Up until now, most of the adversaries that the US military, and CIA have been flying their drones against do not have the anti-aircraft missiles needed to shoot them down. This is good for us, especially considering the tens of millions of dollars that these UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles cost the US taxpayer. However, I would submit to you that in the future that will all change. Indeed, I have a number of reasons for believing this, and if you have a few moments I’d like to discuss with you.

First, after Libya’s Khadafy was taken out of power, thousands of shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles came up missing. It is thought that some elements of Al Qaeda had purchased these, and that some made their way into sub-Saharan Africa. Other intelligence officials believe that these anti-aircraft missiles will later be used against soft targets such as airliners, and attack aircraft and helicopters in the Middle East.

It would not surprise me if the shoulder launched missiles were used near US UAV bases, as these aircraft take off or land while they are at a low altitude and susceptible to such missiles. Generally these missiles only have an altitude range of about three or 4000 feet. Further, in the future we will be using these UAVs against adversaries who have more advanced weaponry, and will be able to shoot down our UAVs, rogue nation-states such as Iran for instance. In fact, that Islamic Republic has already claimed in the global media to have shot down one of our UAVs.

This means in the future we will need stealthy unmanned aerial vehicles which cannot be seen by radar, and therefore cannot be targeted by radar guided, anti-aircraft missiles. Now then, because we will wish to keep these unmanned aerial vehicles hidden from radar, this limits us to the types of weapons we can put underneath the wings. It also means that the missiles will have to be within the body of the UAV, inside of bomb bays.

Now then, I propose that we use small strakes on top of the wings of these stealthy UAVs to increase the vortex flow therefore increasing the lift so they can carry more weaponry and increase the performance. By putting the strakes on top of the wings, they will not give away the aircraft to ground radar. Perhaps this is something that aerospace engineers along with military equipment analysts might wish to think about.

Of course, if our enemy also has aircraft in the air or UAVs, these extra strakes will provide a greater radar signature unfortunately. Therefore it is a trade-off, and the decision to use these aerodynamic techniques will need to be considered based on the type of adversaries we expect in the near future. Perhaps, we need these strakes in removable strips? Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.