who brought you the Maginot Line we have this pronouncement:
It may sound like science fiction, but the prospect that suicide bombers and hijackers could be made redundant by flying robots is a real one, according to experts.
The technology for remote-controlled light aircraft is now highly advanced, widely available — and, experts say, virtually unstoppable.
Models with a wingspan of five metres (16 feet), capable of carrying up to 50 kilograms (110 pounds), remain undetectable by radar.
And thanks to satellite positioning systems, they can now be programmed to hit targets some distance away with just a few metres (yards) short of pinpoint accuracy.
Security services the world over have been considering the problem for several years, but no one has yet come up with a solution.
“We are observing an increasing threat from such things as remote-controlled aircraft used as small flying bombs against soft targets,” the head of the Canadian secret services, Michel Gauthier, said at a conference in Calgary recently.
According to Gauthier, “ultra-light aircraft, powered hang gliders or powered paragliders have also been purchased by terrorist groups to circumvent ground-based countermeasures.”
On May 1 the US website Defensetech published an article by military technology specialist David Hambling, entitled “Terrorists’ unmanned air force”.
Security services the world over have been considering the problem for several years, but no one has yet come up with a solution.
“We are observing an increasing threat from such things as remote-controlled aircraft used as small flying bombs against soft targets,” the head of the Canadian secret services, Michel Gauthier, said at a conference in Calgary recently.
According to Gauthier, “ultra-light aircraft, powered hang gliders or powered paragliders have also been purchased by terrorist groups to circumvent ground-based countermeasures.”
These sorts of drones are proving to be useful tools against terrorists and, unfortunately, at some point in the future, they will, no doubt, be used by them. However, given past experience I think we need to take any claims of “unstoppability†with a grain of salt. Sort of like “unsinkabilityâ€.
But whenever I read reports of this kind I think of Philip K. Dick’s short story, The Fourth Variety, and Cordwainer Smith’s stories of Mannjägers (the forerunners of terminators).
