It does seem like we're on the cusp of a 'drone revolution' and the way a lot of them work, there's still a human being in the loop. But we've been here before. Britain canceled pretty much every manned aircraft program in the '50's since drones were going to take over the skies, but they ended up paying for it.
Sure, we've come a lot farther along, technology wise, and the concept of battle drones is more viable now. But it's been proven that relying on what technologies seem to be the wave of the future is risky at best. Maybe that's why they want at least 187 of them.
I personally feel the air-to-ground capability is a more important issue, but that can, at least partially, be improved upon.
Like I said, I've not seen a thing that indicates there's anything physically wrong with the aircraft, but some of the USAF types don't seem all that enthusiastic about her, so I wondered.
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"Stop sounding battlestations just to hear the alarm."
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