Drones: A Friend or a Foe?

Drones, generally known as UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) are widely used in military operations since 2000. Austrians started this trend by using pilot less balloons in the war against City of Venice in 1849. Drones are not only used for military purposes, but also for non military purposes like natural disaster management, without endangering human life, supervising big real estate properties, for aerial coverage by motion picture teams, professional photographers and even by the farmers who don’t employ many workers.

In the west drone usage is limited to police patrolling, oil pipe inspection, tracking illegal immigrants and intelligence gathering. Drone industry is growing rapidly from $5.2 billion annually to $11.6 billion. According to the claims of Teal Group Corporation, a US aerospace consultancy, UAV industry will be a big industry within the next ten years. Their statistical report says that there will be 50 medium –altitudes, long endurance ( MALE) UAVs, 60 navy UAV s , 70 air force tactical UAVSs , and 980 mini-UAVs in the US within the time frame of next 10 years.

Looking at the increasing importance of UAV, HAL has started UAV production and has sold 35 UAV s which can fly a distance of 100 km at an altitude of 6.5 kms. Private companies are also stared off their UAV production, Idea Forge, a private company in Mumbai has made a drone ‘’ Netra” weighs less than 1.5 kg and flies 100kms at an altitude of 6.5 kms. There are many classes of UAV s HALE (High Altitude, Long Endurance) and MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance). HALE flies above 30,000 ft and MALE upto 30,000ft. Among military drones it is MQ-1 Predator is the best known drone, with a wingspan of 55 feet, and 27 ft long which can reach up to the speed of 135 kmph.International Civil Aviation Organization is framing new set of codes to permit UAV s to fly internationally.

Even though the importance of drones are unquestionably growing, there are a lot of questions arising about the misuse of this weapon. They can be used to invade the privacy; they can be used as a tool to commit robbery especially when big companies like WalMart and Amazon are planning to use them for product delivery purposes. Again the pollution issue when thousands of drones flying around us. Despite of all these a restaurant is Mumbai is using drones to deliver pizza!