AIR UNIVERSITY

AIR FORCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

RPAs

Revolution or Retrogression?

Dr. David R. Mets

Defense Analyst, Air Force Research Institute

Research Paper 2010-1

Air Force Research Institute

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112–6026

April 2010
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Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the 

author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Air Force Research Institute, Air University, the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government 

agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

Air Force Research Institute (AFRI) papers and Air University Monographs are occasional studies written by 

Air Force researchers at large and military defense analysts assigned to AFRI and beyond. The purpose of this 

series is to provide useful ideas and independent analysis of issues of current or potential importance to Air 

Force commanders and their staffs. This monograph 

and others in the series are also available electronically 

at the Air University Research Web site at https://

research.maxwell.af.mil and the Air and Space Power 

Journal Web site at http://www.airpower.au.af.mil.
iii

About the Author

Dr. David R. Mets (USNA; MA, Columbia University; PhD, 

University of Denver) is a professor emeritus at Air University’s 

School of Advanced Air and Space Studies and a former military defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He studied naval history at the US Naval 

Academy and taught the history of airpower at both the Air 

Force Academy and West Point. During his 30-year career in 

the Navy and Air Force, he served as a tanker pilot, an instructor 

navigator in strategic airlift, and a commander of an AC-130 

squadron in Southeast Asia. On another tour there, he was an 

aircraft commander for more than 900 tactical-airlift sorties. A 

former editor of Air University Review, Dr. Mets is the author of 

Master of Airpower: General Carl A. Spaatz (Presidio, 1988) and 

more recently Airpower and Technology: Smart and Unmanned 

Weapons (Praeger, 2009).

1

RPAs: Revolution or Retrogression?

A historian’s occupational disease is to find old precedents 

for practically everything new that comes along. And that is 

true for remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) as well. In one way they 

are merely the continuation of the millennia-old human longing for methods of striking or observing one’s enemies while 

remaining safe. The purpose of this essay is to briefly explore 

that which is old, to dwell for a time on what seems to be new, 

and to conclude with some speculations about the future of 

unmanned systems. 

George Patton once remarked that the object is not to die for 

one’s country, but rather to make the other guy die for his. 

Thus, one way of looking at the history of military development 

is seeing it as an eternal search for standoff and precision to 

discover what one’s enemy might be doing, or to strike him 

blows with minimum risk to one’s health.1 That is often achieved 

through skill with minimal force rather than brute strength as 

with David and Goliath. So, too, it is with Predator operators at 

Creech AFB, Nevada, reaching across the world to see and then 

strike with small Hellfire missiles launched from Predator or 

Reaper RPAs. Precision-guided munitions (PGM), cruise missiles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) have long 

shared these characteristics, but none of these can be reused— 

guidance and propulsion systems are consumed with each 

round. RPAs have had much in common in the development of 

the technology with those, but are intended for reuse of the 

power and guidance apparatus.

History of RPAs

The idea of striking or spying from afar with unmanned systems may be older than many think. In 200 BC, the Chinese 

used kites to soar above the walls of enemy fortifications to enable calculation by triangulation of the length of the tunnel 

needed to get under those walls. Kites were also used to fly 

noise devices over enemy camps in the hope of spooking the 

troops or at least keeping them awake.2 From then until the 

early twentieth century there were thoughts of putting a man 
2

on a kite to observe the enemy. In the Spanish-American War, 

a photographer actually flew a camera in a kite and got some 

pictures of the conflict from above.3

Close to 1,000 years ago, Genghis Khan was running wild. 

The way the story goes, he had a Chinese city under siege, a 

tedious operation that could wind up in a bloody assault. But 

Genghis was imaginative. He sent a delegation in to the Chinese town fathers and proposed a course that would avoid all 

the bloodshed, but would satisfy his requirements for prestige. The proposal was that the Chinese merely pay a tribute 

of 1,000 cats and 1,000 pigeons, and he would be content and 

go away with honor intact without the cost of an extended 

siege. The Chinese dignitaries could not believe their good fortune. They had too many cats and pigeons, so the price of 

peace was not onerous. They quickly gathered up the animals 

from the attics and cellars of the city, and sent them to the 

enemy camp. However, Genghis betrayed them. He had incendiary material attached to each cat and pigeon, ignited it and 

released them—and they streaked back to the cellars and attics of the city to burn the whole place down (standoff, precision, and economy of force!) (Unhappily, neither the cats nor 

pigeons could be recycled.)4

The idea of dropping lethal materials on bad people goes back 

at least to medieval times when dumping hot oil off a fort’s 

walls upon the assaulting enemy was one defense. It was even 

better if it could be done without risking one’s own soldiers. 

During the fighting accompanying the European Revolutions of 

1848, the Austrians were attempting to bring the citizens of 

Venice into line. They could not make a conventional assault 

because they did not have enough soldiers or the amphibious 

capability to do it. Their solution was to devise some small, unmanned balloons to carry light warheads across to the city to 

terrify the citizens into capitulation. It did not work and some 

uncooperative winds blew some of the balloons back to their 

own lines. They had the standoff but not the desired precision 

and economy of force.5

The Japanese tried the same stunt at intercontinental ranges 

in World War II. The prevailing trans-Pacific winds were more 

reliable (if a continent was the target.) Though a few rounds 

from submarine guns had been lobbed into the US West Coast 
3

early in the war, it was not long before the Japanese were taking a pounding in their own theater with no obvious ways of 

hitting back at the American homeland. Thus, they adopted 

the idea of using balloons as had the Austrians, but theirs 

were somewhat more sophisticated. Their balloons were unmanned and much bigger than those of the Austrians. They 

had clever altitude control devices. School children built them 

and the military operated the weapons. Not much was made 

of the balloon attacks in the media at the time, but they did 

cause some diversion of military effort. Several thousand were 

launched, and a few were shot down. Many others were lost 

due to various causes, but some did reach the continent. One, 

in fact, caused six fatalities when picnickers in Oregon found 

it and caused a detonation, killing five children and a woman. 

However, the results were not at all commensurate with the 

effort invested.6

Nikola Tesla immigrated to the United States and patented 

many things in electricity and radio in the late nineteenth and 

early twentieth century. The Whitehead Torpedo had come on 

line in the 1880s with a hydrostatic depth control and a gyro 

for directional control, but Tesla went further. He was to become more famous for the development of alternating current 

electricity, but his submersible was truly remotely controlled 

via radio as with the early PGMs. He demonstrated his device 

in Madison Square Garden in 1898. He controlled the rudder 

and the navigation lights by radio, and even had a device to 

prevent other radio transmissions from interfering. At the time, 

he tried to market it as a military device to the US Navy and 

Royal Navy. He later became a pacifist, and did no more with 

it.7

Tesla’s control concepts were advanced for the day. They 

were more sophisticated than those of the Kettering Bug of 

World War I, or even those of the German “Buzz Bomb” of the 

Second World War. They had something in common with the 

German “Fritz” and American “AZON” bombs of World War II. 

Eighteen years after Tesla’s demonstration, Elmer Sperry 

was trying another approach to control based on the gyroscope. 

He did achieve some fairly impressive results onboard a seaplane, but at the time it was well realized that the methods 

would be very expensive and only useful against large area tar-
4

gets because of inaccuracy. Meanwhile in Europe there were 

some experiments going on with radio control of air vehicles, 

but at that point, the devices were not at all reliable.8

After the onset of World War I, Elmer Sperry, along with Carl 

Norden, continued the flying bomb work for the US Navy, but 

suffered many mishaps, partly because of the launching methods and partly due to the failure of the aircraft or its control 

systems. After the Armistice, the naval authorities suffered declining budgets and, though they saw some potential against 

area targets, thought that the accuracy would not be enough 

against ships. Thus they had to get out of the RPA business.9

The Army’s principal unmanned effort in World War I was 

called the “Kettering Bug” after Charles Kettering, who had begun his rise by developing an electric starter for automobiles. 

In principle, the technology was very similar to that in the World 

War II German V-1 Flying Bomb. A revolutions-per-minute 

counter determined the range, cut the ignition, and folded the 

wings. A Sperry gyroscope controlled the direction. The aircraft 

did not have ailerons, but a rather large dihedral to manage 

stability. Many Bugs were built, and most of them crashed because of launch, control, or engine problems. They were autonomous once launched, but few of the vehicles survived their 

test flights to fly again, and that hampered the program. Orville 

Wright and Henry Arnold were among those involved in the effort. Though continued for a while after the Armistice, it ran 

out of steam in 1920.10

Neither Billy Mitchell nor Giulio Douhet thought that surface 

air defenses would ever amount to much.11 Those notions were 

reinforced by the spectacular test sinking of the ex-German 

battleship Oestfriesland in 1921. The media made much of the 

event that with little notice, the ship had been at anchor, undefended, and Mitchell’s bombers flew over it at 2,000 feet—

something that would have been suicidal over an underway 

battleship in World War II. The loss of battleships at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 seemed to confirm that, but they too 

were effectively undefended and motionless.12

Some in the Navy were well aware of the air threat and moved 

to build air defenses aboard the capital ships. There was room 

aboard for many small caliber guns, and to hit a maneuvering 

ship steaming at 30 knots was not an easy task. But for the 
5

antiaircraft gunners, the problem was even greater, for their 

targets were smaller, faster, more maneuverable, and moved in 

three dimensions. Practice was essential, but difficult in the 

absence of realistic targets. Towing target sleeves was not effective because maneuver and speed were limited with a long cable 

behind, and in any event, it was not a popular sport for the 

pilots of the towing airplanes—boring, yet dangerous. Radio control seemed to provide a partial answer, and it had been coming 

along in civilian applications since Tesla. One of the pioneers 

was a Briton who immigrated to the United States after World 

War I and made a living as a Hollywood actor. Between films, 

Reginald Denny was involved with developing radio-controlled 

airplane models and actually opened a model shop before World 

War II. He parlayed that into a considerable business by marketing development of these models into aerial targets for the 

Army and Navy during World War II.13 The radio-controlled targets were especially valuable at sea where they could be used 

and reused for target practice for the increasing number of 

high-rate-of-fire guns put aboard ships, other than aircraft carriers, in anticipation of the threat.14 Some of the technical 

people who later became innovators in precision-guided weapons and RPAs at China Lake, California, and Eglin Field, Florida, had likewise started with an interest in radio-controlled 

models in the 1930s. 

The Army Air Forces and the Navy were both involved in converting war weary bombers into unmanned combat aerial vehicles during World War II. Using either B-17s or B-24s, they 

carried as much as 18,500 pounds of explosives. They took off 

with humans at the controls but once at altitude, the crews put 

them on autopilot and bailed out. A mother ship then took over 

control through a radio link and in theory would guide the 

bomber through a television camera mounted in its cockpit to 

the target. It was deemed a failure after a few shots because of 

accidents and inaccuracy. However, the idea did not die, for 

some of the survivors became RPAs deployed to the Pacific islands for the postwar atomic bomb tests. There, they were used 

to sample the content of the mushroom clouds without putting 

humans at hazard. By that time, a system had been devised to 

launch and recover them unmanned by means of a ground 

crew sited near the runway.15
6

Jets were coming on strongly after World War II, and that 

generated the need for aerial targets with much greater capabilities than those of the earlier day. Reginald Denny was still 

in business and competed for a while, but Ryan Aeronautical 

of San Diego got started with its “Firebee” (fig. 1) that proved to 

be one of the most prolific of the period. Powered by a jet, its 

performance was competitive with the postwar fighters coming 

online, and its production ran into many thousands. Many 

were modified for more than target use, and they and the follow-on “Lightning Bug” did yeoman service in Vietnam in a reconnaissance role. Flying at high speeds and very low altitudes, 

they posed a tough problem even for sophisticated air defenses.16

Aircrews aboard the mother ship DC-130s controlled their 

flight, and they were reusable though the recovery was difficult 

to achieve without damage. Some were parachuted down, but 

later a system was used of snatching the descending parachutes 

with a helicopter. The latter method reduced the damage, and in 

the end, the average vehicle lasted through three and a half missions though some survived many more flights. For a while, 

there was a troublesome time between the collection of the data 

(USAF Photo)

Figure 1. Ryan BQ-34 Firebee
7

and its production in usable form for the decision makers.17

However, it was some years before the RPA systems became 

faster, cheaper, and safer than manned reconnaissance. Only 

after the DC-130 support airplane and crew became unnecessary and the images could be electronically transmitted was 

most manned reconnaissance made obsolete.18

Ryan Aeronautical modified Firebees and their follow-on 

RPAs for many different functions. They dropped leaflets and 

created chaff corridors for inbound bombers before Vietnam 

was over. One was even successfully tested to deliver bombs, 

but was not put into production.19

RPAs had fallen into the doldrums during the post-Vietnam 

drawdown in America, but the Israelis continued development. 

They used them with great success as decoys and surveillance 

platforms in the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) 

campaign in the Bekaa Valley fighting in 1982. The Pioneer was 

a development of the Israeli RPAs.20 Soldiers and Sailors operated them, and in the Navy case, they were recovered by driving 

them into a landing net aboard the ship. They had an endurance of about 48 hours, but did suffer a high accident rate. But 

Pioneer gained a considerable amount of fame for successfully 

spotting the fall of shot for the battleship guns in Desert Storm. 

Only 11 Pioneer systems were deployed, but they flew 300 sorties and had more than 1,000 combat hours.21 Thus, it can be 

seen that the RPAs developed in a way similar to the early aircraft, being useful first in reconnaissance and spotting roles for 

the surface forces. This growing interest by Soldiers combined 

with the apparent disinterest among Airmen tended to revive 

an ancient debate between them. 

Maj Gen Lloyd Fredendall had been the US ground commander in the early phases of the African Campaign of 1942–43. 

He is famous for requiring defensive air patrols in “penny packets” over his divisions versus centralized control for offensive 

operations. The experience was one of the origins of the eternal 

argument about decentralized control for immediate responsiveness and centralization for mass and efficiency. In 1943 

the centralizers (Airmen) won the case with the publication of 

Field Manual 100-20, Command and Employment of Air Power, 

that July. Fredendall was relieved by George Patton who went 

on to greater fame. However, many in the ground forces were 
8

never satisfied with the centralized control of air support.22

Now, in the absence of an enemy air threat, the argument is 

coming to the surface again.23

The USAF has sometimes been criticized for allowing the RPA 

development to lag after Vietnam. To some extent that may

have been due to the pilot culture24 but there were some economic and technological obstacles. As long as the RPAs had to 

be carried under the wings of C-130s, the logistical footprint of 

the airplane’s crew and maintenance structure had to be deployed along with their additional support. Too, the limitations 

of the RPA navigation methods meant airplane carriage, and 

that in turn limited the RPA wing span. But long wings are essential to long endurance, which was to be a major attraction 

of RPAs. Only with the coming of the global positioning system 

(GPS) was it made possible to dispense with the navigation assistance from the DC-130 and, at the same time, reduce costs 

by runway recovery. The GPS was not fully deployed until the 

mid 1990s.25 The problem was different for the Israeli Defense 

Force in 1982, because their air forces are not required to deploy. In their operations in the Bekaa Valley, they could rely on 

line of sight communications. 

Between the end of the Vietnam War and the fall of the USSR, 

the focus of US military planning was on a conventional war on 

the North European Plain against the Warsaw Pact. There was 

said to be a “never again” syndrome with respect to a Vietnam 

sort of war. The concept was that somehow the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) would have to fight greatly outnumbered and yet win. There had been real PGM development 

during Vietnam, and that was to continue as a part of the solution for fighting outnumbered. The laser-guided bombs were 

improved in several ways, as were the electro-optical missiles 

and bombs. Three new fighters were developed during the period and deployed in substantial numbers. One was optimized 

for the air-to-air battle, one was a swing-role bird that could 

participate in that and yet had an air-to-ground capability, and 

the third was optimized for the ground battle. Much effort was 

devoted to bombs, mines, and missiles that would be effective 

against tanks. It all was envisioned for a fight in a nonpermissive 

air environment where the first priority was air superiority.26

Not much Air Force attention was focused on RPAs.
9

Meanwhile, the ground forces were much impressed by the 

potential of the ground-based air and armor defenses demonstrated in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and later by the effective 

Israeli use of RPAs in the Bekaa Valley fighting of 1982. As had 

been the case in the infancy of aviation, the first practical uses 

of RPAs were in reconnaissance and artillery spotting. Israel for 

a time was a leader in RPA development, and, as noted, a modification of one of their systems was adopted in the “Pioneer” 

created for the American surface forces in the 1980s. 

In its early days, the Predator (fig. 2) program belonged to the 

Army, but in the mid-1990s, it was reassigned to the Air Force.27

It came online in the mid-1990s and was used for intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) in the Balkans. Some 

bugs in the design were discovered there, and that led to modifications for bad weather operations. One difficulty was that 

the Predator operators had to talk the fighter strike pilots onto 

(USAF Photo)

Figure 2. MQ-1 Predator
10

the target by audio radio communications, which was awkward 

and time consuming. A happy solution was found in rapidly 

equipping Predators with laser designators, which could be held 

on the target allowing the fighters to find the target much more 

quickly (with fewer mistakes). That reduced the time of the “kill 

chain” and suggested that it could be further improved by giving the Predators their own weapons.28

Thus, it was given a lethal capability with Hellfire missiles 

and got its first kill in 2002.29 The Sky Warrior is a derivative 

of the Predator and is a bit larger with more payload, but both 

are smaller than the subsequent Reaper. From the outset, the 

Sky Warrior’s intent was use in a decentralized way. Both 

RPAs are capable of operation at middle altitudes and raise 

concerns about deconfliction.30 The Sky Warrior is to be organic to divisions. The Army has an automatic takeoff and 

landing capability, but the Air Force has not yet got one in 

operation in the Predator.31

Very often, the limitations of new systems get lost in enthusiasm for the innovation. Ideally, one constant is to get our 

precision, lethality, and standoff at a minimum price in lives 

and treasure.

Advantages of RPAs

In the early days of naval aviation, one of the huge attractions of airplanes was that they could do the scouting work not 

only faster, but also much more cheaply than could cruisers 

with their large crews and slow speed. So too could RPAs. As 

they could be built with less safety margins than aircraft, their 

systems do not have to be redundant. Too, life support and 

space for humans need not be included, and that saves weight, 

space, and money. Power plants can therefore be smaller with 

less fuel consumption. Their simpler systems promised that 

the maintenance costs would be less. 

Since no human is airborne in an RPA, none is lost in accidents. But more than that, almost all the operator training can 

be done in simulators, keeping RPAs in storage instead of wearing them out and losing some in training accidents.32 As there 

is no human in the cockpit, RPAs can be made more maneu-
11

verable, making tighter turns without risking the “blackout” for 

the pilot.

Finally, the machines have endurance far beyond that of human pilots, and their operators can be assigned in shifts, thus 

reducing the amount of transit time going to the target areas 

and returning. That in turn reduces fuel costs and the numbers of aircraft that have to be bought and maintained. Being 

smaller and quieter than airplanes, RPAs are stealthier. That 

can increase effectiveness and reduce costs as well.33

Another advantage of RPAs is that their developmental time 

is much shorter than it is for aircraft. This makes it cheaper to 

acquire, but perhaps more importantly, it shortens the acquisition cycle, so the system will have a longer service life before it 

becomes obsolescent.34

The Air Force operates Predators and Reapers35 (fig. 3) in 

what are called remote split operations (RSO). The launch and 

recovery crews are deployed to theater, but once they have the 

aircraft airborne it is handed off for operation via fiber optic 

cable and satellite communications by crews in Nevada. That 

greatly reduces the RPA “footprint” in the combat theater. Not 

only do the operators remain at home, but so, too, do all the 

cooks, security police, intelligence personnel, and on and on 

who support them. That in turn reduces the number of airlifters, 

(USAF Photo)

Figure 3. MQ-9 Reaper
12

tankers, and ships that would otherwise be required to move 

the people and material to the operational sites. 

Too, as excessive troop presence can be detrimental to the 

political goals in theater, that is yet another advantage.36 Hopefully, this networking can potentially reduce the time of the kill 

chain through quick reachback for needed intelligence and 

strike authority making the system more effective against time 

sensitive targets. All that yields a pretty rosy picture; what is 

the downside?

Disadvantages of RPAs

A wag once informed us that if it sounds too good to be true, 

it is. That is why we “Red Team” our wargames to try to identify 

the weaknesses of our plans before we get into action.37 Certainly our potential adversaries are seeking asymmetric approaches to overcome our strengths. It is clear enough the rest 

of the world is well aware of our strengths in space—the Chinese have already tested an anti-satellite missile. 

The RSO scheme is dependent upon nearly instant communications with the forces in theater, and there may be multiple 

ways of disrupting them.38 No one who works on the Internet or 

who has tried to do so when the servers go down will fail to appreciate the importance of preserving the security of the system. The Army’s less centralized RPA system is less vulnerable, 

but has its downside as well. 

Science fiction writers and technology enthusiasts often assert that warriors will ultimately become completely autonomous—they will fight battles without any humans. But, many 

pilots are quick to assert that machines cannot be developed 

that will be prepared to handle every unexpected situation that 

might appear. That kind of judgment, they say, will never be 

possible in a machine.39 Sometimes human judgment is affected by intuition or emotion, and that can never be duplicated in a mechanical device. Likewise, they argue there are 

factors that contribute to situational awareness that are not 

duplicated in RPAs. Pilots unconsciously, perhaps, react to the 

sounds of the machine around them or the G-forces varying 

that alert them to problems or opportunities that might not be 

possible with machines. According to Peter Singer, network-
13

centric warfare did not remove the fog of war and robots won’t 

as well.40

Culture is important. The Air Force culture poses a personnel problem in connection with RPA manning. It has always placed those at the “pointy end of the spear”—the 

bomber and fighter pilots—at the head of the pecking order. 

Navigators and weapon systems officers were lower, and flyers in tankers and airlifters still lower. Non-flyers were even 

more clearly not a part of the elite.

With the coming of RPAs it has been difficult to get volunteers for their operation. They would neither fly nor be in any 

sort of danger or even discomfort.41 It has therefore become an 

institutional imperative to develop a viable career track for 

them by a system of rewards. They were allowed credit for cockpit time42 and later even allowed flight pay though they do not 

personally fly. Efforts are being made to build the force sufficiently to allow career broadening and attendance at the professional military education schools, both being conducive to 

career progress. 

There has been a steady improvement in air communications 

since 1941 at the latest. Micromanagement has become an occupational disease among many commanders since then. During the evacuation of Saigon and the Mayaguez affair, the onscene commanders were so busy answering calls from generals 

many levels above them that they hardly had time to do their 

jobs.43 This is as great a danger as ever, and especially so with 

the RPA RSO. The operators are in Nevada answering to the 

local commanders there, and the launch and recovery crews 

are in theater subordinate to a joint force commander or a combatant commander. In between, their communications pass 

partly by cable and partly via space across many time zones 

and through different command regions.44

Command and control is complicated in yet another way. We 

have seen that both aircraft and RPAs generally started out as 

ISR platforms, but the addition of lethal capabilities generated 

contests for control between authorities even at the same level 

of command. Is the ISR function more important than striking 

the enemy? Troops-in-contact emergencies have traditionally 

commanded the highest priorities, but there are less urgent 

situations where the need for information may sometimes be 
14

more important. Who is to be the ultimate authority in these 

situations?45

There has been much writing recently about differences in 

cultures and how that affects conflict. One of the taunts coming from al-Qaeda has been that westerners use RPAs because 

they are not manly enough to stand and fight one-on-one.46

Even pointing out that improvised explosive devices (IED) also 

attempting to achieve kills from a standoff distance with minimum risk is the same sort of thing, is not enough. It is an old 

story dating back to the American Revolution and beyond when 

the Europeans thought it cowardly to fight from behind logs 

and stonewalls instead of standing up to the Redcoats, man to 

man. If the object, however, is to win the hearts and minds of 

the population, then the modes of fighting must be a consideration even if it does limit effectiveness. But the cynic might be 

inclined to say that one can always tell how effective one’s 

weapons are by the shrillness of the enemy’s charges as to their 

inhumanity and cowardliness. Given the Western culture, deliberately shortchanging the troops for the sake of imagined 

cultural gains is a hard sell.47

One of the standard arguments of the Cold War was that 

nuclear weapons are so horrific that they have made war, or at 

least world war, unthinkable. With the coming of RPAs, some 

have argued that leaders can contemplate risk-free war, thus 

making it more thinkable than it ought to be.48

A further question on RPAs has to do with their general applicability. The side-firing AC-47 was a booming success in 

South Vietnam, but nobody was interested in flying it up north. 

That was one source of skepticism at the Tactical Air Command headquarters at the time.49

Similarly, there are questions about the reliance on unmanned systems arising from the possibility that we will not 

always be flying in environments as permissive as Iraq and Afghanistan. Would the RPAs be viable over places with more 

formidable air defense systems? At least they would have to be 

made more survivable than they are now by building in greater 

stealth, electronic countermeasures, and even an air-to-air 

fighting capability. For the latter they would have to have much 

greater speed and an advanced system for situational awareness, which may be beyond technical feasibility. All that costs 
15

money and reduces the economic advantages that RPAs bring 

to the force.50 The one AC-130 that was lost in Desert Storm fell 

because the crew tarried beyond sunrise and a relatively simple, 

visually guided, man portable infrared surface-to-air missile 

brought it down. 

The individual RPAs are relatively cheap. However, the satellites 

and associated equipment used to control them are not. Too, as 

adversaries develop countermeasures, the hardening of both the 

communications systems and the vehicles themselves again 

would reduce their economic advantages. The huge utilities of the 

visual images transmitted are obvious, but they do consume large 

chunks of bandwidth requiring more costly satellites. 

Further, as many transmissions travel via commercial satellites, the American vulnerability is complicated in yet another 

way.51 This vulnerability may be contained to some extent by 

the increasing capabilities of onboard processing equipment 

and software. Thus, less information would have to be transmitted from afar, but the requirement for bandwidth would 

probably remain substantial.52

When British Adm “Jackie” Fisher brought into being the 

new HMS Dreadnought, he was said to have sacrificed a huge 

numerical advantage over all other navies in a single stroke. 

The ship made all other war vessels obsolete, and the British 

advantage over the Germans and others with dozens of the old 

warships went down the drain—and Britain was faced with the 

newly formidable German and American industrial plants 

capable of duplicating the Dreadnought on short order.53 What 

if the cheap RPAs really proliferate to make the expensive USAF 

and the American carrier fleets obsolete in short order? Will we 

have delivered to adversaries a cheap way to overcome our huge 

advantages in conventional warfare?

Another downside of being the leader in RPA (or any other 

major technological development) is that after you have made 

the investment in time, energy, and money in the new technology, then the rest can take a free ride on your work. They 

also know in advance what can work and can learn the defects of new systems before they commit their own resources 

to the development.54 The Soviets never had to go through the 

toil and expense of a latter day Manhattan Project because 

espionage was quicker and cheaper. Too, in a way, the risk for 
16

the USSR was less because they already knew it was possible 

before they started. 

Possible Futures

Completely Autonomous RPAs.55 There are some antiaircraft 

and antimissile systems that can be set to make a decision to 

shoot with no human intervention. The time to react is so short 

that humans cannot do it fast enough. Whether humanity is 

ready to freely grant machines the power to make life and death 

decisions on opening fire without human authority is widely 

questioned.56 In a South African test in October 2007, a robotic 

automatic gun system went haywire and inadvertently killed 

nine people. The problem was a defect in the software. In the 

Gulf War, two F-16s were shot down by Patriot missiles. Yet, as 

Singer has pointed out, if we are to depend on centralized control for decisions like that, then all the adversary has to do is to 

find a way to hack into our communications systems.57

Laws of War.58 The legal dimensions of battle are complicated by the RPA. Two requirements are that the force applied 

must be proportionate to the military benefit to be realized from 

the events, and that noncombatants be excluded from deliberate harm. Throughout history those decisions were usually 

made at the tactical or local level, but increasingly the improved 

communications and video have caused an escalation of the 

levels at which that is done. Whatever the dangers of micromanagement, though, to make that decision away from the 

emotional imperatives of direct combat may reduce mistakes.59

But when a robotic mistake is made, who is to be accountable: 

the pilot at Creech AFB, the software programmer for the RPA, 

the manufacturer of the RPA, the designer, or the acquisition 

official?60 Singer wonders whether the operator at Creech would 

thus become a legitimate target.61

Ethics of War. There are ethical problems that sometimes go 

beyond the requirements of law. During the Hoover Administration (1929–33), Henry Stimson was secretary of state, and 

some folks were proposing breaking into Japanese codes. His 

reaction was to forbid it, arguing that, “Gentlemen do not read 

each others [sic] mail.”62 That was a long time ago, before breaking the German codes yielded great savings in lives in World 
17

War II (while Stimson was secretary of war). Count on it—RPAs 

will be one day be used for unethical purposes in civilian life. 

The use of them for perhaps drug smuggling and the threats of 

invasions of privacy are obvious. In war, it seems clear that 

rules of engagement could be programmed into unmanned systems, but it is hard to anticipate that machines could ever have 

built-in morality, empathy, fear, anger, or other emotional motivators and limitations. During the Cold War, once launched, 

the ICBMs were robotic. One of the reasons we maintained the 

B-52 leg of the nuclear triad so long was that they were not robotic—unlike the missiles, they could be recalled or held on 

airborne alert. Global Hawk has amply demonstrated the same 

advantage as the manned bombers.

The conventional upbringing in the West supposedly emphasizes the importance of fairness in conflict. Rules emphasize this in every sport. The taking of drugs of any kind to gain 

an advantage over the opposition is strongly forbidden—the 

contest must be equal. But war is not sport. To whom must 

the commander be fair: the mothers and fathers of the troops, 

or those of the enemy? A part of Douhet’s motivation was said 

to be to shorten the next war so that millions would not die in 

the trenches. He argued that bombing cities would cause the 

people to rise up against their political leaders and force a 

peace within a few days rather than after many years of human agony in the trenches.63 

Shock and Awe or Contempt. Contemporary experience 

with combat RPAs suggests that network-centric warfare, for 

all its virtues, has not removed the fog of war. The Predators 

and Reapers have been technological marvels in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, but it is still uncertain as to whether they 

do more good than harm. As noted, al-Qaeda is harping on 

their cowardliness and the inhumanity of their killing of innocent civilians, and even that is an unclear message. Is it a sign 

that the leadership really feels beleaguered or that the RPA 

strikes make wonderful recruiting tools for the adversary? It is 

certain that many high-ranking Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders 

have been killed, and perhaps that has reduced the effectiveness 

of the survivors and also diminished the quality of the replacements. This has impeded al-Qaeda’s ability at communication 

and absorbed a good deal of its attention in self-protection. It 
18

seems to have sown distrust within its ranks, and even some 

flight to safer climes.64 But on the other hand, there are bystanders who have been killed along with the enemies, and that 

may be undermining the effort to win the hearts and minds of 

the citizens of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also has been 

corrosive on America’s reputation in some areas but helped it 

in others. Al-Qaeda’s response using brutal methods may also 

be causing some Pakistanis to refocus their attention from the 

perceived threat of India in the east to the threat of the Taliban 

and al-Qaeda at home.65

Manned Air to Disappear. Less than 20 percent of Air Force 

officers are rated—and now the non-flyers who operate RPAs at 

Creech are to receive flight pay. It is a trend that has been going on for a long time, and there are many competent flyers in 

the other services. But more and more of the flyers’ works of 

the past are being done by missiles and RPAs.

ISR. Reconnaissance was among the earliest missions of airpower. Its elevated viewpoint yielded a wide field of view, and its 

speed enabled much faster acquisition of the needed data than 

seaborne and land methods. But it has always been dangerous, 

and sometimes boring. The coming of RPAs has made it cheaper, 

safer, and deprived the enemy of the propaganda opportunities 

he can gain through the exploitation of prisoners of war. 

SEAD. The suppression of enemy air defenses has been the 

most dangerous tactical air mission of all. When done by RPAs 

or extended range missiles, the danger can be removed and the 

potential for the enemy exploitation of downed pilots eliminated. In the case of RPAs in the role, their loiter time may enable them to remain on station long enough to strike when 

enemy radar starts emitting, or to decoy it into emitting to permit manned SEAD aircraft to either jam or destroy it. 

Close Air Support (CAS). Through history, CAS has been 

one of the most dangerous missions, and often of limited productivity. In those situations, the enemy is often well hidden 

and antiaircraft weapons are emplaced and at the ready. In 

some situations, the manned aircraft’s time on station has been 

so limited that it has reduced their value. When held on ground 

alert, the time it takes CAS aircraft to take off and fly to the 

threatened point limits their responsiveness to emergency 

situations. Combat RPAs, with their long loiter time and ability 
19

to operate from many fields closer to the fighting, can reduce 

those problems. Because of this, the development of new unmanned combat air vehicles has tended to revive the Army-Air 

Force debate over centralization versus decentralization of the 

control of the aircraft. 

Air Superiority. American air-superiority aircraft have not 

been in a dogfight for 35 years. Since then, all of their kills 

save two (made on helicopters) have been achieved by radar or 

infrared guided missiles.66 If that pattern holds true in the 

future, then missile-armed RPAs become attractive. Ultimately, the processing and detection capability may even be 

enough to make the RPA superior to manned aircraft, even in 

a dogfight at close range. Here maneuvering is vital, and the 

RPA is not subject to the limitations of blacking out if the 

G-forces in that kind of flight exceed the pilot’s capability. 

Aircraft can withstand much greater forces than can pilots, 

and computers can react more quickly than humans. But it is 

one thing for technologists working out equations in a computer laboratory, and quite another for a person actually in 

the aircraft. Too, building the capability to meet all the requirements of fighter maneuvering into an RPA would be an 

expensive proposition even if it is possible.67

Strategic Attack. It seemed for a while after the fall of the 

USSR that the strategic attack mission was declining in its 

utility. It had been the main reason for the establishment of the 

USAF, but a combination of factors caused the long decline in 

its aircraft component. The coming of ICBMs and submarinelaunched ballistic missiles (SLBM) had much to do with that. 

But also, the building of a huge tanker force for its support was 

an indirect factor. Though many bomber units were deactivated, the reduction of the tanker units did not follow. Rather, 

they were found essential for fighter deployments and for the 

support of carrier and even airlift air operations. In fact with 

tanker support, fighters could carry out many missions that 

would formerly have fallen to bombers. 

But the surviving bombers have been heavily utilized in operations since the fall of the USSR. In part this has been due to 

the reduction in the forward deployments of American forces 

and the consequent loss of facilities to accommodate fighter 

forces. Further, the large ordnance loads and long loiter times 
20

of bombers have been found useful in recent conflicts. Simultaneously, the reduction of the Soviet threat has lessened allied 

interest in supporting US forces in their lands, and access to 

danger areas has become more difficult. Thus, there is reviving 

interest in the development of long-range strike capabilities at 

a lower cost than the most recent bomber programs. 

Is there an application for RPAs in a follow-on program for 

strategic attack? Defense Secretary Robert Gates has commented that the next generation bomber may be unmanned68

or perhaps optionally manned. The memory of the loss rates in 

Eighth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command in World War II 

yields one reason for making them so. Our ICBMs and SLBMs 

have been on the line for many years and are all unmanned. 

Global Hawk (fig. 4) already flies long-range ISR missions with 

great success. Its operators retain the capability to intervene in 

its operation if the situation so dictates. Its programs have failsafe features for autonomous return to base in case of communications failure. Building a long-range RPA with stealthy, high 

speed, and air refueling capabilities might well overcome the 

(USAF Photo)

Figure 4. RQ-4 Global Hawk
21

limitations caused by the reductions in US forward force stationing. If the vehicle is unmanned, the degree to which human 

endurance is stretched in the current bomber force would be 

eliminated along with the risk. The coming of economical precision weapons in small sizes enhances the possibilities of such 

an unmanned force. Such bombers might even be equipped 

with small RPAs of their own that could be sent against the 

most dangerous defenses. 

We have noted that no ICBM or SLBM has ever been launched 

in anger and that the B-52 has been long maintained as one 

leg of the nuclear triad precisely because it is not unmanned 

and it can be recalled. But once the missiles were launched 

with their nuclear warheads, it is all over. Thus, one suspects 

that it will be a long time before Western society will be ready 

to launch unmanned, nuclear-armed RPAs. Yet there are 

those who predict that the Air Force will be completely unmanned by mid-century.69

Airlift. Chad Manske, an experienced airlifter, argues that 

some of the factors that make RPAs attractive for tactical missions do not apply as much to airlift. However, he does see 

great potential benefits in economic terms. The perennial tonmile capability shortfall in strategic airlift might eventually be 

overcome through the use of RPAs. He envisions a fleet of airlifters flying in formation with a mother ship. They would be 

cheaper to buy and maintain than the standard aircraft, yet by 

flying in formations, it might ease the problems with Federal 

Aviation Administration restrictions of RPA movements in controlled airspace. Incidentally, Global Hawk avoids many of 

those problems in that it flies above 65,000 feet where the rules 

do not apply. The Predator can be shipped in containers aboard 

other aircraft, so it also avoids some of the restrictions. But 

whenever those aircraft or any other RPAs are operating out of 

special use airspace in the United States, they must be controlled by a fully licensed aircraft pilot.70

Passenger Air Transport. Passenger airliners are nearly 

capable of autonomous flight even now, and aircrews spend 

large amounts of time as little more than a safety monitor. In 

October 2009, two airline pilots were preoccupied with personal 

laptops in the cockpit, and the plane flew for 150 miles beyond 

its destination before the flight attendants got their attention. 
22

There had been numerous radio calls to which they had not 

responded, the Air National Guard was alerted (albeit with 

some delay), and the White House situation room notified.71

That caused a considerable stir, and doubtless it would have 

been even greater if the airplane had been actually unmanned 

with a load of 149 passengers. Likely it will take a longer time 

before RPA passenger flight is accepted.

Medical Evacuation. Personnel transport of wounded warriors from the battlefield is another story. As the rescues of Lt 

Col “Gene” Hambleton in Vietnam in 1972 and the Marines 

from Koh Tang Island in 197572 demonstrate, such operations 

are costly. They also can cost more lives than they save. In the 

former case, 11 lives were lost in the effort to save one, and the 

operation distracted air units from major operations going on 

elsewhere. Thus, the development of remotely piloted aircrafts 

dedicated for that purpose may make good sense. In fact, in 

2009 the Israelis were at work on just such a program.73

Why a Separate AF? 

Speculations of an Ancient Aviator

The main reason a separate air force was established in 

194774 was the strategic attack mission—not directly related to 

ground force or naval operations on the surface. Some people 

argued that pilots were “a separate breed of cats” and could not 

be properly managed under the command of armies or navies. 

In 1947, the idea that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 

would soon be miniaturized seemed to be a pipe dream. The 

idea of a war against a mass land army seemed improbable. 

Even more improbable would be a naval war. 

The Cold War was in the offing; if it were to become hot, it 

seemed that it would be an air war fought via the North Pole. 

Pilots dominated the Air Force. The national debt was astronomical. Pres. Harry S. Truman and others thought that the 

most economical security could be had by reliance on a longrange nuclear air force with minimal ground and naval forces. 

He capped the defense budget accordingly. After what seemed 

a temporary aberration in Korea, that reliance was restored 
23

and the heyday of the Strategic Air Command and long-range 

strike followed. 

Now the Cold War is gone. Interstate war is said to be unlikely. Future conflicts are predicted to be between governments and non-state actors—irregular war in various forms. 

Long-range strike, especially with nuclear forces, seems to 

some to be a quaint antiquity. The future seems to belong to 

ground forces searching for terrorists and fighting insurgents 

all over the world. Most of the Air Force bombers are gone. Pilots are a small minority of the officer corps. Strategic attack is 

improbable; close air support and airlift seem to be the order of 

the day. Some ask whether the day of the autonomous air force 

has reached its twilight.75

Firearms were introduced to western militaries in the fourteenth century, but the expense incurred by the necessity of 

accompanying pikemen to protect the musketeers during reloading from charging cavalry was very onerous. The ring bayonet that could be mounted without disabling the piece for firing 

did not come until 1709, nearly four centuries later. The bayonet enabled huge economies by eliminating pikemen or great 

growth in volume of fire by converting them to musketeers. But 

the coming of firearms and artillery was among the reasons for 

the end of feudalism and the coming of the nation state headed 

by kings. Only they could afford the maintenance of standing 

armies and the artillery needed to overcome the fortifications of 

the local barons and bishops. More centralized power was necessary to accumulate the wealth necessary to support those 

forces necessary to monopolize organized violence. 

Robert Fulton applied steam engines to vessels in 1807, and 

the US Navy started its conversion to steam before the Civil 

War. But until the 1880s, steam vessels still carried sails to 

compensate for engine failures or to conserve the coal supply. 

But commercial vessels under sail continued all the way up 

until World War II. Further, the use of coal-fired power plants 

reduced the range of naval operations and required the acquisition of coaling stations. This reform took the better part of a 

century. The acquisition of an infrastructure to build iron and 

then steel ships, their armor, the increasing caliber armaments, 

the steam plants, and the empires to support all that was an 

expensive proposition. It was not accidental that Great Britain, 
24

the United States, and Japan were the leaders in the building 

of great navies. Germany tried, but the others did not have the 

French army to the west and the Tsar’s army to the east to 

consume great wealth and effort necessary for armies to protect the borders—additional factors promoting centralization of 

wealth and power in a few nation states. It took a century to go 

from Trafalgar76 to Jutland.77

For the first century of West Point’s existence, the branch of 

choice was the cavalry. For many centuries, it had been a 

main striking force for armies as well as the principal instrument for ISR. But then about 1840, some inconsiderate soul 

invented the minié ball that tripled the range and the rate of 

fire of infantry weapons. Thus, the horse and rider would have 

to endure three volleys of fire instead of one before they could 

slash the grunts. So their value as a shock instrument was 

gone by 1861 (though it took some time for folks to fully recognize it). Still, the ISR function was alive and well. But other 

souls invented first the balloon and then the airplane that 

undermined that.78

Balloons were used in the Civil War, and aircraft had taken 

over the ISR function in a matter of a half century. But an

airpower capability is also dependent upon great industrial and 

training capabilities not affordable for many governments, still 

less insurgent operations. 

Is the F-35 to Be the Last Manned Fighter?

Change is hard; there is a huge cost sunk in skills and infrastructure. Cavalrymen as well as Airmen have had to make an 

emotional investment in their professions as well, as do Sailors. Coast Guard cadets still do their summer training on the 

Eagle, which they call the slave ship—but when they graduate 

and become senior, there is not much movement to give up the 

sails. There are usually technological arguments that can be 

made in favor of conservatism. Steam technology was shaky for 

a long time, and the sails were an insurance against engine 

failure—and they saved money on fuel.

The USAF has often been accused of being slow to take up 

the RPA, but no one brought up caring for a 1950s TV set full 

of peanut vacuum tubes will doubt that component technology 
25

common to PGMs, cruise missiles, airplanes, and RPAs has 

come a long way since World War II. That has been expensive 

and dependent also upon the rate of technological advance. 

We have seen that the GPS was not completely ready until 

the mid-1990s, and supporting space assets to bring the bandwidth needed cost a lot and took some time as well. Is the F-35 

the last of the line? The subway in the Atlanta airport is unmanned and few seemed worried about that—but the designed 

unmanned trains in the Washington Metro still carry human 

operators. As noted, there are still many who would not delegate the life and death decision to open fire to RPAs. 

Is it possible that the technology of RPAs and other advances 

are about to bring on a massive human retrogression? Singer 

suggests that civilization may be at the dawn of a new age, or 

perhaps a return to an old one.79 A large part of the reason for 

the end of feudalism in Europe was advancing military technology. The coming of effective firearms, artillery, and fortifications made war so expensive that it could only be managed by 

nation-states—often large nation-states. The feudal barons and 

their knights could not stand up to emergent nation-states and 

their kings. That went on through the end of the Cold War. 

But now, perhaps the coming of cheap RPAs, IEDs, and general insurgency methods might be reversing that. Perhaps now 

the modern equivalent of the medieval knight is an individual 

jihadist armed with remotely detonated IEDs or some non-state 

actor equipped with a swarm of RPAs possibly armed with WMD 

warheads. Perhaps centralized power is not the wave of the future. The highest social service any government can provide is 

preserving the physical security of its citizens. Governments 

have done this in large part through a monopoly of organized 

violence in armies and police forces. When large nation-states 

can no longer do that, will they pass from the scene? 

Notes

1. Ames R. Reinhardt et al., “Future Employment of UAVs: Issues of Jointness,” Joint Forces Quarterly, Summer 1999, 36. 

2. Brent K. Tornga, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” (master’s thesis, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1995), 16.

3. Buhwan Sharma, “Kite World,” Wave Magazine, October 2000, http://

www.wavemag.com.np/issue/article1740.html (accessed 13 October 2009); 
26

and Lt Col Richard M. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles (Maxwell 

AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2000), 6. 

4. Bill Caraway, “Korea in the Eye of the Tiger, Ch 5-Koryo and the Mongols,” Korean History Project, http://www.koreanhistoryproject.org/ket/co5/

E0507.htm (accessed 13 October 2009). The story is widely reported, sometimes with pigeons, sometimes with swallows, but always with cats. The general idea was really tried in World War II with bats and incendiary devices 

attached to their legs. About $2,000,000 was spent on the project before it 

was abandoned. The idea was to refrigerate the bats to get them to hibernate 

long enough to be carried aloft in a bomber; then they were to be dropped and 

thaw out on the way to the ground in time to fly into Japanese attics. In one 

of the tests in New Mexico, one of the few that did survive the fall is supposed 

to have flown into a general’s car and burned it; and Joe Michael Feist, “Bats 

Away,” American Heritage Magazine (April/May 1982), http://www.american

heritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1982/3/1982_3_93-print.shtml (accessed 14 October 2009). 

5. “The First Air Bomb: Venice, 15 July 1849,” Airminded: Airpower and 

British Society, 1908–1941, 22 August 2009, http://airminded.org/category/

periodicals/ (accessed 14 October 2009); “The First Air Raid—by Balloons,” 

RPAV Remote Piloted Aerial Vehicles, http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/

rpav_home.html#Beginnings (accessed 14 October 2009).

6. Christopher Eger, “Japanese Balloon Bombs of WW II,” Suite101.com, 

10 February 2007, http://air-combat.suite101.com/article.cfm/Japanese

_balloon_bombs_of_wwii (accessed 14 October 2009).

7. “Nikola Tesla,” http://www.crhystalinks.com/tesla.html (accessed 14 

October 2009); Nikola Tesla, “The Transmission of Electrical Energy without 

Wires as a Means for Furthering Peace,” Electrical World and Engineer, 7 

January 1905, http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1905-01-07.htm (accessed 

14 October 2009); and P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution 

and Conflict in the 21st Century (New York, NY: Penguin, 2009), 47, reports 

that the Germans actually used the notion shortly afterwards. They loaded 

up some motorboats with explosives, and controlled them at first by means 

of a long wire. The idea was unmanned coastal defense, and later they tried 

to do it with radio control from airplanes flying above. 

8. Kenneth Werrell, The Evolution of the Cruise Missile (Maxwell AFB, AL: 

Air University Press, 1985), 7–8.

9. Ibid., 10–12.

10. Ibid., 12–16. 

11. Phillip S. Meilinger, “Giulio Douhet and the Origins of Airpower Theory,” 

in Meilinger, ed. Paths of Heaven (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1998), 

9; Mark A. Clodfelter, “Molding Airpower Convictions: Development and Legacy 

of William Mitchell’s Strategic Thought,” in Meilinger, ed. Paths of Heaven, 

92; William Mitchell, file no. 240-49, US Army Military Institute Archives 

(lecture, Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 24 November 1922).

12. Since 7 December, the United States never has lost another battleship 

though the British, Italians, and Japanese have.

13. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicles, 9.
27

14. Greg Gobel, “Early US Target Drones,” In the Public Domain, http://

www.vectorsite.net/twuav_01.html (accessed 15 October 2009). Incidentally, 

most of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor were raised and put back into 

service, but they served mainly as shore bombardment vessels in support of 

amphibious operations; the newer and faster battleships sailed mainly in 

support of aircraft carriers as antiaircraft platforms. That enabled moving the 

guns and ammunition off the carriers to the battleships leaving more room 

for bombs and aviation gasoline on the former. 

15. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicles, 9–11; and Anthony J. Lazarski, 

“Legal Implications of the Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicle,” Aerospace 

Power Journal 16, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 75. 

16. Christopher A. Jones, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: An Assessment of 

Historical Operations and Future Possibilities,” (research paper, Air Command and Staff College, 1997), 5. 

17. Ibid., 55.

18. Werrell, Cruise Missiles, 142–44; Houston R. Cantwell, “Beyond Butterflies: Predator and the Evolution of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Air Force 

Culture” (thesis, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies [SAASS], June 

2007), 9–13; and Jones, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” 12, shows that the DC130 force with its UAVs was transferred to the Tactical Air Command in 

1976, and it was deactivated three years later. 

19. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, 26; Cantwell, “Beyond 

Butterflies,” 9; and Jones, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” 13, reports that Ryan 

successfully tested a Maverick missile from one of its Lightning Bugs in 1971.

20. Singer, Wired for War, 56.

21. Reinhardt, “Future Employment,” 37. 

22. David Syrett, “The Tunisian Campaign,” in Benjamin Franklin Cooling, Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support (Washington, DC: 

Office of Air Force History, 1990), 155–57, 161–70; and Jeffry Kappenman, 

“Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Decisive in Battle,” Joint Forces Quarterly, 2nd Quarter 2008, 20–23, gives a good summary of current Army arguments on the command and control of RPAs.

23. Singer, Wired for War, 113, reports that the Army’s Future Combat 

Systems plan calls for every brigade to have its own air corps made up of RPAs.

24. Singer, Wired for War, 252–53. 

25. Cantwell, “Butterflies,” 12–15.

26. Harold R. Winton, “An Ambivalent Partnership: US Army and Air Force 

Perspectives on Air-to-Ground Operations, 1973–90,” in Meilinger, Paths of 

Heaven, 399–433; and Lon O. Nordeen, Airpower in the Missile Age (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1985), entire volume. 

27. Cantwell, “Butterflies,” 22; Sean M. Frisbee, “Weaponizing the Predator 

UAV: Toward a New Theory of Weapon System Innovation” (master’s thesis, 

SAASS, 2004), 1. 

28. Frisbee, “Weaponizing the Predator,” 2–3.

29. “Are Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicles Coming of Age,” Pathfinder, October 2004, www.raaf.gov.au/airpower (accessed 13 September 2009).
28

30. David A. Deptula, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Taking Strategy to 

Task,” Joint Forces Quarterly, 2nd Quarter 2008, 49–51; and Singer, Wired 

for War, 202, reports that there is a record of a collision between a RPA and 

a helicopter in Iraq.

31. Travis A. Burdine, “The Army’s ‘Organic’ Unmanned Aircraft Systems: 

An Unhealthy Choice for the Joint Operational Environment,” Air and Space 

Power Journal 23, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 88–100.

32. Robert E. Chapman II, “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles: Dawn of a 

New Age?” Aerospace Power Journal 16, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 66. 

33. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, 1, 41, and 70.

34. Timothy J. Sundvall, “USAF Robocraft: Engineering National Security 

with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” (master’s thesis, SAASS, 2006), 35; and Reinhardt, “Future Employment,” 38. 

35. The US Navy has recently deployed a Reaper detachment to the Seychelles Island in the Indian Ocean to assist in the effort against pirates. “Navy 

Deploys Drones in Anti-Piracy Effort,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 October 

2009, 9, http://ebird.osd.mil/ebfiles/e20091022711397.htm (accessed 22 

October 2009).

36. Deptula, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems,” 49–51.

37. A “Red Team” is a group of people designated to serve as adversaries 

in war games—anticipating the reactions of the enemy as best they can. 

38. Singer, Wired for War, 200.

39. Chapman, “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles,” 62; and Jeff Mustin, 

“Future Employment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” Aerospace Power Journal 16, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 86–96. 

40. Singer, Wired for War, 203; and James Jinnette (ex-F-15E squadron 

commander), “Robotic Systems Can’t Replace a Pilot’s Gut Instinct,” Armed 

Forces Journal, November 2009, http://www.armedforcesjournal.com (accessed 11 November 2009).

41. James C. Dawkins, Jr., “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles: Examining the Political, Moral, and Social Implications” (master’s thesis, SAASS, 

2005), 41–44; and Clark, Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles, 63.

42. Since the 1960s, the Air Force has required pilots to serve in assignments where their primary duty is flying for specified numbers of months by 

certain waypoints of service in order to retain their flying status—it is called 

“Gate Time.” 

43. Thomas G. Tobin et al., Last Flight From Saigon (Washington, DC: Office 

of Air Force History, 1985), entire volume; Ralph Wetterhahn, The Last Battle

(New York, NY: Carroll and Graf, 2001), 262; John F. Guilmartin, “The Mayaguez 

Incident, 12–15 May 1975: A 30-Year Retrospective,” Air and Space Power 

Journal, Spring 2005, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/

apj/apj05/spr05/vignette3.html (accessed 19 October 2009); P. W. Singer, 

“Tactical Generals: Leaders, Technology, and the Perils of Battlefield Micro 

Management,” Air and Space Power Journal 23, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 78–87.

44. Cantwell, “Butterflies,” 65; Dawkins, “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles,” 24.

45. Cantwell, “Butterflies,” 71.
29

46. Singer, Wired for War, 309.

47. John Edward Jackson, “More Than Three Laws of Robotics,” Naval 

War College Review 62, no. 4 (Autumn 2009): 155–58, http://usnwc.edu/

publications/Naval-War-College-Review/2009-autumn.aspx (accessed 22 October 2009).

48. Dawkins, “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles,” 12. 

49. William W. Momyer, Airpower in Three Wars, (1978; repr., Maxwell 

AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2003), 237–39, 241. 

50. “Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles: Reality or Elusive Dream,” Pathfinder: Air Power Development Centre Bulletin, June 2008), www.raaf.gov.au/

airpower (accessed 22 October 2009).

51. Cantwell, “Butterflies,” 72; and Singer, Wired for War, 200. Doubtless 

many other military systems are dependent upon space and the bandwidth 

requirements associated with that. The global positioning system has become 

so prevalent that many airlifters no longer carry navigators, and few people 

who do fly are still taught celestial navigation. 

52. Sundvall, “USAF Robocraft,” 20; and John D. Jogerst, “Airpower 

Trends 2010: The Future is Closer Than You Think,” Air and Space Power 

Journal 23, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 101–10.

53. Elmer B. Potter, ed., Sea Power: A Naval History, 2nd ed. (Annapolis, 

MD: Naval Institute, 1981), 194–95.

54. Singer, Wired for War, 239. 

55. Sundvall, “USAF Robocraft,” 52, seems to think that ultimately we will 

permit completely autonomous RPAs to become a part of our inventory; and 

Singer, Wired for War, does not agree, 127, 133, and 418; Reinhardt, “Future 

and Employment,” 39, declares that “. . . Simply stated, the rules of engagement will be controlled by humans, in part to mitigate the unsettling idea of 

uncontrolled aircraft deploying weapons autonomously. . . .” 

56. “Small Air Forces, UAVs and Operational Flexibility,” Pathfinder, October 2006, www.raaf.gov.au/airpower (accessed 13 September 2009).

57. Singer, Wired for War, 125, 127, and 192.

58. Dawkins, “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles,” 6, argues that RPAs or 

military operations with no risk to one of the participants are not illegal or 

immoral; and Lazarski, “Legal Implications,” 74–83.

59. Dawkins, “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles,” 25–28.

60. Singer, Wired for War, 385.

61. Singer, Wired for War, 386, 408; and Jackson, “More than Three Laws,” 

158.

62. Henry L. Stimson, in Quotations Book, http://quotationsbook.com/

quote/44728/ (accessed 28 October 2009). 

63. Dawkins, “Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles,” 6; and Giulio Douhet, 

The Command of the Air (new imprint, Washington, DC: Air Force History and 

Museums Program, 1998), 58.

64. Michael P. Noonan, “Disrupting the Foreign Fighter Flow,” Foreign Policy 

Research Institute E-Notes, October 2009, http://www.fpri.org/note/woon10

.noonanm.disruptingforeignfighterflow.html (accessed 25 October 2009).
30

65. Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “The Drone War: Are Predators our best weapon or worst enemy?” The New Republic, 3 June 2009, 

http://www.tnr.com/article/the-drone-war# (accessed 23 October 2009); 

and Brian Glyn Williams, “Death from the Skies: An Overview of the CIA’s 

Drone Campaign in Pakistan—Part One,” Terrorism Monitor 7, no. 29 (25 

September 2009), http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx

_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35542&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=381&cHash=01

1c930244 (accessed 23 October 2009). 

66. David Axe, in “Axeghanistan [sic] ‘09: Chopper-Bombing Drone-Killer,” 

WarIsBoring.com (23 October 2009), reports that the same F-15 that killed a 

helicopter with a laser-guided bomb in Desert Storm recently shot down a 

stray Reaper with a missile to prevent it from damaging an unintended target. http://ebird.osd.mil/ebfiles/e20091024711850.html (accessed 24 October 2009).

67. Dawkins, “Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles,” 8, reports that the USAF 

attempted to shoot down an Iraqi MiG from a Predator armed with a Stinger 

missile during Operation Southern Watch. 

68. Tony Copaccio, “China’s New Weapons May Threaten U. S. Bases, Ships, 

Gates Says,” Bloomberg.com, 16 September 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/

apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=am6ExRzB1cjo (accessed 27 October 2009). 

69. Tornga, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” 6, (a naval officer) argues that 

completely unmanned air forces would be feasible by 2025, but the society 

will not be ready to accept them; Singer, Wired for War, 168 and 389, argues 

that other societies are less sensitive about allowing machines the authority 

to fire, but that the West is probably not ready for that.

70. Chad T. Manske, “Unmanned Airlift: A Viable Option for Meeting the 

Strategic Airlift Shortfall” (master’s thesis, SAASS, 2002); and Lazarski, “Legal 

Implications,” 78.

71. “Distracted Northwest Pilots Alarms Experts,” CBS News.com, 27 October 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009010/27/national/main

5424085.shtml?tag=stack (accessed 27 October 2009).

72. Darrel D. Whitcomb, The Rescue of Bat 21 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute, 1998), entire volume; and John F. Guilmartin, A Very Short War (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 1995), entire volume. 

73. Yaakov Katz, “Israeli UAVs expected to steal the show at Paris expo,” 

The Jerusalem Post, 14 June 2009, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite

?cid=1244371095674&pagename-JPost/JPArticle (accessed 27 October 2009). 

74. Robert Spalding, “America’s Two Air Forces,” Air and Space Power 

Journal 23, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 51–56, suggests that a single air organization cannot be effective in both counterinsurgency and conventional war, 

though he stops short of advocating the end of the Air Force as a separate 

service.

75. Robert Farley, “Abolish the Air Force,” The American Prospect, 1 November 2007, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=abolish_the_air

_force (accessed 28 October 2009).

76. The last great sea battle under sail was won by the British Royal Navy 

over the combined French and Spanish fleets in 1805.
31

77. The last great sea battle between steel battleships of the British and 

German navies was in 1916. (There were some gunnery duels between surface forces in the Second World War, but nothing of that great magnitude. By 

then the aircraft carriers were becoming the capital ships of navies.)

78. Thayer Hall at West Point was built as a riding hall and was used for 

equestrian training all the way up to the class of 1948. But probably it is fair 

to say, cavalry’s final death knell came at Kitty Hawk and the full recognition 

of that took about a half century. Certainly there was more to it than that for 

the machine gun and indirect fire artillery equipped with fused and fragmenting projectiles made it impossible for cavalry to live on the battlefield even if 

aircraft had not taken over the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

function. 

79. Singer, Wired for War, 266.

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Title of Paper: RPAs: Revolution or Retrogression?

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RPAs

Revolution or Retrogression?

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Gen John Shaud, USAF, Retired, PhD

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