Drone Pilots Say Their Job Is Not Like A Video Game

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/drone-pilots-say-their-job-is-not-like-playing-a-video-game-2012-9

?maxX=400
Piloting a drone is "anything but" a Star Wars game.

Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan is reckoned to be as busy as Gatwick. Every few minutes the cloudless skies are filled with the roar of a military fighter taking off – hugging the ground to avoid pot shots by the Taliban’s crude rockets before disappearing into the heat haze.

In between there is a more persistent sound: the high-pitched whirr of 'drones’ – military aircraft without a human on board – as they head out for 18-hour stints monitoring the vast empty spaces of Afghanistan. This sound, generated by the aircraft’s tail propeller, is a constant white noise for the inhabitants of Kandahar Airfield.

It is said the term 'drone’ originated with a 1930s pilotless version of the British Fairey Queen fighter, the 'Queen Bee’. But, with the new generation of insect-like small aircraft, together with its monotonous engine noise, the name has never been more apt.

Before 9/11, drones were a new, untried technology. Now it is estimated that 40 countries are trying to buy or develop unmanned aircraft. The United States operates 7,500 drones or, in the official parlance, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), making up more than 40 per cent of Department of Defense aircraft. They have been the weapon of choice for the US to assassinate 'high value targets’ – as the military call them – from al-Qaeda and the Taliban.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/drone-pilots-say-their-job-is-not-like-playing-a-video-game-2012-9#ixzz27OGMrgwN

[KoKo]

1. Article is long read with many "pros and some cons" but, this snip

is one that is disturbing to many of us who feel the danger of the use of Drones and those who command them and those who order the attacks.


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"The UAV technology under development sounds like science fiction – from bee-size nano drones that can fly through windows to nuclear-powered drones that can fly for weeks without refuelling. Even if these wilder plans never see the light of day, the MoD has been funding the development of Taranis, a long-range jet-powered UAV attack aircraft that will be able to fly across continents.

The moral question overshadowing UAVs is whether their use trivialises the business of killing. According to the report 'Armed Drones and the PlayStation Mentality’ by Chris Cole, the director of the Drone Wars website, 'Young military personnel raised on a diet of video games now kill real people remotely using joysticks. Far removed from the human consequences of their actions, how will this generation of fighters value the right to life?’

From my experience at Kandahar this vision of teenage warriors seems far-fetched: the Reaper pilots I met were approaching middle age, softly spoken and sober about the life-and-death decisions with which they were charged.

It does, however, seem plausible that risk-free, long-distance strikes using UAVs could insulate the Western public from the human toll of war. If we can kill with such ease while protecting Western lives and avoiding the costs of deploying troops, will the bar be lower for governments to make war? Already, the creep towards a permanent state of war, via drone strike, can be seen. This year alone, the Obama administration has conducted drone strikes against al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. The Ministry of Defence candidly warns of these dangers in its report: 'We must ensure that by removing some of the horror, or at least keeping it at a distance, we do not risk losing our controlling humanity and make war more likely.’

These speculations become even more complex with the Frankenstein fear that, as UAVs become more advanced, they will be able to launch weapons without human input. There is a danger of an 'incremental and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality’, the paper warns, and Britain must 'quickly establish a policy on what will constitute “acceptable machine behaviour”’.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/drone-pilots-say-their-job-is-not-like-playing-a-video-game-2012-9#ixzz27OMEnCo7

[xchrom]

2. +1

[tech3149]

3. I have no problem with the technology of UAV's

It gives a much higher value for effort. That is a good thing. The downside is that it insulates us from the results of our actions.
Being isolated from the act of killing someone either through a bomb sight or command terminal allows doing horrors that you would not even consider if you had to do them face to face.
I think the biggest problem we have with using UAV's is the lack of accurate intelligence and disregard for "collateral" damage. I wouldn't consider killing 12 people to get one "high value target" an acceptable compromise.
The capabilities of UAV technology is astounding but the failure is humane judgment.

[HopeHoops]

4. Ever see the movie "Toys" with Robin Williams? It predicted this.

That was well before the drones were viable. It's a fun movie anyway, but the concept of using video games to control small weapons was very closely tied to the plot. My favorite line: "Dad always though war toys were the domain of the small penis".

[KoKo]

5. A K&R....sad to see this got so little reply...

How quickly we forget the faces of war...

[1-Old-Man]

6. I have a nephew who flies them from Nevada, he says its real war

He says its real war. I was in a war once. I was in it for 3 years. In my war the other side shot back. You can see the names of the ones that got hit on a wall in Washington. His war and mine aren't much alike.

[Logical]

7. +1000, thanks for this!

[Solly Mack]

8. K&R

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. Many of us that pay attention to the military warned you all well over a decade ago.

The future of air combat is the UAV. For a fraction of the price we can build aircraft that are literally unbeatable by any manned vehicle. From the F-22 to the newest colossal waste of resources and gigantic corporate welfare project, the F-35, we are pouring tens of billions of your dollars into dead-end technologies just to build fast toys for boys with maturity issues.

Over a trillion of your dollars are being burned for no purpose every year but to make rich people even richer, while your children are getting a third-world education and Grand-mama is dying from lack of access to real health care. How can you keep pretending that anyone in power cares the slightest about you?