"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article et, Tony Cox
i
wrote:
duffers" just happen to be the UAV manufacturers is a
significant departure from existing practice. It's not BS, it's
a very valid concern.

It sort of begs the question - if UAV pilots are going to need to be
essentially PPL standard for medical etc. why bother? Why not just send
the guy up in a Cessna 172 to do his patrols instead? It'd be much
cheaper to stick the man in an existing aircraft that you can buy off
the open market for low (for Government) cost if you're going to need
the man to fly a UAV remotely, anyway.

Indeed! But when I suggested that earlier, Bob objected
because it'd send up the price of used 182's! (Owning one
myself, I don't see a problem...)

From the accident reports Larry posted, each of these UAV's cost
us about $3.3 million & need a crew of 7 to keep in the air. That's
10 brand new 182's -- 13 or 14 72's.


I see an advantage to using UAVs for reconnaisance over enemy territory.
But over your own country, the only point to UAVs I can see is research
and training the recon operators - which can all be done in a MOA.

There's a good sized MOA over most of Death Valley. They can
pretend the occasional hiker is Bin Laden. I'm with you. I can't see
any reason for operation in the NAS unless it is a "nose under the
tent" issue.