Expendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles for Strategic Offensive ...

Owens also stated that the military may be overspending on tactical aviationprograms. 53 Among the Pentagon’s 20 most expensive programs, 45percent of the funding goes to three tactical aircraft: the Air Force F-22,the Navy F/A-18E/F, and the Air Force/Navy joint strike fighter. 54 Interrelatedwith development costs are the long development times. The goaheaddecision to build the B-2 was made back in 1980; now, after a turbulentperiod of development, it takes six years to build one from start tofinish. Because the quantity of original orders was cut, a B-2 has a unitcost of $600 million; but they each actually represent a total developmentcost of several billion dollars. 55UAV developments are certainly not immune to similar cost problems;however, they are on a much smaller scale. The original cost for the CompassArrow program (established to develop a high-altitude drone) was$35 million. The final cost was $210 million before the program was terminatedin 1970 due to Soviet development in high-altitude air defensesystems. 56 On a related issue, development costs associated with traininga manned aircraft pilot are greater compared to an RPV controller.Relative Ranks for Development Costs AreaManned AircraftCruise MissilesReusable Remotely Piloted VehiclesExpendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles◦●Control of PayloadControl of payload is an area that depends greatly upon having a manin the loop. Manned aircraft have an advantage in that the pilot is onsceneto directly control a variety of payloads. RPVs also offer this capability.Problems have occurred in the past, however, from attempts tomate existing payloads to existing reusable RPV airframes. This was thecase with the Firebee program according to Colonel Krebs, who researchedthe development of RPVs: “Payloads were mated to existing RPVairframes on current launch, control, and recovery systems and the communitywould say it satisfied the operational need when these vehiclesand support systems might not have been the best alternatives to the operationalconcept.” 57Developers of modern-day RPVs have overcome this shortsightedness;however, current systems are designed primarily for reconnaissance roles.For strategic attack roles, RPVs can offer some unique advantages. Withthe absence of both pilot and cockpit, a greater percentage of the vehiclecan be used for disposable load capability. 58 They can laser-designate targetslonger because a pilot is not at risk. They can also loiter to providebomb damage assessment on their own attack via electro-optical imagery.52