The U.S. Air Force wants drones that can be refuelled in midair by other drones. The reason is simple. While drones like the RQ-4 Global Hawk can stay in the air for more than thirty hours without getting tired, bored or feeling the urge to urinate, even an unmanned aircraft needs to refuel sooner or later. That means the drone must interrupt its mission to return to base, or a manned tanker aircraft will have to fly to where the drone is to refuel it. But since the whole reason for robots is to keep humans out of harm’s way, sending a tanker and its fighter escorts into hostile airspace to top up a drone defeats the purpose. Continue reading
