MISFIRE: Thanks to human ingenuity and the free market, any joker can now spend a few hundred bucks and start flying their own UAV all around town. Drone proliferation in the neighborhood is one thing, but it takes a special breed of dumb to fly your drone onto a U.S. military installation. That’s exactly what some folks are doing, and right now the Air Force’s hands are tied. Gen. Mike Holmes, the head of Air Combat Command, said there have been a number of incidents of civilian drones interfering with base operations (in one case an F-22 Raptor had a near-collision). Holmes seeks Congressional authority to stop these drones and hold these “pilots” accountable. We recommend blasting these drones out of the sky (that qualifies as weapons training, right?). A big misfire to those misguided civilians who think it’s OK to fly onto base and endanger our service members.
Medals & Misfires is a new opinion feature from the Military Times editorial staff. Medals signify a job well done. Misfires signify a major blunder.
