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Drones as I understand them


Drones as I understand them

Reading through the pages of the TIME magazine, I spotted an article on drones. Not just army drones but even on the commercial drones telling us the use of drones in the daily lives of the people. A few links to interesting videos about drones are
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riSE9GrYNEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXgGCH36fzM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0vhTLBC1OI

Aerial Vehicles (UAV) aka drones are dated back during the 1916, where the first unmanned vehicle, “Aerial Target” was made for target practice. In 1944, the American Navy tried to adapt B-24 Liberators[1] under human control as Project Anvil, but it turned out to be a failure and it claimed the life of Joseph Kennedy[2], brother of President Kennedy. The remotely controlled B-24 needed soldiers for take off and take them to around 2000m altitude and activate the detonator. The pilots would then parachute down and the aircraft would continue on to Germany while being remotely controlled.
During the 1990’s the Americans used Predator drones as reconnaissance flights during the war against Iraq also known as OPERATION DESERT STORM. But the Drone Age didn’t truly dawn until 2001, when the Predator was weaponized.

Ten years ago the US Military had only 50 drones, and now it has over 7,500 drones, with engineers working on it patrolling through areas for 20 hours a day. There have been many drone attacks in Afghanistan in this year and increasing under the presidency of Barack Obama.
Many important terrorist leader have been killed in Drone attacks in Pakistan, the numbers exceeding 2500 terrorists killed by drones but around 200 civilians were killed.

Watching videos on YouTube, on drones, I got to know about how the different controllers and functions on a Predator drone worked. There are videos about different attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ethics of Drone Attacks[3]
A normal way of life, the suspect has gone through various levels of judicial judgment to be finally punished, whereas a target locked on by a drone is just a click away from execution, which gets the problem of human control and decision making in the limelight. The second problem is the killing of civilians by drones or use of drones by terrorist groups. There have been any debates[4] on this.[5]

The Good side
Mostly we know about the use of drones in wars, but the new technologies have helped people in business and security.

Real estate agents are using drones these days to show the plots and bungalows from over the top views and other features. Policemen are using Falcon UAV Drones to track out fugitives and lead search operations in the countryside. Some of the best commercial uses are the use of drones by farmers for tracking bears in their fields and even thieves.
Drones are even used for transport. Medical supplies and food are transferred to places out of reach. These days we had heard about hurricanes in the US, drones are not only now used for medical services but also as hurricane trackers.

The thing with drones is that they can go anywhere, they were sent to help in the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, and they were also sent for transfer of resources to the Tsunami struck place over there.

Drones as we had known were just for attacks at Afghanistan, but as technology is improving it is helping us in our day-to-day life be it security, transport, business or pleasure.
To learn more about drones, watch this-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msHJLwYWX30



[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Jr.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Jr.#Operation_Aphrodite
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_combat_air_vehicle#Laws_and_ethics_of_war
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4coWgmPCvL0
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_h5k24e_8

The latest news

These days, we have reports of innocent people being killed by the predator drones, columnists and writers are calling the drone attacks as Mass Murder. Whereas Obama has been really supporting this project, he says that drones have saved life as it is a gift from the god. Yes, there have been some great news about Taliban leaders being killed by the drones, but drones have affected the civilian lives also.
there were reports that a small girl was killed by the drones, and many other incidents which Obama has to justify. Barack Obama has been reported to say that US will keep deploying drones when they are the only option. 
the girl killed by drones-"She never saw it coming"-Barack Obama

In my thoughts, drones are a better way of war since it is not a full scale war, cause full scale wars will mean a lot of blood shed, affecting the lives of millions. Yes, there have been many incidents of civilians being killed but by taking the major result of Drones affecting the Taliban, we can say it is giving a quite a good result. But it's a dangerous technology that can effect the whole world, that can make quite a scare for the whole world.


Rohan Mehta
May 2013

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