Drones : Too Expensive

JimNtexas

JimNtexas

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Jim - In Texas!
I'm always amazed that so many people think that taking the pilot out of airplane makes that airplane cheaper.

Any back of the envelope calculation will show that for civilian purposes a drone is far more expensive to operate than a manned airplane.

As Homeland Security has discovered.

I saw the Border Patrol's drone setup at Oshkosh a few years ago. The drone still needs a pilot and a sensor operator, but it it also needs a very expensive communications architecture, including communications technicians present whenever the drone is flying.

As opposed to the Narco Mark 12 that is all a manned airplane really needs.

And of course to land an unmanned airplane you need a ground crew standing by, whereas to land a piloted airplane you just need lines painted on asphalt.

The Border Patrol would have been a lot better off to buy Caravans to patrol the border. I bet you afford to fly 5 to 10 Caravans per year for the cost of flying one Predator.

Drones: Dangerous, Expensive, and Unnecessary unless someone is shooting at your airplane.
 
JimNtexas said:
The Border Patrol would have been a lot better off to buy Caravans to patrol the border. I bet you afford to fly 5 to 10 Caravans per year for the cost of flying one Predator.
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I bet you could afford to fly 20 Cubs for the cost of one Predator. The whole idea behind the drone is you send it where folks are shooting back, so they don't shoot at your pilots. That I know of nobody's shooting back at the Border Patrol.

This is just another federal agency using taxpayer money to buy a useless toy being hawked by defense contractors. Eisenhower was right.
 
not being a wiseguy, but what is the govt's cost when a pilot gets killed in a crash?
 
JimNtexas said:
I'm always amazed that so many people think that taking the pilot out of airplane makes that airplane cheaper.

Any back of the envelope calculation will show that for civilian purposes a drone is far more expensive to operate than a manned airplane.

As Homeland Security has discovered.

I saw the Border Patrol's drone setup at Oshkosh a few years ago. The drone still needs a pilot and a sensor operator, but it it also needs a very expensive communications architecture, including communications technicians present whenever the drone is flying.

As opposed to the Narco Mark 12 that is all a manned airplane really needs.

And of course to land an unmanned airplane you need a ground crew standing by, whereas to land a piloted airplane you just need lines painted on asphalt.

The Border Patrol would have been a lot better off to buy Caravans to patrol the border. I bet you afford to fly 5 to 10 Caravans per year for the cost of flying one Predator.

Drones: Dangerous, Expensive, and Unnecessary unless someone is shooting at your airplane.
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Yeah, remote piloted patrol drones make no sense. Patrol drones should be autonomous. This is part of the integration of ADS-B and NextGen. Semiautonomous in close collision avoidance will end up in everything eventually if we make it that far.

Combat fighter/interceptors, now it makes more sense to take the pilot out of the cockpit because of the maneuvering limitations imposed by human G limitations. Take the pilot out of the cockpit and the maneuvering performance capabilities of our current air superiority fleet advances significantly.

Close Air Support, even though it has some friendly fire accidents, I think still the human is the best thing we have for systems management, and the A-10 probably the best fixed wing craft for the job. I think at this point in available technology, the Warthog with a good pilot in it is an epitomal design for the roll IMO. I always wondered why the Marines didn't pick it up.
 
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The point of drones is not cost reduction rather taking pilots out of harms way for combat. For border surveillance I agree with buying Cubs and manning them.
 
OkieFlyer said:
Throw some ol' Mix Masters out there.
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Yep, they are a good observation platform for sure. I was bidding for a few pipeline contracts and if I would have gotten them I would have gotten a 337 for it. Flew an old O-2 on fire watch, boss support in Aus, it was noisy as hell, but with some good sound insulation and a thick windscreen it would be ok, especially now with ANR. Flown at low power for long range patrol, the TSIO-360 isn't too bad of an engine, especially if you get a real good dynamic balance done at your patrol RPM. They have bubble out observer windows for them that are really nice, including lower windows for the front seats.
 
The Border Patrol mission isn't a good fit for drones, unless it's a very long endurance drone - something that humans can't do.
 
Rigged4Flight said:
The Border Patrol mission isn't a good fit for drones, unless it's a very long endurance drone - something that humans can't do.
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How many drones does it take to maintain one 24 hour orbit? At least three, one for today, one for tomorrow, and one spare.

And how many pilots, sensor operators, communications techs, and ground crew?

A bunch.


Instead let's use Cessna Caravans. We need the same number of pilots and sensor operators. Communications with VHF/UHF/SAT PHONE do not require technicians to be on hand during flying, we just need to have an avionics shop somewhere handy.

The biggest ground crew we really need is a guy with some wands to help park the airplane.

Instead of three fifteen million dollar drones we'll conservatively need 5 or 6 2.5 million dollar Caravans for our 24 hour orbit. Maybe less if the Caravan can carry an aux tank with enough gas for an 8 hour orbit and the sensor package.

The cost of the sensor packages are the same, but the Caravan can carry more and better sensors thanks to its higher useful load.

The numbers just don't add up for civilian/law enforcement drones.
 
But many high endurance drones can stay up for 36 or more hours. You can change out pilot and sensor monitors without even landing. I disagree that nobody along the border has been shot at. Drug Cartels are quite well equipped - no thanks to "Fast and Furious" program.
 
Art VanDelay said:
But many high endurance drones can stay up for 36 or more hours. You can change out pilot and sensor monitors without even landing. I disagree that nobody along the border has been shot at. Drug Cartels are quite well equipped - no thanks to "Fast and Furious" program.
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They got ordinance that can hit an airplane? And have any airplanes beens shot?

Yeah, the drone can stay up awhile, that's its big selling point. But three aircraft can easily to the same duty, and they'll still come out cheaper to acquire and operate. The only down side is the aircraft might need avgas instead of jet-A.
 
The arguments against UAS may change as regulations change, systems become more sophisticated and cheaper and missions evolve. It will be interesting to see how the numbers look in five years or fifteen years.
 
JimNtexas said:
How many drones does it take to maintain one 24 hour orbit? At least three, one for today, one for tomorrow, and one spare.

And how many pilots, sensor operators, communications techs, and ground crew?

A bunch.


Instead let's use Cessna Caravans. We need the same number of pilots and sensor operators. Communications with VHF/UHF/SAT PHONE do not require technicians to be on hand during flying, we just need to have an avionics shop somewhere handy.

The biggest ground crew we really need is a guy with some wands to help park the airplane.

Instead of three fifteen million dollar drones we'll conservatively need 5 or 6 2.5 million dollar Caravans for our 24 hour orbit. Maybe less if the Caravan can carry an aux tank with enough gas for an 8 hour orbit and the sensor package.

The cost of the sensor packages are the same, but the Caravan can carry more and better sensors thanks to its higher useful load.

The numbers just don't add up for civilian/law enforcement drones.
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Your analysis is severely flawed. It entirely neglects to account for the "cool," "increased budget," and "expanded fiefdom" factors. In government, if your budget and reports are not increasing every year, you might as well be dead.
 
JimNtexas said:
How many drones does it take to maintain one 24 hour orbit? At least three, one for today, one for tomorrow, and one spare.

And how many pilots, sensor operators, communications techs, and ground crew?

A bunch.


Instead let's use Cessna Caravans. We need the same number of pilots and sensor operators. Communications with VHF/UHF/SAT PHONE do not require technicians to be on hand during flying, we just need to have an avionics shop somewhere handy.

The biggest ground crew we really need is a guy with some wands to help park the airplane.

Instead of three fifteen million dollar drones we'll conservatively need 5 or 6 2.5 million dollar Caravans for our 24 hour orbit. Maybe less if the Caravan can carry an aux tank with enough gas for an 8 hour orbit and the sensor package.

The cost of the sensor packages are the same, but the Caravan can carry more and better sensors thanks to its higher useful load.

The numbers just don't add up for civilian/law enforcement drones.
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With a simple application of an autonomous navigation and a two way linked observation and orders electronics package, there is no reason a Caravan needs anyone onboard. Load it to gross with fuel and it can cover a sector for 24hrs, you would need 2 dozen for the entire boarder fleet to assure continuous coverage. Heck most of it could be done with a satellite really. It only needs to perform observations, though the Caravan platform would give much greater capability.
 
My drone cost me $600 Transmitter included and I can equip it with camera FPV setup for additional $400. I should offer my services to the government to monitor the border for $1000 a 10 minute flight. 10 minutes is how long my battery last. :yes:
 

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evapilotaz said:
My drone cost me $600 Transmitter included and I can equip it with camera FPV setup for additional $400. I should offer my services to the government to monitor the border for $1000 a 10 minute flight. 10 minutes is how long my battery last. :yes:
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Now if it used hydrogen and a little fuel cell with a balloon for storage and pressure, you could combine the LTA effects of the fuel with the power it can produce to stretch that capability.
 
Actually they *are* using Super Cubs to monitor the border. My hangar neighbor is contracted to fly his down the Rio Grande River a few times a week.

He's almost 80, BTW. And, wow, can that old boy fly.

Of course, they're also using Predators out of Corpus Christi Naval Air Station.
 
Henning said:
Now if it used hydrogen and a little fuel cell with a balloon for storage and pressure, you could combine the LTA effects of the fuel with the power it can produce to stretch that capability.
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My drone can handle more battery load. With a bigger battery I could get 30 minute flights.
 
With a simple application of an autonomous navigation and a two way linked observation and orders electronics package,
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There's nothing 'simple' about something like that flying outside of a war zone. What if the engine quits? FedEx put a Caravan into a farmhouse front door near Austin a few years ago.

Who does ATC tell if there is a traffic conflict?

And again, you need a high bandwidth data channel to the pilot on the ground to operate that in civil airspace.

It just does not make any kind of rational sense to do that for civilian use unless you are selling the multimillion dollar 'simple' autonomous platform.

Otherwise you've got a solution in search of a problem.
 
evapilotaz said:
My drone can handle more battery load. With a bigger battery I could get 30 minute flights.
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I'm talking 12-24+ capability. Potentially days or longer if you used big balloons and water ballast. With a fuel cell you even have the chance to add ballast with changing air pressure, and all you need energy for is thrust and the observation/communication package. H2 powered LTA is the way to go for observation drones. Then when something that needs clarification or interdiction happens, you launch a manned helicopter that is capable of actually dealing with something.
 
evapilotaz said:
My drone cost me $600 Transmitter included and I can equip it with camera FPV setup for additional $400. I should offer my services to the government to monitor the border for $1000 a 10 minute flight. 10 minutes is how long my battery last. :yes:
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This.
 
Henning said:
I'm talking 12-24+ capability. Potentially days or longer if you used big balloons and water ballast. With a fuel cell you even have the chance to add ballast with changing air pressure, and all you need energy for is thrust and the observation/communication package. H2 powered LTA is the way to go for observation drones. Then when something that needs clarification or interdiction happens, you launch a manned helicopter that is capable of actually dealing with something.
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In my experience, wind is the killer for this idea. You can't reasonably expect to operate un-tethered balloons near an international border without having unintended incursions, which I guarantee will bring a butt load of unintended consequences.

The border patrol inherited an outdated but still useful radar platform from the Air Force that uses aerostats along the Mexican border and in Puerto Rico. They are currently augmenting the network with smaller/cheaper aerostats that have day/night video capability. I challenge anyone to come up with a better surveillance solution that costs less than what they are doing now. I don't believe it exists.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
CBP rebuttal
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To sum this response up:

1) "We caught bad guys with our drones!" - That says that aerial surveillance helps catch bad guys. So what, that's not the question. The real question is 'why use a drone, when a piloted airplane could catch the same bad guys cheaper'?

2) "Your cost figure is too high!" , followed by a bunch of handwaving gibberish. The Border Patrol never says what they think their costs really are. They do say that it is unfair to include fixed costs such as salaries in the cost calculation, because government.

They claim they don't really want the five more drones they've asked for in the past, but would like to replace the one that crashed in January 2014.

Drones crash a lot more than piloted airplanes, btw.
 
I like the part where CPB complained about the OIG allocating fixed costs to the flying hours. In the next paragraph, they said they wanted more money to increase their fixed costs.

Sorry, but fixed costs DO get allocated out as overhead onto variable costs when you're costing something. That's how we get $600 toilet seats.
 
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