Tuesday, May 17, 2011

UAVs and the Operational Commander: Don’t keep MAV grounded!

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA503043&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

the above link is written by:
Joshua A. Sager
LCDR USN

In Joshua's article, he starts out by sharing deductively about how the major premise of the unmanned aerial vehicle has begun to appear all over modern day battlefields. After his introduction with a brief history on UAV's, he begins to share the minor premise of how the UAV's have failed so far in the current war setting and points out specific reasons why and where the current UAV platform is lacking.

One major fallacy in his argument is when he discuses the lack of communication with the UAV in overcast weather. Although clouds do affect the communication link from pilot to aircraft, in typical overcast weather the change is hardly noticeable at all. To put it on perspective, dish network customers do not loose their reception when it is overcast. It is only in moderate to severe storms that the connection to the satellite is interrupted, but most of that is due to physical obstacles blocking or on the dish. The author of this article fails to mention that information, and instead leads the readers to believe that he aircraft cannot function if there is any cloud in the sky.

Overall, the argument is very well presented and entices the reader to side with the authors belief.


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