Japan's flying robot troops

[Taro Toporific]

Japan set to deploy drone fighter planes from 2004
eTaiwan News, AP / Sept 21
Japan's Defense Agency plans next year to develop small, unmanned spy planes similar to those used by the United States in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars...

[Big Booger]

What the hell for?

outlining the need to bolster the country's defenses against possible nuclear and terror attacks.

How many drone planes took out nukes in Iraq and Afghanistan?

[Taro Toporific]

What the hell for?

outlining the need to bolster the country's defenses against possible nuclear and terror attacks.

How many drone planes took out nukes in Iraq and Afghanistan?

WOT?
ATOMU can stop anything!

[Caustic Saint]

I can't imagine a UAV being too useful against nukes. Surveillance, yes. Maybe even delivering a mini-nuke. But defense? Sounds like scare-mongering to get the budget for these allocated.

[Big Booger]

Yep, sounds bogus to me.

[kurohinge1]

I suspect it's linked to a cunning plan to shift the training costs of future unmanned craft's operators to the public. Here's how it works ...

1. Develop video games increasingly close to the operating systems of the unmanned crafts (or vice versa).
2. The youth (and not so youthful) spend their own post-tax earnings buying the games and becoming adept at flying the craft remotely.
3. Hold regular competitions then recruit the winners (assuming they pass security and psych testing) as the ground pilots / remote operators of the craft.

There you have it - as the unmanned craft become more sophisticated, it will cost nothing to locate the already-trained best-of-the-best ground pilots.

PS: I wonder if a hacker could over-ride one of those remote craft ....

*** Got to go - suspicious helicopter near by ...

[Taro Toporific]

I suspect it's linked to a cunning plan to shift the training costs of future unmanned craft's operators to the public.... as the unmanned craft become more sophisticated, it will cost nothing to locate the already-trained best-of-the-best ground pilots.

Ahhhh, the plot to the old great movie, The Last Starfighter (1984).


http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/reviews/laststarfightermerchandise.htm
The Last Starfighter. with Wil Wheaton!