Gremlins were not "luck charms of many British pilots during World War II" as Darpa states. They were bad luck demons that could kill pilots.<p>"Gremlins were said to engage in such a myriad of bad behavior as sucking the gas out of tanks through hoses, jamming radio frequencies, mucking up landing gear, blowing dust or sand into fuel pipes or sensitive electrical equipment, cutting wires, removing bolts or screws, tinkering with dials, knobs or switches, jostling controls, slashing wings or tires, poking or pinching gunners or pilots, banging incessantly on the fuselage, breaking windows, and a wide variety of other prankish acts. "<p><a href="https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/the-real-gremlins-of-wwii/" rel="nofollow">https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/the-real-gremlins-of-...</a>
I am not an aerospace engineer, but the figure '20 uses' stood out to me as odd: if it's 20 uses, why not just build it to be easily serviceable indefinitely? With no pilot you massively simplify the set of engineering and materials problems, and if it's going to be reusable that many times you're still going to have to perform maintenance, refuel, re-arm, etc. What is so different between '20 uses' and 'decades'?
This isn't just a concept. There's already hardware flying.[1]<p>As a concept, it makes sense. The USAF is being killed by the costs of the F-35. An aircraft that can survive in hostile airspace today is insanely expensive. The USAF just won't have enough of them to go up against anybody serious. Something cheaper is needed.<p>A cheaper unmanned aircraft won't survive as well. That's OK; if you can get 20 combat missions out of the thing, that's not bad.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-05-09" rel="nofollow">https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-05-09</a>
The problem with the SUAS concept is energy and scale. You can't have something very small (small enough to fit a dozen in a C-130, so several metres in length at most) which has a powerful turbofan engine and significant range and excellent manoeuvrability and compact stowage.<p>Recovery especially is rather implausible due to the complex aerodynamics and risk to the people on the mothership. C-130s are fine for a demo I guess, but are particularly terrible tactically, as the adversary SUAS systems would easily be able to take them out.
I don't understand why you'd want to tell everyone how your weapons work. It may be a cultural thing, as I am not American. What is the reasoning behind it?
Cruise missiles? Drones? With "AI"? Whatever, so damn predictable. But hey, when you gotta kill, you gotta kill. Might as well do it efficiently, with as little operator risk as possible.<p>But it does suck, when you're the target. And low operator risk makes wars a <i>lot</i> easier to sell to frightened masses. So likely, there'll be more targets, for less justifiable reasons. Resource wars, for example.