For a fighter pilot, no mission is more dangerous than a Wild Weasel. To flush out hidden sur-face-to-air missiles in the early days of a war, the first jets into enemy airspace advertise their presence while trailing fighters lock on to the sam tar-gets and take them out. But in Afghanistan, the U.S. had a trick up its sleeve: In place of fighter pilots, it sent in small, remote-controlled Predator drones-originally designed for recon-naissance but now armed with Hellfire antitank missiles.rnThe Predator ploy is just a crude fore-shadowing of what lies ahead. By the end of the decade, the military could be sending the first true robotic warplanes into battle. These autonomous weapons-on-wings would sniff out hidden enemyrnair defenses before human-piloted fighters or bombers ventured into enemy air-space, deliver up to 3,000 pounds of smart bombs and missiles, and even take on enemy fighter jets. Called unmanned combat air vehicles, or ucavs, their pres-ence is likely to redefine the role of war-planes-and even warfare itself-by giv-ing machines more responsibility for attacking enemy targets.
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