The NY Times has a great article on the use of unmanned ariel drones used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17uav.html?n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/Iraq
Some highlights - the drones cost $4.5 million each and are 27 feet long. The pilots fly missions from the western U.S. (probably Colorado, where the Air Force is based). The fleet currently consists of 195 Predators and 28 Reapers (the new and more heavily armed cousin of the Predators). The drones circle at 16,000 feet - too high for convention gun fire, and largely patrol at night, beaming video to soldiers in the field looking for insurgents & roadside bombs. It takes 17 steps to fire a missle.
The Air Force is clearly not happy with the unmanned drone program. As one of the largest recipients of the defense budget, creating a service fleet that does not require pilots is not a top priority for a military program run by pilots. In fact, the Secretary of the Air Force was terminated in June 2008. The firings were definitely over a "slight" nuclear mishap where armed nuclear warheads where flown across the country and were "missing" for over a week, but it was also from pushback from the drones program, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to accelerate. The drones are less costly and unmanned (ie - no casualities in crashes) than traditional fighter jets.
Obviously I'm no military expert, but using Air Force trained pilots to fly unmanned ariel drones is counterproductive. It cost upwards of $1.4 million per pilot to train them. What the government should do is release an online "Unmanned Ariel Drone" game for XBox, Wii, PSP3, and use the game to recruit a whole new generation of gamers to operate the unmanned drones and let the Air Force pilots continue to fly.
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