Originally Posted by Michael

Armchair pilots striking Afghanistan by remote control

Story Highlights
Pilots direct remote-control aircraft from Nevada base in combat 7,500 miles away

New drone, "the Reaper," carries the same bomb load as an F-16 fighter plane

Reapers have been flying round-the-clock patrols over Afghanistan since 2007

Air Force sees unmanned aircraft

By Laurie Ure
CNN


CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nevada (CNN) -- From a desert outpost northwest of Las Vegas, elite fighter pilots journey to a war zone in Afghanistan, some 7,500 miles away.


The Air Force's new unmanned bomber, the "Reaper," commutes from Nevada to Afghanistan.

It might be the world's longest commute, except that these armchair pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada never leave the air-conditioned comfort of their command center.

Air Force pilots are employing remotely controlled fighter-bomber aircraft -- known in military parlance as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs -- to fly combat missions over Afghanistan, hunting for insurgents bent on undermining Afghan President Hamid Karzai's fragile government.

This is the future of aerial combat.

Sitting in a virtual cockpit is not as exciting as flying a fighter jet, but unmanned attack-plane pilots can enjoy a normal workday schedule -- more or less.

"Seeing bad guys on the screen and watching them possibly get dispatched, and then going down to the Taco Bell for lunch, it's kind of surreal," says Captain Matt Dean.

The original drone was the "Predator," armed with a pair of Hellfire missiles. It was followed by its bigger and far more lethal cousin, "the Reaper," which carries four times as much firepower. The Reaper can carry the same bomb load as an F-16 fighter plane, but its pilots are not put in harm's way.

The Air Force once employed jerry-rigged missiles strapped to unmanned spy planes. Now military commanders see remotely piloted aircraft as the model for the way future wars will be fought.

Armchair pilots striking Afghanistan by remote control - CNN.com

Originally Posted by dc2ga

just hook up the planes and bombs to xbox or ps3 games. i imagine quite a few of us could easily fly and drop those bombs/missiles right on target from our living rooms

edit - this is not a complete joke response. if we are getting to the ability to remote control like that, gamers could probably fairly easily hit quite a few targets. the only difference it would be more real time/real environment than a game, of course

Originally Posted by Southern Man

I'm intersted to see when they develop mechanical "cockroachs" that can be dropped onto terrorists camps, and remotely guided to the sleeping quarters of bad guys, and inject them with deadly poison, then fry themselves to leave no working evidence.

Originally Posted by Michael

And we just had a story in the news about a Afghan wedding being bombed and over 50 men, women, children and elderly at the wedding being killed. That is my reservation about doing the bombing on computers thousands of miles away.

The Afghan government wants us there but has previously threatened to kick us out of the civilian non combatants getting killed by airstrikes didn't stop.

Originally Posted by Skerlnik

I do like the efforts to de-man, in theory, but this is getting to be too much like a video game. Are we risking combat losing its seriousness (which is kind of a weird thig to be even asking, isn't it?)

Maybe it's good to eventually have our wars fought like Rock'Em/Sock'Em Robots. Although, isn't the point of war to inflict unacceptable losses on the enemy? In 50 years, maybe the first country will be taken over completely remotely.....?