Murphy's Law: July 21, 2001

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A very strange feud is brewing between the people who operate the UAVs and the ground troops. UAVs are seen as an excellent vehicle for using new sensors that can detect mines. But the UAV has to fly low to do this. The UAV folks don't want to come down below 4,000 feet lest their unmanned aircraft get shot and shot down. This strikes the ground troops as absurd, as the main point of UAVs is to eliminate the problems associated with losing pilots. But the UAV folks complain that they don't have that many UAVs. And after decades of effort to get the army to accept UAVs, everyone now wants to use them. But the army is not rushing out to buy a lot of UAVs. Cheap doesn't automatically mean plentiful.