What's in a Name? The Rise of the Drones

It is undoubtedly a deliberately provocative front cowl heading designed to draw in attention - 'the rise of the drones'. The Air Force dislikes the term 'drone' in the main attributable to the media headlines concerning drone strikes removing Taleban insurgents that imply that drones area unit autonomous robots, all-seeing powerful machines that realize and destroy their targets while not human input.

Instead, the Air Force prefers the term 'remotely-piloted aircraft', or RPA, that has additionally been adopted by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. definitely within the military context, RPA is additional correct nomenclature than UAV or 'unmanned aerial vehicle'.

It is true that military platforms just like the MQ-9 Reaper (on our front cover) area unit unmanned craft within the sense that a pilot isn't physically onboard the craft. however, it's additional correct to mention they're remotely-piloted, because the crew of a Reaper, comprising a pilot and device operator, flies the craft and makes all the selections on the use of its weapons and sensors, from the bottom.

While autonomous craft could also be on the horizon, for currently a minimum of UAVs area unit solely unmanned within the sense that there's no-one physically within the craft. All decision-making is formed by a trained human.

(Indeed, as we tend to report in our feature elsewhere this issue, the RAAF"s director of unmanned  systems calls RPAs "hyper-manned" attributable to the personal necessities to work a system capable of 24/7 'persistent' operations.)

Where RPA is additional of a name is within the world of tiny drones that may be purchased by the overall public. Yes, tiny drones area unit 'piloted' within the sense they're controlled by a pilot on the bottom via device, however within the overwhelming majority of cases drones area unit flown by 'pilots' with nothing just like the qualifications and aviation information and understanding of a 'pilot' in an exceedingly ancient manned craft.

And that's a locality of nice concern and arguing. Anecdotally several professionals inside the aviation business, from pilots to traffic controllers, hold grave issues that it's solely a matter of your time before a little drone crashes into associate degree airplane on approach or outward associate degree field, inflicting a possible disaster.