One million hours of flight, with no pilot

At the beginning of the war in Iraq, back in 2003, US armed forced were equipped with 13 pilotless aircraft, the so called drones or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). From that time on, the growth in deployment and usage of these systems has been exponential, until current days, when over 1400 vehicles of this kind are actually deployed in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the middle of April 2010, the drones used in Iraqi territory have “celebrated” a total of one million hours of flight. The overwhelming success of aerial video surveillance systems is mostly do to their efficiency in carrying out their missions automatically or thanks to a remote control, without having to unnecessarily put personnel’s lives in danger.

In fact, whether they are used for reconnaissance or target acquisition operations, thanks to the installation of photo and video equipment (also infrared for night vision), or they carry out real combat missions thanks to the application of warheads and weapons, UAVs (or UAS, Unmanned Aerial Systems) have revolutionized the modern idea of war, making it resemble a videogame, at least from the point of view of the UAV operator.

The first pilotless aircraft was used in Iraq during the first Gulf War after the Kuwait invasion in 1991. Since then, it took 13 years to reach 2004, when a total of 100000 hours of flight was reached, while nowadays, an estimate says that unmanned aircraft are carrying out at least 25000 hours of missions every month.

Recently, the US Army has released its Road Map for applications and usage of unmanned aircraft in military operations for the next 25 years. During this time, officials are planning to increase the usage of this vehicles in fields of applications such as evacuation of wounded troops and transportation of heavy material.