Comment by defrost
13 hours ago
> we would just have fleets of Cesnas flying around with a person hanging out the door with a shotgun lol.
Pfft, get real - Robinson R22 light broomstick choppers with muster pilots and crop dusting family STOLs make far more sense for their agility, ground hugging, and rough short take off / landing field capabilities.
That quibble aside, I can see things going that way, until flooding waves of many drones push up the human life cost past being able to respond.
Either way, they still need to be backed by some agile radar capabilities - variations of the E-7A Wedgetail design for ground and air to keep sensing on the hop.
This wasn't unlike how the U.S. did it in Vietnam. They would have a small, unarmed helicopter fly low with an observer and an M-16 to spot (or more likely draw fire) with some Cobra and/or Huey gunships higher up. When the little bird found some targets the big ones would come down and lay waste to the entire area.