Thrudd
join:2004-06-21
Mississauga, ON
| Downside?
Those who harp on the high costs involved I bet have almost no clue to the costs involved in land-line systems. Those have a cost per point of use dependant on how much infrastructure you need to put in and the costs to maintain that whole mess.
The downsides I see on the spy-plane system are as follows.
Fuel - how will it be fed? If its ground based then you need a second one in the air to hand off the work load while the first goes in for refuelling and maintenance. The other option is in air refuelling, which is a darn sight more complicated but has the upside of no short interval downtime.
Maintenance - you will need enough spares to cover the maintenance downtime or those taken out by private planes and the military not noticing the birds in the air.
I can see the technical feasibility but the logistics of the regular dumb-as-cow-pats management, office and service monkeys found in the industry precludes innovations like this from happening. |
