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

You are correct.
If anything, you are understating where it's going.

My main point was that the last fighter pilot had been born, and I believe I indicated that puts manned flight on a 50-year clock.
50 years, not today.  Combat systems will likely be the last to be replaced, as much because of social issues as technological ones.
50 years ago we hadn't yet stepped foot on the moon, 50 years from now we'll have private colonies on mars, or at least significant
exploration because the ability has left the hands of governments and is in the hands of private enterprise.  There are now literally hundreds
of companies racing for space in the same way NASA did in the 60's.  Hundreds.  Many feeding off of each other and collaborating
in real-time, and design computers can iterate in weeks what used to take years with slide rulers.

Couple that with VR, which is just dipping its toe in the world, finally, in a meaningful way.  Sure Candy Crush in 360 surround is what most
consumers will use it for, but the real "magic" is industrial design, where today you can walk into virtual spaces you designed and see flaws
immediately.  Soon you'll be able to feel those objects and flaws, too.

VR coupled with autonomous craft will allow people to "travel" via ground and air vehicle in ways that require physical presence today.
Yeah, latency, blah, blah. It's an issue today if you want to send a UAV to another continent and have it make life or death decisions.
Far less so for teams of SAR people working in the AOR with small FPV drones.  Instead of thinking Predator, think the spiders in Minority Report.

One person cold cover acres at a time from his car, which drives itself down a road adjacent to a search area (etc., etc.)

ELT?  With the money and the autoiztion I could build a drone that could home on an ELT today. Me.  And I still usually leave globs
of solder on the bench when I fix a broken wire.  All of the parts already exist today. 

CAP's issues, on the other hand, are a lot more immediate, thus my 10 year assertion, primarily because it's already in trouble membership and viability-wise,
and doesn't have the flexibility to start losing what members and mission it has to autonomous anything.

And again, the technology already exists today. Autonomous software in cars will feed autonomous software in everything else, including aircraft
(not to mention toasters, pencils, and alarm clocks.

Cars are physically capable of driving themselves. Aircraft are physically capable of flying themselves (including commercially),
the rest is just details, will , and money.

Recall how excited CAP was about Hyperspectral Imaging, and our wonderful new Gippsland aircraft? Yeah... lets do that again.

Not even a remotely apt comparison - ARCHER was literally experimental even after adoption, questionable as to
whether even a fully-functional system was appropriate for CAP SAR, and then CAP did everything it could to insure it failed
because of an overly complex system of training and approval needed to even get near the thing, let alone actually use it.

I'm sure they exist, but I'm not personally aware of a single actual "find" with it, and many times that wasn't because of the tech,
but because getting it to a mission made self-dentistry look like a good idea.

There are starting to be anecdotal stories of drone use in SAR popping up after various natural disasters - most of the time off-the-shelf stuff that that was  already in hand or someone grabbed from the local big-box. I could go right now, stand on the edge of a flooded residential area, and scan it quickly with an FPV drone and never get my feet wet. Today, with something that coast a couple hundred bucks.

FWIW drones have been reconning wild fires during high fire danger periods for about a decade.  I saw some video footage from Matthew (Hurricane, that is!) where an off the shelf drone was used to recon flooded areas.  The AI is still primitive, however it's coming along nicely.  VERY soon there won't be any reason to remember the 238 distinct buttons to push in sequence to do all of the nav and aviation SA functions in our (ha! ha!) "technically advanced" aircraft. 

Nice analogy, by the way.  "Self dentistry", indeed!

FYI, national directive just came out in the Aux to discontinue any use of drones that anyone has been doing and to not start anything else.  However, they did ask for Auxies knowledgeable about drones to join a working group to look at the issue. 

FYI, national directive just came out in the Aux to discontinue any use of drones that anyone has been doing and to not start anything else.  However, they did ask for Auxies knowledgeable about drones to join a working group to look at the issue.

IOW ... how can the brass take the credit if they are left out of the loop ...  and rogue, inventive and enterprising individuals, show success at the grass roots level?

By the time headquarters finalizes a report and approves certain uses of drone model 3 .... drone model 12 will be out and the manufacturer will not support 3.   

"Inventive" doesn't scale.  It's easy to sit and talk about making pictures "snap" and doing all sorts of
NEAT! NEW! stuff on your own time, but when a national, government connected organization with
an actual mission mandate needs to do something, it has to be scalable, affordable, and hardened.

"Inventive" doesn't scale.  It's easy to sit and talk about making pictures "snap" and doing all sorts of
NEAT! NEW! stuff on your own time, but when a national, government connected organization with
an actual mission mandate needs to do something, it has to be scalable, affordable, and hardened.

 

All of that and... skills must be readily available to operate the nifty tech to produce consistent results to a known standard.

"Inventive" doesn't scale.  It's easy to sit and talk about making pictures "snap" and doing all sorts of
NEAT! NEW! stuff on your own time, but when a national, government connected organization with
an actual mission mandate needs to do something, it has to be scalable, affordable, and hardened.

 

All of that and... skills must be readily available to operate the nifty tech to produce consistent results to a known standard.

Agree with all of that. But keeping in mind the pace that this technology is changing .... CAP hdqs will have to find a new way of implementing, maintaining and keeping it very fluid. As I said above, whatever they start studying today will be out of date in 3-6 months. CAP going to drones will require speed and folks at the top that can change things up monthly , or less possibly, sending out new information to operators. And a given that drones will not have the life of a C-172. Many drones will be crashed. (Maintenance department at hdqs?) A stockpile of replacements will be needed. Camera and servo replacements. And at least every 3-4 years at the outset, new systems for everyone.

IOW .... when and if CAP goes drones .... the drone department at hdqs will be a full time job for several folks possibly. (If its done properly.)

BTW ... seems this thread should have been under "Tools of the Trade" (?)

Perhaps "tools of the trade" might be apropos, as etodd suggested.  Too late now.  Run with it...

Here's an interesting discussion from DefenseOne about AI flown 'wingmen', or as our new gender language would put it 'Wingers'. 

Interesting article titled "... How to Test Its Future Robotic Wingmen".    http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/10/military-unsure-how-test-future-autonomous-drones/132525/?oref=defenseone_today_nl

Maybe 5-10 years is pessimistic.  Maybe this is just smoke.  Can't tell.  Regardless, we can bet our likely primary adversaries (aka 'competitors') are working at least as hard as we are... without the constant public pronouncements.

The clock is ticking...

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/ubers-self-driving-truck-makes-first-delivery-50000-beers/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/technology/self-driving-trucks-first-mission-a-beer-run.html?_r=0

https://www.ottomotors.com/

Now, as someone who is hitting Uber hard this week on the left coast, I will say that the human proclivity to
ignore programming does cause services like Uber issues that need to be addressed.  The LA downtown area
is a nightmare of construction right now, and I cay that being from the Chicago area.  Combine that with all the
one-way streets and I've had several impromptu tours of the area thanks to Waze sending the drivers in circles,
plus the system thinks my hotel's entrance is actually in the tunnel underneath it.

But with those issues acknowledged, they are being worked out on a massive scale each day as the problems
are found, and that massively-multiplayer iteration just accelerates the development and progression of all things
autonomous.

If this were a question of "public good", spearheaded by government agencies, it might never happen and would
probably never work right, but this is an effort of "business plan", "reduced overhead" (i.e. people and salaries),
and ultimately "profit", which is why quite literally every major technology company in the world is working the problem,
and insures it will happen and ultimately be something that works and is scalable on both the ground and in the air.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/articles/air-force-offers-bonuses-up-to-175-000-for-drone-pilots

"Some airmen who fly remotely piloted aircraft can now receive an expanded retention bonus worth up to $175,000.

The critical skills retention bonus provides some RPA pilots $35,000 per year -- for a total of $175,000 -- if they agree to a five-year active-duty service commitment, or $35,000 for an additional year of commitment if they're already receiving a similar CSRB or aviation retention pay bonus.

Enlisted to get the same as officers:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/09/21/enlisted-drone-pilots-to-get-same-bonus-pay-as-officers-cody.html

Don't worry,  DoD won't come looking for that bonus later.... oh, wait

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Don't worry,  DoD won't come looking for that bonus later.... oh, wait

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Is it DOD, or the fine print in some law passed by Congress and signed into law by the POTUS?  A lot of unnecessary invective is heaped on DOD, contracting, purchasing agents, and every other bureaucrat because people forget who MAKES the law, who APPROVES the law, and who IMPLEMENTS the law as written, passed, signed, and interpreted (by the courts).

In the case of the California Guard bonus situation, it appears to be mismanagement and outright fraud on
the part of recruiters trying to make targets.

In the case of the California Guard bonus situation, it appears to be mismanagement and outright fraud on
the part of a few recruiters trying to make targets.

FTFY - Please don't slime everyone with your overly broad statements.

In the case of the California Guard bonus situation, it appears to be mismanagement and outright fraud on
the part of a few recruiters trying to make targets.

FTFY - Please don't slime everyone with your overly broad statements.

It's very sad that a whole lot of good people are tainted when a few worms get into the apple barrel.  One might argue (Caution- Thread drift!) that there is very strong culpability at the top of the recruiting food chain in much the same why it existed (and appears to have escaped accountability) at the venerable financial institution called "Wells Fargo".  The operative words Eclipse's post were, as highlighted "a few", but also "trying to make [perhaps impossible] targets.".

Returning to the OP thread - there's an interesting article about a startup, Comm.ai, here:  http://www.kxly.com/news/money/selfdriving-car-startup-kills-its-product-rather-than-deal-with-lawyers/42283694.  According to the report, they've come up with a gadget to use blue tooth and other inherent connectivity already within an auto to metamorphose it into an autonomous, self driving car.  Oops.  The govmt regulations require expensive testing etc. etc. etc., lawyers (sorry to the practitioners on forum), and lotsa paperwork.  In a hissy fit they're taking their innovation and moving to.... 



Shenzhen, China.  Not very patriotic, IMHO.     But it's maybe the smartest strategy if they want to get it rolling (bad intentional pun) with minimum delay.   

Could it be that the essence of our debate is captured in this cartoon?