An expanding American drone fleet has been carrying out reconnaissance and combat missions for years, and is now steadily being outfitted to haul massive amounts of precious cargo to the remote, volatile frontlines of Middle Eastern battlefields. Call this third aspect – the means to stealthily airmail raw goods to boots on unforgiving ground – a harbinger of modern warfare's full-blown robotization.Meet the unmanned version of the Kaman K-MAX helicopter, a “revolutionary new drone” capable of picking up all the unsexy grunt work that'll otherwise keep the gears of war(s) oiled and churning indefatigably into a new era. This beast can tow a 6,855-pound payload, and is the latest in Kaman's line of choppers with intermeshing rotors, a somewhat unusual configuration that allows for stock-still hovering and precision cargo drops.It's scary easy, really. Unmanned K-MAX's can roll on autopilot, with mission specs uploaded directly from onboard computers. On-base operators can always override the system, of course, should the chopper need mid-flight realignment or redirecting, or if any unforeseen element threatens to spoil the task at hand.The real kicker, though? This workhorse drone apparently doesn't run up a huge tab. The drone airmail route immediately eliminates the costs of rumbling convoys that go under continual threat of being vaporized by roadside bombs. And in this new age of embarrassingly "downsized" Pentagon coffers, that a single remotely-piloted K-MAX costs a mere $1,000/hour to fly – far, far less than the hourly rate for one manned cargo chopper – makes it all the more attractive to a Defense Department that’s reshuffling its resources and priorities.A pair of unmanned K-MAX's is currently running test missions in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, to be sure. A joint Kaman-Lockheed Martin-Marine Corps R&D team has flown 20 transport missions, successfully delivering to frontline outposts some 18 tons of cargo (mostly meals and spare parts), since an inaugural flight on December 17, 2011. The military will decide after a half-year of tinkering and mock drills whether or not the craft is fit for routine live operations.But is there really any doubt the new monster-cargo-chopper-drone won’t soon properly roll out, maybe even in sizable numbers? Any cheap, pinpoint-accurate technology is typically a sure-fire sell to the DoD, for one. And remember that President Obama’s 11th-hour approval of the National Defense Authorization Act essentially greenlit the ramped implementation of sky robots. As I wrote last week, the U.S. "is going to need a new wave of mega-stealth aircraft to do a lot of spying, heavy lifting, and/or killing" as it looks beyond Taliban and al-Qa'ida threats in the craggy tribal regions of Afghanistan and Iraq, where America already owns the skies, to other Middle East theaters.The K-MAX helidrone could very well come to do much, if not all, that heavy lifting. If indeed it does, the tripod – kill, spy, haul – on which all American robot wars will eventually be mounted and pivoted would then be squarely set.How civilians and insurgents alike across the Middle East, where the U.S. drone wars are wildly unpopular, would take to these things shuttling cargo, literally sustaining the presence of allied forces on the unforgiving frontlines of what isn’t any longer termed the war on terror, is unclear.But no matter how opinion swung, it almost wouldn’t matter. Because if we’re to believe the CIA, who’s been waging its own covert drone strikes separate from the Air Force’s “public” drone war, the agency hasn’t launched a single strike operation in Pakistan since mid-November. The CIA is probably always up to no good when it says it’s temporarily ceased doing something, but either way, this current lull is actually aiding Pakistani militants, emboldening al-Qa’ida and various militant factions to step up their attacks on both Pakistani security and allied forces. So it’s now lose-lose for the U.S.: Strike, and piss everyone off; Cease strikes, and embolden perceived enemies.That's a sobering load no American drone, no matter how effective and cheap and heavy-lifting, is yet capable of hauling away.Reach this writer at brian@motherboard.tv. @TheBAnderson
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