UAVs Poised To Take the Next Step into Combat

by J.R. Wilson Military & Aerospace Electronics, June 2005 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) first saw combat in the first Persian Gulf War of 1991, where Iraqi soldiers surrendered to a Pioneer UAV rather than have it direct ship-launched cruise missiles on their location. UAVs entered a new era in the second Persian Gulf War of 2003, as more advanced Predator UAVs, armed with Hellfire missiles, became the first robots to engage in combat as aggressors. The future of continued U.S. air superiority will involve an increasingly large contingent of armed UAVs and a new generation of Air Force and Navy unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), flying missions that manned attack aircraft previously flew, often in joint missions under the control of fighter-bomber pilots. Read more