The (Relatively) High Loss Rate of UAV's

Brant tossed THIS over to me the other day, along with the below commentary in particular, and asked for my thoughts. And he knew, as do I, that I'm rarely shy about sharing my thoughts....

Lots of discussion on the Predator/Reaper Class A post. And I take the point that the drones tend to crash on landing a lot and that that may be a major factor in the rate vice shootdowns. But Winslow remains undeterred:

Some interesting, and instructive, comments from some of those who reacted to your piece. While I cannot but think that a high, straight, level, slow, unable to react Predator/Reaper would be a boon to radar SAM exporters by giving them heretofore untold (and unprecedented) success, it would be interesting to see what portion of hostile fire kills are from what sources for drones, and – as one commenter implied – what the drone was doing and how high when it was shot down. I would love to see the data sources on that, plus the materials you used to make the statements you did. I say that not to challenge you, but simply to get the data. Sometimes there’s some extraordinary stuff lurking there. Sadly, in the blogging world, everyone seems to think they should shout out their opinions rather than showing their data and the documents backing them up.

As to backing up my assertion, above, implying the ineffectiveness of radar SAMs, I cite our GAO report on Desert Storm (attached and find it at http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/ns97134.pdf). There, SAMs were the least effective Iraqi air defense system, and, no, that was not because the F-117s took them out (a myth; it didn’t happen); read the report.

I also appreciate the link from a commenter yesterday of the video of a MiG shooting down a Georgian drone. Or was it Taliban air force?

I’ll work more agressively to find out the cause of the high loss rate from USAF sources.

Let me state, in Jules Winfield manner, "What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort."

The simple fact is that the operation loss rate for UAV's IS higher than manned aircraft, and yes, the losses usually happen during landing. The lack of 'seat of the pants' feel means that reactions to sudden crosswinds, etc will be slower than that of a pilot who actually feels the effect of the crosswind/whatever.

"A Class A mishap rate of 10.2 per 1,000 flight hours. [CLARIFICATION: The
services' safety centers canlculate mishap "rates" per 100,000 flight
hours, typically. But I made my calculations based on Winslow's 1,000
hour benchmark. Running the numbers, the Predator/Reaper official
mishap rate would be 9.7 per 100K flight hours -- still very high] The
Air Force says it lost a total of 57 Predators since 1997 and seven
Reapers. Both aircraft have flown a total of nearly 655,000 flight
hours."

The above irritates me because some idiot has no clue that there is a smidge of a difference between (10.2 mishaps/1k flights hrs) and (9.7 mishaps/100k flight hrs). Also, I'd be curious to see what the mishap rate is over the past five years, as you tend to have a much higher loss rate at the beginning of a program than in the mature stages. The F-15, by comparison, has been in the mature phase of it's life cycle for a veeeery long time, and every bug that will ever occur has already happened, and a fix and/or service bulletin has been created to eliminate the issue.

Also, consider the fact that UAV's as a genre are new, and even our latest systems are still in the toddler stages of the genre lifespan. An F-15, by comparison, is a fully mature aircraft in the fighter-jet genre, and as such, is a highly-refined piece of machinery. Compare the roadside breakdown rate of a newer 1960 Ford Fairlane to that of a newer Ford Taurus....miles apart. Modern cars just don't break down on the side of the road anymore, unless they are very high-mileage or the maintenance has been neglected completely, because the automobile as we know it is a highly developed and refined genre.

As for vulnerability to AA systems, UAV's have a lot going for them, especially the smaller tactical systems like the Shadow. They are small and have very low visual, thermal, and radar profiles. Everything that modern military uses is direct fire and guided in some manner, be it missile sensors or gun radars. So UAV's, which have small, highly efficient engines and are almost entirely constructed of composite, take good advantage of that weakness. As you get to the larger systems (Predator, Global Hawk) you see more exposure due to the larger airframes and engine sizes, though they fly at altitudes (35k and 65k service ceilings, respectively) that limit the threat to strategic level SAMs. MANPADS, and even most vehicle mounted systems like SA-15's and their ilk are not even a threat, except during takeoff/landing. SA-17 and better are a threat at mission altitudes.

"Check out the big brain on Brett! You're a smart motherfucker."

By: Steve