Saturday, March 20, 2010

Army on a Fast Track to Build its Own High-Tech Air Force

Army on a Fast Track to Build its Own High-Tech Air Force: "The Army soon will begin deploying larger quantities of remotely piloted surveillance aircraft — the high-tech kind that so far only have been operated by the U.S. Air Force.

The scope and pace of the Army’s unmanned aircraft buildup has been described by one official as a “California gold rush.”

The centerpieces of the Army’s unmanned warplane fleet will be the Shadow and Sky Warrior aircraft. It plans to acquire more than 300 of these two variants during the next five years. Nearly a hundred aircraft already are in the inventory."