This is Boeing's "Phantom Eye," a hydrogen-powered, unmanned spy plane that flies 65,000 feet above the ground and can fly for four days straight. Boeing hails it as the "first of its kind" — its looks alone set it apart for that honor.

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Most people associate drones with the large unmanned aircraft carrying out airstrikes and surveillance missions over Afghanistan and Pakistan. But here at an industry conference for the U.S. military's "secret warriors" -- the special operations community -- the increasing focus is on small, stealthy drones that can swoop in and spy on potential enemies. And perhaps even kill them.

These sorts of drones don't typically require specially trained operators or cumbersome ground control stations. Nor, as is often the case with larger surveillance drones, do they require troops to wait hours to receive critical information transmitted from faraway intelligence centers. Rather, these unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, provide immediate imagery and intelligence to the people who need them most: soldiers on the ground. 

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The Homeland Security Department will use unmanned surveillance aircraft and other technological upgrades in its ongoing effort to protect the southern border of the United States.

The department said Wednesday it has obtained Federal Aviation Administration permission to operate unmanned planes along the Texas border and throughout the Gulf Coast region. Customs and Border Protection will base a surveillance drone at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas.

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The scramjet engine in the experimental aircraft burned for a little over three minutes at around 10 a.m. PDT Wednesday in a test range over the Pacific Ocean, pushing the X-51A to the hypersonic speed of Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. That was the top speed reached by the aircraft in its brief flight, according to Boeing and press reports citing U.S. Air Force officials. 

The 200 seconds of autonomous flight by the U.S. Air Force's X-51A set a duration record for an aircraft powered by a scramjet (short for "supersonic combustion ramjet") engine, though in part that can be chalked up to the rarity of any flights at all at this extreme level. The previous record was set by NASA's X-43A, whose scramjet engine burned for only about 10 to 12 seconds in November 2004; that aircraft zoomed to Mach 9.8.

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http://www.ted.com/talks/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html

Congress delved Wednesday into the politically explosive issue of unmanned drone attacks, questioning the legality of operations increasingly used to combat al Qaeda and Taliban militants in countries such as Pakistan.

In the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, unmanned aircraft - or drones - attacked militant targets 45 times.

Since President Barack Obama took office, the numbers have risen sharply: 51 last year and 29 so far this year.

Most attacks have targeted suspected militant hideouts in Pakistan. While the United States is the only country in the region known to have the ability to launch missiles from drones - which are controlled remotely - U.S. officials normally do not comment on suspected drone strikes.

The program's success however is causing some big cracks in the system.  According to a report issued this week by congressional watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office.  The military is facing a number of challenges, including training, accessing national air space and improving aircraft communications systems it must overcome if unmanned aircraft are to take their place as a central piece of the military's future, the GAO stated. 

First, the report notes that as more unmanned aircraft hit the skies, the pentagon will require access to more airspace for training; for example, the DoD estimated that based on planned unmanned aircraft inventories in fiscal year 2013, the military services will require more than 1 million flight hours to train personnel within the United States, the GAO stated.   

Because unmanned aircraft don't meet several federal requirements for routine access to the national airspace system, most types of the aircraft may not perform routine flight activities, such as taking off and landing outside DoD-managed airspace. The main problems is that most unmanned aircraft don't suitable alternative technology on board the aircraft to detect, sense, and avoid collision with other aircraft, the GAO stated.

Pilot supply is also major issue.  The Air Force, the GAO states, has identified limitations in the approaches it has used to supply pilots to support the expanded Predator and Reaper programs. Since the beginning of these programs, the Air Force has temporarily reassigned experienced pilots to operate unmanned aircraft, and more recently, it began assigning pilots to operate unmanned aircraft immediately after they completed undergraduate pilot training. Air Force officials stated that this initiative is intended to provide an additional 100 pilots per year on a temporary basis to support the expanding unmanned programs. Officials told the GAO that it would be difficult to continue these practices in the long term without affecting the readiness of other Air Force weapon systems, since the pilots who are performing unmanned operations on temporary assignments are also needed to operate other manned aircraft and perform other duties. 

MQ-9 photos at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (originally the Predator B) is a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) (also known as a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV)) developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) for use by the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, Italian Air Force, and the Royal Air Force. The MQ-9 is the first hunter-killer UAV designed for long-endurance, high-altitude surveillance.The MQ-9 is a larger and more capable aircraft than the earlier MQ-1 Predator, although it can be controlled by the same ground systems used to control MQ-1s. The MQ-9 has a 950-shaft-horsepower (712 kW) turboprop engine, far more powerful than the Predator's 115 hp (86 kW) piston engine. The increase in power allows the Reaper to carry 15 times more ordnance and cruise at three times the speed of the MQ-1.

In 2008 the New York Air National Guard 174th Fighter Wing began the transition from F-16 piloted planes to MQ-9 Reaper UAVs, which are capable of remote controlled or autonomous flight operations, becoming the first all-UAV attack squadron.
Then U.S. Air Force (USAF) Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley said, "We've moved from using UAVs primarily in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles before Operation Iraqi Freedom, to a true hunter-killer role with the Reaper."

The terms Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) are generally synonymous terms, however the USAF MQ-9 community currently prefers and considers the term RPV to be more accurate. Although the MQ-9 can fly pre-programmed routes autonomously, the aircraft is always monitored or controlled by aircrew in the Ground Control Station (GCS) and weapons employment is always commanded by the pilot.

As of 2009 the U.S. Air Force’s fleet stands at 195 Predators and 28 Reapers.

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