Confessions of a Drone Warrior

Re:Confessions of a Drone Warrior by wdewind on Saturday October 26, 2013 @02:39PM (#6618618)

They are similar risk to airforce units (ie: little/no risk to pilot). They are similar cost to airforce units (about 2/3 the cost of an F-15, which is certainly significant but not completely game changing). They perform similar actions to airforce units. I am always surprised that people draw such a big line between the pilot being in the cockpit and out of it.

It's also totally possible Bin Laden did hold up his hands. None of the points you are making really have anything to do with drones.

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Re:Confessions of a Drone Warrior by e12e on Sunday October 27, 2013 @01:34AM (#6620914)

There was a report earlier about stress and drone pilots, that spurred some coverage, like:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-08/psychologic...

partial quote: "The dazzling clarity of the drone's optics does have a downside. As a B-1 pilot, Dan wouldn't learn details about the effects of his weapons until a post-mission briefing. But flying a drone, he sees the carnage close-up, in real time—the blood and severed body parts, the arrival of emergency responders, the anguish of friends and family. Often he's been watching the people he kills for a long time before pulling the trigger. Drone pilots become familiar with their victims. They see them in the ordinary rhythms of their lives—with their wives and friends, with their children. War by remote control turns out to be intimate and disturbing. Pilots are sometimes shaken."

In other words: similar:yes, same:no.

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Re:Confessions of a Drone Warrior by wdewind on Sunday October 27, 2013 @01:54AM (#6620953)

That's really interesting to me because it claims the opposite of what most people are arguing re: the detachment of drone pilots. Thanks for sharing that article.

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Re:Confessions of a Drone Warrior by e12e on Sunday October 27, 2013 @03:16AM (#6621119)

If you haven't yet done so, I also recommend reading the article posted here (Confessions of a Drone Warrior) -- I think quite a few of these commenters either commented before reading, didn't read the article very thoroughly, or took the article with quite a few pounds of salt. It references the study/report on PTSD among drone pilots, among other things.

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