Southern California's fast-growing drone industry helping to bring in the big bucks

Seeing an almost limitless market, dozens of defense contractors -- Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. among them -- are now vying to build drone aircraft. They are building surveillance drones the size of insects that can fly through open windows, and others as big as jetliners that can skim the stratosphere.

Soon, experts say, the military and private companies alike will have fleets of robotic planes that can do just about everything piloted aircraft can do, such as carrying cargo and engaging in aerial combat.

The industry is centered in Southern California, a testament to the region's rich aerospace history and the skilled workforce that arose with it. It's also the product of big-money lobbying and pork-barrel politics.

Read the full story here.

-- W.J. Hennigan

Photo: A California National Guard ground crew pushes a Predator out of its hangar at George Air Force Base in Victorville, Calif. The robotic plane is built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in Poway. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Pounamu]

Mark my words, these drones will be used against the American people, if they aren't already. Anyone who does not think so is horribly naive.

Just as our police forces are being increasingly militarized by both equipment and personnel from our wars in the Middle East, so will these dones contribute to an increasingly Orwellian environment here in the United States.

[smittyboy]

I believe you!!!

[smittyboy]

I believe you,i don't put nothing past America,especially when it 's evil!!!

[Sean M]

This information should have a chilling effect on each citizen of the US; the world beyond our borders is already experiencing this menace. Those formerly inviolable freedoms embodied in the first 10 amendments are but a memory. Welcome to the police state formerly known as the United States. This country has become narcotized by consumerism whilst our politicians and the demagogues sold us up the river. Imbeciles and cowards now outnumber the intelligentsia. Goodnight sweet freedom.

[Newman]

Skynet

[Joe]

@pounamu

You need worry not, unless you are criminal!
This offers a tiny niche for badly needed high tech jobs!

[Chipmunk]

I guess, it's a good news for the Aerospace industry, especially for those that deal with UAV. Many Aerospace engineering school have UAV teams that participate in the annual UAV competition; I've seen one being deployed (it ain't military grade UAV, just a small RC airplane kit), and watching the camera feedback from the airplane, which was circling the campus, was quite interesting.

The drone is already being used here in SoCal, especially to monitor wild fire.