Air Force abandons $3 billion worth of drones

reply to post by Neocrusader


Oh Don't worry I'm sure Gull-able countries such as the UK will buy them off your hands since it was revealed that the UK were using drones. Now we are all are now finding out where the savings from sacking thousands of Armed Forces personnel, scrapping of planes, ships etc has went to.

Is it just me that feels like I am in the frikken twilight zone, everytime I hear the higher ups in our government institutions and such speak of billions of dollars as if it is chump change?

i got a thought, do you think this was a ruze and they are puttin em on the back burner for future use on us terrorists........crap i mean american citizens in the future? seems to me at the rate were goin, they would be ballsy enough to do that, and call it the new war on drugs or something.

reply to post by Laurauk


The Brits don't need to buy the yanks drones ( ok starting to get fed up with being assumed as an American ! )
They have been and still are developing their own
Yes they bought pred and reaper but their advanced drone tech is their own r+d
It's nearly everyone else - drone tech is the new mil economy, have at look who's selling drones to whom, it reveals quite a lot

reply to post by Brandon88


These companies that produce drones are a lot like apple. Super inflated prices with new "updated" versions every 6 months. Even though the previous versions are fully competent, the hipster gov't feels compelled to buy the next superfluous version every 6 months XD

reply to post by Biigs


Ok, if you see this big bird (drone) flying over your property and you fear it poses a risk to your pets safety, can you shoot it? Do you have to have a small game license? Is there a special season for these? Is it considered an endangered species now because it is no longer being produced?....... So many questions.....

reply to post by Brandon88


I am sure they will sell them off. We will pay for them and the profit will go into private hands, further serving as incentive to undermine our military budget. There is no wonder why there is such a push for military campaigns that are designed to do anything besides create more conflict. You will probably see those in a city near you with your local police department logo on them. The thing is they are already paid for.

That is allot of money. They could spend that on our citizens. But no. We want to be Spartans!?!?!?!?!

Hey, I'll take a couple. I bet I could put them to good use.

Could be someone needed a vacation and a place to hide the money...

My bet is someone is on that 3 mil vaca right now...

They will probably be sent to Davis-Monthan the Air Force boneyard and stored for possible future use.

Hmmmm....could this have anything to do with the FAAs plans to authorize the use of drone survielance in US airspace? Maybe these drones will be 're-purposed' to keep us safe here at home by monitoring our every moves.

Oh boy!

3 *BILLION* dollars for a dozen remote controlled TOYS that they probably won't even get now?? And the U.S. is pushing hard to cut man power and add MORE of these?? Wow..... I don't think we can afford to go to war with this kind of thinking.

At 3 Billion per dozen, it'll be a day worthy of lowered flags for the economic tragedy losing ONE of those would represent.

I think the Pentagon and White House have lost site of something. We aren't God and we don't have His protections. If it's too expensive to lose in battle, find another solution! ONE OF THESE DAYS....We might REALLY find an enemy who can shoot straight and doesn't wet their pants and hide in a closet when America comes knocking. We're in for a serious butt kicking when that day comes with the priorities we seem to be clinging to as a nation now.

Men fight wars... Toys support the men. It isn't the other way around. I hope we don't have to REALLY lose a war to learn that.

reply to post by SmArTbEaTz


Or we could just give them away to the next country we plan on invading like we have in the past...

Originally posted by THE_PROFESSIONAL
Probably found out that Iran can take em down.

Wasnt a bill just passed that allows the military to use drones in America?

At some point just simple surveillance is ineffective if it has to be carrying a 150 pound grown man and has to have missiles and machine guns and thick armor and etc. Where're the priorities?

For all we know, surveillance might be nanocamaras that blow in the wind. The problem is how to communicate what they see back to base. How do you make communication so that it's hacker proof? Even a manned aircraft has to communicate what it sees, so it either uses communication or it flies round-trip back home. And again... if it has to fly round-trip then it's wasting time/energy having to carry a 150 pound man and defend him. This idea that it'll always be manned is outdated and won't last muhc longer.

The communication problem is what's on my mind.

Maybe the technology costs are too high right now. Or maybe they have something better than not just manned craft or unmanned craft.. maybe they can see the thoughts of people from spy satellites?

Originally posted by Infi8nity

Originally posted by THE_PROFESSIONAL
Probably found out that Iran can take em down.

Wasnt a bill just passed that allows the military to use drones in America?

Yes and they had planned to have 30,000 by 2020 patroling their own skys.

digitaljournal.com...

reply to post by Brandon88


Don't throw them away, I'll take one!

No worries, all of the police depts. will buy them up. We need them ya know, cause of terrorists.


U

Originally posted by USarmyFL
No worries, all of the police depts. will buy them up. We need them ya know, cause of terrorists.

U

At those rates, it better be Robocop with wings. They'd better find, chase, capture and arrest the bad guy all by themselves. 1/4 of a billion a copy leaves me really wanting to know what the heck a remote control plane could possibly carry. I mean, we're in the realm of the costs for the original production models of the F-117 Nighthawk with those prices.

Err.. Never mind. These drones are more expensive and by quite a bit by the look of it.

F-117 Development and Variant data/costs

So..What does that kind of staggering sum buy, aside from cost overruns and budget corruption beyond all reason? I'm really getting curious now.

reply to post by hawkiye


why not just print more money?

like $20 trillion.this will clear of the debts and lead to a economic boom.