The Air Force is rapidly increasing the effort and funding it devotes to the development of unmanned aerial combat systems, in the hope that, in about a decade, unmanned aircraft will be ready to take on some highly dangerous missions now performed by manned aircraft. The success of unmanned aerial vehicles in recent conflicts has highlighted the potential of such systems. Predator UAVs, originally designed as reconnaissance drones, were armed with Hellfire missiles and successfully used to attack targets in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iraq. Service officials say that initial cultural problems (pilots were reluctant to fly "drones" for fear of harming their careers) are being overcome. UAV advocates contend the successful attacks on al Qaeda, Taliban, and Iraqi targets using weaponized Predators, now designated MQ-1s, provide just a glimpse of what unmanned systems can accomplish in the future.
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