It looks like the U.S. is flying unmanned aircraft over Afghanistan as of this writing. Very interesting technology, with reconnisance and possibly offensive capabilities. Any aero engineers here to shed a little more light on these aircraft?

I found a little info at: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/Cuttin...uttingedge.html

 

No...... but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night

 

Anything in particular you want light shed upon? I can take a shot at least. Generally speaking, these things are the wave of the future. You may remember hearing about the Predator RPV's in the Gulf War...those are relatively small and were used for recon missions. They are still in the inventory, and have the potential to be weaponized. The other two types of unmanned planes discussed publicly are the Dark Star and Global Hawk. Both are also recon platforms...Dark Star is stealthy, and Global Hawk is just that...global. One recently flew from here to Europe and back, nonstop, on a mission.

The technology for unmanned recon vehicles is well developed, since you can simply program the machine ahead of time, hit the engine start button, and wait for it to come home. No human control is necessary. Turning them into active combat machines is a bit more complicated, b/c they don't have the decision-making algorithms necessary to perform independently (yet), and making them remotely piloted opens the communication line to jamming/interference. But the potential is huge. Without a pilot, you could make a fighter very small, stealthy, and capable of 15-20g maneuvers or more. Pretty neat stuff.

Anyway, I've rambled enough. If there's something else you're wondering, I'll try and answer it without telling you anything I'd have to kill you for .

 

Watch Discovery and The Learning Channel...they had a show on about those things not too long ago.