Expendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles for Strategic Offensive ...

able, offer man-in-the-loop advantages; however, they “cannot exercise judgmentor initiative if the control link or pre p rogrammed track is lost.” 6 5RecoveryRelative Ranks for Performance under Emergencyor Unforeseen Conditions AreaManned AircraftCruise MissilesReusable Remotely Piloted VehiclesExpendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles◦Recovery is an area that is advantageous for cruise missiles and expendableRPVs because they simply do not re q u i re it. For manned aircraft andreusable RPVs, recovery is a disadvantage because there are limitations onw h e re and in what weather conditions they may land or be re c o v e red. An exampleof the difficulty of an instrument approach in poor weather was the 3April 1996 crash of a T-43 military passenger jet near Dubrovnik, Cro a t i a . 6 6Reusable aircraft—manned as well as unmanned—require additionalequipment, ground facilities, and associated personnel to be able to returnand land safely. Researchers and developers have devoted much efforttowards seeking easier and safer recovery methods. In the past, helicoptersrecovered unmanned Firebees by using a midair recovery system.This involved an additional number of operators, ground crew, and maintenancespecialists. 67 More recently, the Navy Pioneer program highlightedthe need for a better retrieval system. Before temporary suspensionof tests in 1988, three out of five vehicles crashed upon landing andone never returned. Developers of manned aircraft and reusable RPVsmust ensure their systems are optimized to survive a limitless number ofmissions. Cruise missiles and expendable RPVs must only complete one.Relative Ranks for Recovery AreaManned AircraftCruise MissilesReusable Remotely Piloted VehiclesExpendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles●◦●◦Figure 3 displays the 21 areas of advantages and disadvantages and thecompilation of relative ranks among manned aircraft, cruise missiles,reusable RPVs, and expendable RPVs. Each of the unmanned systemsclearly has more advantages than manned aircraft in strategic attackroles. Of the unmanned systems, expendable vehicles (cruise missiles andexpendable RPVs) have more advantages than reusable RPVs. While thecruise missile exists and has proven itself in war, the concept of an expendableRPV shows great potential to supplement all means of strategicoffensive airpower.●57