The Army has finally settled on a company to build its next generation of long-range killer drones, according to Defense Daily.
General Atomics, maker of the wildly succesful Predator robo-plane, got the $214 million gig to build 48 of the Extended Range Multi-Purpose drones. The first of them should be ready to go by 2008. 132 are planned, all told.
Defense News notes that “unlike Predator, the ERMP will be able to take off and land automatically” — handing off the trickiest parts of piloting a drone to a computer. Which means that the ERMP can be flown by young enlisted men, instead of by the ex-fighter pilots, who now operate the Predator fleet. (My Wired magazine story on drones has a bit more on this.)
The Army sees the drones staying up in the air for 72 hours straight; the Predator, by comparison, can’t even manage a whole day in flight, right now. While it’s airborne, the Army expects the ERMP to snoop on enemies, relay communications, identify targets — and blow stuff up, if need be. It’ll start out with Hellfire missiles, same as the Predator. Other weapons may be added, later on.
Seeing this plane reminds me of that movie TOYS with Robin Williams but I am glad to know that we are upgrading our military.
Didn’t the Army get in trouble by trying to do too much with a single platform –Aquilla — back in the ’70s? This project seems to have a wiff of the same sort of over-reaching to it.
I don’t know about any of that, but for that amount of money, couldn’t they make it look a little more intimidating? More Boba Fett, less R2D2.
Whatever platform the military decides on, let’s hope it’s Happy Hunting time against the bad guys. There’s nothing more thrilling than having terrorists going about their nasty business, only to hear the final “whoosh” as the missile slams home. Some of the best news you ever read in the papers is when the Israelis do an Apache/Hellfire strike and take out whole carloads of dangerous dudes. Those are some major scores. Think about how that effects the mindsets of the guys who think they want to run the terror cells. And you know the terrorists rat each other out so it can be ongoing good news.
we have been preparing for this move since the first video games appeared
Good Mornig,
Just to spice up this post and maybe incite a little more interest on this topic.
General Atomic, a great company I might add, my wife worked for them in the ’70’s when they were in the business of doing audits on nuclear power plants, sits in the District of soon to be Ex-Comgressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The question here is why was the Warrior perfered over the Hunter II.
In side by sides it would appear that the Hunter II has a slight edge over the Warrior in that it’s external load capacity is 700lbs. vs. 500lbs. for the Warrior. Combint that with the operational history of the Hunter with the U.S. Army the advantage should be for Hunter II.
Could the fact that the soon to be Ex-Congressman and his stable mate fellow Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, of a next
door District are looking for a soft landing for the “Duke”?
It might also be noted that Northrup Grumman, the manufacturer of The Hunter (II) is in the ajoinging District of Dem. Rep. Susan Davis, who enjoys a higher opinion rating with both Military and Veterans then either of her Republian colleagues.
Just some observations of what looks like a shady deal from the Pentagon.
On second though disregard this this post, such shanagians like this can’t happen under the watch of Sec. of Defense Rumsfelf and President Bush, never.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
when i was a kid, i dreamnt of why not the military invent a drone just like in video games where you fly a plane and have it attack something. atleast when its game over, it is just the drone not you. and now we have it. i bet wiz kids at video games can help us wack the bad guys with less lives
I beileve that these things are great and that ferther research should be done to build even better ones. these things will allow for more accurate information and be able to take out more precise targets without risk to humen lives. This is the wave of the future
So much resources for war and death and so little for hunger
i built one of these out of foam and it looks just like the predator ..it flys perfect its about 9 feet log its cook ..good day
Unfortunataly war nowdays is unavoidable and ofcourse human death also. And such developments like this one can decrise the number of soldier death, ofcourse only for one fighting side.