Everyone is a pilot now!
As technology becomes more and more entrenched in out lives, everybody becomes a geek. Nowadays, even my mom knows how to right click and play a song in iTunes instead of the default Windows Media Player.
In the early days of computers, you had people just to create charts and operate word-processors. Investment banks had huge teams of chart experts to create pitch books. Now you and me can do it better.
This trend can be seen in military aviation as well. Soon, most military aircraft will be operated by the particular force that needs air support (army/marines/special-forces), rather than a dedicated air-force.
UAV's are becoming more and more common, and cheaper, and easier to operate. With more R&D being done due to the Iraq war, UAV's are acquiring most of the capabilities of ground-attack fighters. Air-force ground-attack figthers usually attack targets based on army requests. But there is a lot of tension between the US army and the US air-force because the air-force doesn't always provide the support requested. If you want to relate to this, think of some centralised function in your company that you depend on. If that division is internal, most probably, they have their own priorities, and you will be bottom in that wait-list.
UAV's have been the manna from heaven for the US Army. The US Army currently operates around 9,000 UAV's in Iraq, all operated by soldiers. These UAV's have been responsible for cutting down most of the combat fatalities since 2007. Nowadays I don't hear much of soldiers dying there. The UAV's verify a patrol route before a combat patrol passes thru the area. They also run some special image processing programs to search for roadside bombs.
Now every soldier is a potential pilot!!
In the early days of computers, you had people just to create charts and operate word-processors. Investment banks had huge teams of chart experts to create pitch books. Now you and me can do it better.
This trend can be seen in military aviation as well. Soon, most military aircraft will be operated by the particular force that needs air support (army/marines/special-forces), rather than a dedicated air-force.
UAV's are becoming more and more common, and cheaper, and easier to operate. With more R&D being done due to the Iraq war, UAV's are acquiring most of the capabilities of ground-attack fighters. Air-force ground-attack figthers usually attack targets based on army requests. But there is a lot of tension between the US army and the US air-force because the air-force doesn't always provide the support requested. If you want to relate to this, think of some centralised function in your company that you depend on. If that division is internal, most probably, they have their own priorities, and you will be bottom in that wait-list.
UAV's have been the manna from heaven for the US Army. The US Army currently operates around 9,000 UAV's in Iraq, all operated by soldiers. These UAV's have been responsible for cutting down most of the combat fatalities since 2007. Nowadays I don't hear much of soldiers dying there. The UAV's verify a patrol route before a combat patrol passes thru the area. They also run some special image processing programs to search for roadside bombs.
Now every soldier is a potential pilot!!
