Lookin' like CAP should begin a rapid transition aircraft to Drones

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/09/us-army-racing-catch-russia-battle-drones/131936/?oref=defenseone_today_nl

Little drones, big drones... tethered and fully autonomous (AI).  It looks like that's the future of air power (and a lot of other aviation activities) is being written in the sky over war zones and in international military competitions.  Isn't that what happened in the last big bump in aerospace capability and hardware?  Piloting aircraft appears to be headed to for same fate as wagon wrights and wheel wrights...  historically important, but of little use in contemporary (or future) technology.

Maybe that's a direction CAP should embrace.

Piloting aircraft appears to be headed to for same fate as wagon wrights and wheel wrights...  historically important, but of little use in contemporary (or future) technology.

Agree 100%

Maybe that's a direction CAP should embrace.

It will - figure 5-10 years and CAP will be right in the THICK OF IT!

In all seriousness, my guess is that within 5 years, but no more then 10, autonomous UAVs will be approved, if not for general use,
then for government and law enforcement, at which point CAP's broad AP, DF, and similar aviation programs come to an abrupt and
unfortunate ending absent much fanfare.

The tech exists today within the reach of the average consumer, on a 5-10 year timeline the only impediment will be social.

There will be no justification for a $350k aircraft plus the risk to the aircrew when a $10 FPV system gives you better then
the Mark I eyeball and no human factors.

Yep, yep, yep. This is perhaps the biggest thing to happen to aviation since the jet engine. Getting a part 107 cert is not that difficult.

Sign me up!!!

Kinda hard to give Cadet O-Flights in a Drone....    And O-Flights are a required part of the Cadet Program.

Maybe he was thinking of using big drones with hooks, asking cadets to don some sort of web harness, and hooking cadets to drones...?

 
 

Maybe he was thinking of using big drones with hooks, asking cadets to don some sort of web harness, and hooking cadets to drones...?

 

You can be the first Luis. Somebody has to see if it's safe. I nominate you!

Maybe they will update this.

He should be the first one, not me! He is the one proposing the drones, not me.

 

If the O flight requirement remained, they could be accomplished at encampments, such as glider encampment.  The number of fixed wing aircraft could be radically reduced and Wings would support each other at the encampments or they could be National encampments..

I definitely could see the use of sUAVs to augment ground searches, as part 107 only allows for the "crew" to be in actual visual contact with the device.  "Remote Pilot/crew member" could be a new ground team specialty...

Kinda hard to give Cadet O-Flights in a Drone....    And O-Flights are a required part of the Cadet Program.

Well, since no one is suggesting that CAP do away with manned aircraft, your argument has no basis. You seem to be of the battleship mindset when it comes to this topic, so let me try and help you out a bit. Aerospace education is also part of the Cadet Program. Can you think of any way that sUAS can be used to meet that requirement? How about Cadets who, for one reason or another, are unable to meet the medical requirements to become an aviator under part 61? I know 2 off the top of my head who had issues that precluded them from being pilots. both are now flying under part 107. This new field opens up aviation to people that were previously barred from the experience. It allows for exploration and innovation and inclusion on a scale unseen since the Commerce Department started regulating civil aviation. As an aviator, as an aviation regulator and as someone who is passionate about the whole aerospace world, I'm glad that the technology exists and it should be a part of the CAP experience. Not to the exclusion of everything else, but on equal footing with manned aircraft, model rocketry, etc. Or you could just keep thinking inside that little box....

I definitely could see the use of sUAVs to augment ground searches, as part 107 only allows for the "crew" to be in actual visual contact with the device.  "Remote Pilot/crew member" could be a new ground team specialty...

There might even be a UAV or two in the fleet already...

Maybe he was thinking of using big drones with hooks, asking cadets to don some sort of web harness, and hooking cadets to drones...?

 

Sounds like the Fulton recovery...........it sucks.

So if CAP still had a VCR repair NCSA, typewriter maintenance badge, or the CP required an apprenticeship as a telephone operator
would there be discussions about "How CAP would maintain it's capabilities in the face of the changes?".

If the vector continues, there will be physically less aircraft in the fleet, less pilots, and whether or not there >is< a CP
in its present form would have to be on the table (this is a 10 year timeline). Many, many of the leadership and real-wrench turning
staff are involved in aviation, if that dissolves or shrinks, they won't be around, and when you consider that in most wings the
lion's share of the actual work is done by about 1/3rd of the membership, many of them tolerating the administrative
time wasting for the access to the aircraft, things can spiral quickly.

The "strategic plan" is to evolve the CP into a similar situation as the RCAC - focusing on career exploration in STEM with flight training as a
core.  The RCAC accomplishes this with about 100 aircraft, a significant number of which are gliders.  Powered flight training is done at private
schools.  That is a completely different paradigm then CAP.

Workable?  Clearly.  Sustainable with the existing senior membership?  Doubtful.
I know a lot of members not involved in CAP aviation that would leave if GSAR or other non-aircrew based
roles went away, and those people are many of the staff holding the doors open for the pilots and aircrews.

Can CAP evolve?  Maybe 10 years ago, but the question would need to be "should they?"  If less pilots are needed,
why would the US fund a program to increase the number of pilots?

Look at the disruption of the retail environment, that took about a decade to collapse once people started getting
the idea they didn't need to hassle with a guy at CompUSA when Jeff Bezos would drop off what they needed
and it actually cost less.  The collapse is still happening, some businesses are denying the obvious or have the
capital to be the "last buggy whip manufacturer" (*cough* Best Buy *cough*), that doesn't change the vector.

We currently have two companies killing the taxi market who are testing autonomous cars, two major technology
companies racing to win the self-drive market, and one major manufacturer already selling a car to the general public
that self-drives.  How much longer do you think there will be commercial driving schools?

Thrawn, I quote from Live2Learn:

Piloting aircraft appears to be headed to for same fate as wagon wrights and wheel wrights...

Tell me how does this does not mean that "no one is suggesting CAP get away..."

Live2 did! Otherwise, do you see "wagon wrights" around? I do not...

And Eclipse said "in 5-10 years..."

 

Thrawn, I quote from Live2Learn:

Piloting aircraft appears to be headed to for same fate as wagon wrights and wheel wrights...

Tell me how does this does not mean that "no one is suggesting CAP get away..."

Live2 did! Otherwise, do you see "wagon wrights" around? I do not...

And Eclipse said "in 5-10 years..."

 

And it may happen...right around the time I get my Jetson's car.

It would have been more correct to say "no one is suggesting that CAP do away with manned aircraft ANY TIME SOON"....

I will offer a counterpoint to the breathless enthusiasm here, from the perspective of a guy who has spent decades working in fifth gen fighters and UAS development (my MS thesis was on UAS GCIs for example, and I'm currently working on projects for DoD involving imagery and EW threat  interpolation).


Folks, first some framing of the organizational background:  don't forget that the cited references are from the service that brought you (aka DIDN'T bring you) such weapons systems as the cancelled Sergeant York ADA (which couldn't shoot down a hovering helo), the cancelled Crusader SP arty,  the flawed Bradley vehicle family, the questionable Stryker vehicle/system, and the RAH-66 Comanche (which I worked on for a time, and which, after 20 years, had produced exactly 2 prototypes, then was cancelled). The RIF experiments cited are just that: experiments. From their own announcements (which we read, from FBO, in my organization) they are looking at decades before fielding, not months or years. The "iron man" suit referenced (the TALOS program) is an effort which my SOCOM customers are deeply involved in (and which we've supported) and, like similar Air Warrior and PEO Soldier efforts for 21st century smart soldier efforts, is at this date more of an S&T program than an achievable program of record type effort. So: keep the hype in perspective. The quoted sources are looking at technologies which sound great, but require significant integration and test, from a service which (to be charitable) has a track record of needing decades, not months, to bring revolutionary tech to the battlefield. My SOCOM customers frankly laugh at the marketing hype presented here (and these are guys who are front line shooters who get the stuff that works). If you're expecting DoD to field cutting edge UAS products within the next couple of years, and then CAP to transition to UAV-based SAR within anything shorter than a 20 year baseline, I'm afraid you'll be sadly trounced by history.


Next, what CAN we do (legitimately, within modest cost and operational constraints)?  Well, some positive glass-half-full:  we've seen the advent of crowd-sourced intel to volunteer SAR (cf. the Steve Fossett search, with mixed results), and the days when airborne imagery was an expensive DoD product only are starting to be well behind us. Even if the magical SAR UAV isn't present, could CAP work towards an imagery dissemination and interpretation paradigm in which we are manned/unmanned platform agnostic, and where image tracks are downloaded and remotely interpreted?  If so, then the question becomes, is it equally (or more) effective to have human observers scanning the visual track records, OR, to have an automated visual SAR model scan the imagery, looking for patterns?  We have automation models (e.g. the GT Vision model) which equal or exceed human visual scanning performance, and do not tire or need 8 hour flight days, etc. I view it as entirely possible that we could use CAP aircrews flying EO/IR imaging packages ("just fly the pattern"), down linking to either banks of volunteer human scanners, OR an automated visual scanning tool, to return real time alerts on potential finds for further investigation.


Check out:

http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/the-search-for-steve-fossett-24479611/?no-ist

http://internetsar.org/about.html

V/r
Spam

Sure drones will be a great tool to use for SAR and other uses. But when you need to search 100 square miles ... there just will not be enough drones and/or batteries.

Now if you are talking about CAP getting some Reapers ... that might be another story.  But little toy DJI Phantoms will not totally replace manned craft anytime soon.  Maybe for a child lost in a park, small area. That would work.

So you missed the "5-10 year timeline" part of this, right?

"Soon" is relative.

The tech already exists, is all just refinement and enhancement, and overcoming social barriers.

55 years ago no one had orbited the earth, these days orbiting space is so routine that the general public doesn't even notice,
and it's that mundanity that probably robbed us of exploring other planets sooner.

20 years ago the average person used a land line in their home, fax machines were "technology", and "email"
were letters filed between "d" and "f".  The only person with a phone on their watch was Dick Tracey.

Etc., etc., with the exception that computer testing and design is geometrically shrinking time to market for new tech.

In  CAP context the conversation might be about "SAR", but it's part of the larger conversation in which CAP's very existence
is dependent on a vibrant GA community (which in turn is dependent on the need for pilots in both GA and commercially).

GA continues to shrink, including the number of places you can land a plane every year, and commercial is struggling at best,
for both pilot stock and basic business viability.