Aircraft buying plan would double UAVs by 2020

A new 30-year aircraft buying plan submitted by the Defense Department to Congress predicts that the number of unmanned aerial vehicles in the U.S. arsenal will double over the next nine years, reports David Axe at Wired’s Danger Room blog.

The congressionally mandated Aircraft Procurement Plan 2012 to 2041 states that the U.S. military can probably get by for the next three decades with air fleets roughly the same size of 5,500 warplanes as today’s yet with a higher number of medium and large UAVs.

The UAVs of the future would have wider and more powerful surveillance capabilities than their predecessors flying today because of anticipated advances in sensor technology that would enable each future drone to do the work of several of today’s drones.