclear-capable long-range bombers. But no decision has been made on whether the aircraft would be manned or unmanned or what its exact mission would be.

Deptula said he expects more conversations among the military services about the capabilities, potential and limitations of unmanned aircraft.

"We are at a stage today dealing with remotely piloted aircraft, unmanned aerial systems, where we were in 1918, 1920, with manned aircraft," Deptula said. "So folks are trying to capture and extract all the capabilities of what we have today."

Meanwhile, the Air Force is getting ready this spring to deploy to Afghanistan Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Gorgon Stare, a sensor that will be placed on the Reaper UAV. It will allow the service to transmit up to 10 video streams to 10 users on the ground showing activity across a broader area than covered by existing cameras.

The result will be an exponential increase in the amount of data gathered by Gorgon Stare-equipped UAVs. But the challenge will be analyzing the influx of new data.

"In the not-too-distant future we will be swimming in sensors so we need to make sure that we put in place the mechanisms so that we don't drown in the data," Deptula said.

The general said the Air Force cannot afford to rely solely on additional manpower to sort through the data. Doing so, he said, would be too expensive.

Instead, service officials are working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and defense firms to develop technologies that can process information and do other tasks now done by trained personnel.

Referring to Gorgon Stare, Deptula said, "This will be a huge game-changer in the remotely piloted aircraft-ISR mission set."