Advertisement

GoldenEye

The U.S. Defense Department’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Planning Task Force’s “Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2005-2030” offers a 213-page window into a major aspect of the U.S. military’s evolution, and has received a great deal of coverage lately.

Rather than trying to tie everything together in one summary post, we’ve decided to offer you a set of links we’re finding useful as we attempt to put the pieces together:

• Office of the Secretary of Defense – OSD UAS Planning Task Force. The report is available for download on the site.

• Federation of American Scientists Intelligence Resource Program – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Good fast overview of many current programs and trends, and some future ones as well.

• National Defense Magazine (April/05) – Unmanned Aircraft ‘Roadmap’ Reflects Changing Priorities

• Dow Jones (Aug 5/05) – US DoD Study: Unmanned Aircraft Need Better Data Links

• DefenseTech.org (Aug 12/05) – Special Forces Drones. Including the BATCAM. Which may help select targets for BAT bombs. No word on any other special BAT accessories for special forces issue… though they are known to use a BATMAN system as well

• DefenseTech.org (Aug 15/05) – Unmanned Future Plotted. Noah writes: ”...there is a part of the Roadmap where the Pentagon’s planners let their imagination run wild, where they consider the flying robotic equivalent to concept cars. Here are a few models…” Note that DT doesn’t include photographs of the A-160 Hummingbird – but DID recently did, along with more extensive program details.

• C4ISR Journal (Aug 16/05) – UAVs Vs. Manned Aircraft? New Road Map Sees Larger Roles for Robot Planes

• C4ISR Jorunal (Aug 23/05) – Pentagon’s UAV Plan Lacks Major, Multiyear Buys. Instead, aircraft are likely to be rapidly developed in smaller lots, over shorter periods of time, for specific purposes. Once upon a time, the USA also built manned aircraft that way.

See also DID’s ongoing UAV topic archive.