New ‘Independence Day,’ Same Terrible Military Tactics
The original 1996 movie Independence Day pitted American pilots and troops – and eventually the entire world — against an extraterrestrial threat armed with laser cannons and energy shields. Marine...
View ArticleFor Drone Pilots and Journalists, How Much Vicarious War Is Too Much?
When former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced drone operators would receive new Distinguished Warfare Medals he couldn’t have predicted the backlash. The reviled “Nintendo medal” was designed to...
View ArticleFor Sale Soon, an Anti-Drone Bazooka
Drones got you down? British company is offering a new way to ensnare and bring down robotics planes operating illegally in your airspace — the SkyWall 100, a net-firing bazooka. “The proliferation of...
View ArticleImagine F-16s Deploying Swarms of Tiny Drones
In the middle of June 2015, a U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter took off from an air base in Alaska and flew over a military training range at 430 miles per hour. On command, something burst from the...
View ArticleThe Navy’s First Carrier Drone Will Be a Flying Gas Tank
Beginning in 2007, the U.S. Navy spent billions of dollars experimenting with a fighter-size, jet-powered, aircraft carrier-launched robotic demonstrator aircraft that, in concept, could have formed...
View ArticleThe Drone Pilot Who Watched Osama Bin Laden Walk Away
Months before the 9/11 terror attacks, U.S. Air Force captain Scott Swanson was controlling a Predator drone over Afghanistan. Swanson and his team were looking for Osama Bin Laden … and they found...
View Article‘Eye in the Sky’ Is Drone Drama Done Right
The guy responsible for X-Men Origins: Wolverine directed the most tense political thriller I’ve ever seen. In drone warfare, who decides to kill and why? And is it worth sacrificing one life to save...
View ArticleAzerbaijan Kills Armenian Troops With a Suicide Drone
An unnerving sight appeared Monday during fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. What appeared to be an Israeli-made suicide drone hit a bus carrying...
View ArticleDARPA’s Unmanned Sub-Hunting Ship Prepares for Trials
Autonomous robo-ships will hunt for submarines sooner than anticipated. On April 7, the U.S. military christened the Sea Hunter, an experimental vessel which is part of the Pentagon’s Anti-Submarine...
View Article2018: The Year U.S. Fighter Pilots Could Get Drone Wingmen
The U.S. Air Force is developing new computer algorithms to allow fighter pilots to control armed drones from inside their own cockpits. The goal of the so-called “Loyal Wingman” initiative is to pair...
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