Will small first-person viewer (FPV) drones be combined with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to create airliner-based FPV suicide drones?
To strike deeper inside Russia, Ukraine converted a small single-engine plane into a suicide drone:
A Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) that hit Russia's Tatarstan region this week was likely a modified Aeroprakt A-22 Ukrainian-made light aircraft, several experts said, offering insight into one of Kyiv's deepest drone strikes to date.
What kind of damage could a larger airliner inflict if it was converted into a flying suicide drone?
Could Ukraine take down the Kerch Strait bridge with such a weapon if other assets could suppress or exhaust air defenses at the bridge?
Could terrorists control such a plane with FPV technology and use it to attack our cities? Perhaps auto-pilot gets the plane to the vicinity where an operator takes over. Perhaps the operator is close to the target if a distant operator faces too much lag in control responsiveness. Or maybe lag is irrelevant to a large stationary target.
Or good God, could a plane with passengers and crew from a real airline be converted so that involuntary martyrs disguise the nature of the weapon and delay a shoot-down order until it is too late?
I mean, just videoing a plane with real passengers being shot down by a fighter would be powerful propaganda against the targeted state. Proof of the suicide drone nature of the plane would take time to catch up with the false propaganda. And some would never believe any proof.
Just a periodic thought that red lines my pucker factor.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.