of Spades:
The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It’s outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.
The Reaper is loaded, but there’s no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.
The arrival of these outsized U.S. “hunter-killer” drones, in aviation history’s first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
 And before anyone says the obvious, more cowbell.
Comment by JD on 7/17 @ 10:13 am #
The military-industrial complex is never at a loss to create new and innovative ways to kill brown people.
Comment by BumperStickerist on 7/17 @ 10:21 am #
Eventually we’ll get to a Kurt Vonnegut-land where nobody’ll remember how to actually fly a plane, at which point the comms links will fail, leaving us with a situation where some pissed off brown kids in rehabbed Cessna 172s drop handheld bombs out the window until we surrender.
Comment by thor on 7/17 @ 11:13 am #
Dspite the mitigating bagfull-dependence variations, sploogeworth became my today’s favorite word.
Thanks Dan.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/17 @ 11:22 am #
Sure, thor. What are friends for?
Comment by JD on 7/17 @ 11:27 am #
Friends don’t let friends drive “The Reaper” while loaded.
Comment by Major John on 7/17 @ 11:32 am #
Meh – more useful in Afghanistan. I’ll bet the boys down at BCP1, BCP 4, Lwara, Spin Boldak Chaman would rather have them there…
Comment by eLarson on 7/17 @ 12:28 pm #
“Its pilot, as it bombs targets (and baby ducks and bunnies!) in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.”
And I’ll bet there will be the dreaded AIR CONDITIONING at the console.
Comment by TheGeezer on 7/17 @ 1:23 pm #
Eventually we’ll get to a Kurt Vonnegut-land where nobody’ll remember how to actually fly a plane, at which point the comms links will fail
And the four of us who remember Morse Code will use multi-kilowatt arc welders to target whoever is left…
Comment by Patrick Carroll on 7/17 @ 2:28 pm #
I think this is a great innovation, and I hope for more. Without a man in the machine, we’ll be able to field equipment that’ll be way cheaper to make, and be able to pull loads more g’s.
Plus, of course, no risk of losing pilots.
Comment by JD on 7/17 @ 2:36 pm #
I just like the fact that we can kill more brown people, women, children, and oppressed minorities, without risking the lives of the blood-thirsty soldiers who are just pawns of the miltary-industrial complex.
Comment by memomachine on 7/17 @ 2:45 pm #
Hmmmm.
IMHO the real weapon of choice would be an intercontinental railgun.
Build a big-ass railgun 10+ miles long up the side of a mountain in Colorado capable of handling 10,000lb bombs and sending those loads into suborbit.
Who needs bombers when you can deliver the things all the way from Colorado?
Comment by Patrick Carroll on 7/17 @ 2:53 pm #
Hi JD,
I hate to feed the troll, but ok.
I served for six years as an officer of the USAF, back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. I speak from some experience.
The US military has pretty high standards for the people it allows in. Degrees for officers, high school diplomas for enlisted people are the minimum education standard. Officers and enlisted people go through extensive military and civilian education in order to get promoted. Far from being a collection of bloodthirsty pawns, the US military is actually a group of highly-intellectual problem solvers.
Killing people and breaking things is surely part of the equation. That said, the US military has brought more peace and freedom to more people than any other institution I can think of. Your comments betray a lot of bigotry and ignorance.
Patrick
–
Comment by JD on 7/17 @ 2:57 pm #
Patrick – Apparently my sarcasm was lost on you. Having served in the USAF as an Arabic Cryptological Linguist, and being a college grad when I enlisted, I share the same respect and admiration of the men and women in uniform, and the institution itself that you possess.
As the author, it is incumbent upon me to make sure that I give the reader sufficient information to make my intent clear. In this case, apparently, I did not.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/17 @ 3:24 pm #
Patrick, JD. JD, Patrick. I think you guys have a lot in common. Want a beer?
Comment by JD on 7/17 @ 4:10 pm #
Thanks for the offer, Dan, but I have been clean and sober for over 3 years now, and as good as a beer always sounds, it is not in my best interests. You think that armadillo can raise hell …
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/17 @ 4:46 pm #
I try to limit my visionary transportations to the weekend, JD. But then, I’m a Celt.
Comment by Patrick Carroll on 7/17 @ 5:41 pm #
Sorry I got the wrong end of that stick.
I’m very glad I cleaned up my initial response.
Comment by thor on 7/17 @ 7:22 pm #
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/17 @ 11:22 am #
“Sure, thor. What are friends for?”
Well, seeing as you’re in a beery mood, how we share a sploogeworth of suds in a mug, friend?
Comment by JD on 7/17 @ 10:14 pm #
Patrick – No problem. I shall actually take that as a compliment. My parody of the moonbats at least confused one rube ;-)
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/18 @ 4:38 am #
Nice head on that splooge.
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