Eyes In Australian Skies

Surveillance drones very similar to the one in the below story have already been test-flown in the skies above Australian cities by the Australian Federal Police. All a journalist has to do is ask the AFP to officially deny it :



Surveillance drones were used, briefly, during the Victorian bushfires in February 2009, though there doesn't seem to be anything online about their effectiveness.

Rumours still float around the Defence Department that the Rudd government will be buying less Joint Strike Fighters so they can purchase some three dozen unmanned aerial combat vehicles (UACVs), which will fly fast enough to be used in missions with the JSFs.

In the 1980s, to have even suggested that by 2015 there would be 'Eye In The Sky' flying robots, and armed robots at that, cruising around Australian skies would have seen you labeled a loon, and a science fiction-addled paranoidian.

And yet, here they come.

There will be little outrage or fuss because UAVs, particularly in this age of Catatrosphic Bushfire Warnings, will likely prove extremely helpful, and life-saving, in spotting outbreaks of fire as soon as they begin, and essential in tracking the spread of those fires.

The future is here, and it makes a weird buzzing noise.