“It’s working a lot, working well and doing so in a pretty tough environment.” Peter Singer director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative

CAMP BASTION, AFGHANISTAN—The small group of U.S. marines at a remote base in northern Helmand province was running low on ammunition after days of fierce fighting.

The road in to the base near the village of Shurakay was too dangerous for a resupply convoy, and there were so many Taliban fighters that a helicopter crew trying to fly in would have been at serious risk.

Still, the marines soon heard the soft thwack of rotor blades. As they looked up that January day, a glimpse of aviation’s future flew into view.

An unmanned K-MAX helicopter eased into a hover and gently descended until a pallet of ammunition dangling beneath it touched the ground. The cargo hook released itself and the helicopter rose again, turned and flew off.

The K-MAX, the only drone cargo helicopter in the U.S. military’s fleet, made two more runs to the embattled outpost, dropping off more supplies each time.

It wasn’t a stunt: over the past 16 months, two K-MAX helicopters that were sent to Afghanistan as an experiment have delivered almost 1.5 million kilograms of cargo across Helmand and flown more than 1,000 missions.

It’s reduced the number of supply convoys needed on the province’s bomb-infested roads, eased the workload and risk for helicopter and Osprey crews, saved money and provided real-world proof that drones are practical for much more than surveillance and missile strikes.

The combat-zone test was supposed to last just six months, but in March it was extended indefinitely.

In the fast-growing world of unmanned aircraft, the K-MAX’s success is a significant step toward what’s expected to be a host of new military and civilian roles for cargo drones, said Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution research centre and the author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.

“Everyone has framed discussion of drones as being about surveillance, and that’s one of the models, but they won’t be only that,” he said.

Indeed, surveillance seems likely to become no more than a niche for drones. Last year, the U.S. Congress ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to open the airways to the commercial use of drones by 2015. The FAA foresees that there will be 10,000 commercial drones flying by 2020. Predicted uses include carrying cargo, lifting construction materials into place, undertaking rescue missions in remote mountains or stormy seas, evacuating the wounded from battlefields and even, some experts half-joke, delivering pizza.

Analysts’ estimates of the commercial market for unmanned aircraft range as high as $94 billion in the next few years.

“The national airspace will be opened, and now that’s not an if, it’s when,” Singer said. “The importance of the K-MAX is that it provides proof of concept that there is a potential commercial use, not just a military one. It’s the best current example of cargo movement by an unmanned aircraft. It’s working a lot, working well and doing so in a pretty tough environment.”

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