[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Ursus Maior

Hm, I admit, I did not have the Pointer on my radar (cheap pun, sorry for that). That I could see work in T2K fairly well. The rest remains rather unlikely to me. Even a Predator needs (remote) pilots and technicians. Once the armed forces start pulling all non-essential personnel into the combat troops, after those have been hemorrhaged by nukes, I don't see enough qualified personnel to keep drones of that size flying. Not to mention production of spare parts, training new personnel, replacing specialized tools etc.

A civilian sportsplane or a O-2 Skymaster (or similar) I see much more likely than UAVs as they are much easier to service, spare parts are ubiquitous or can be build in a electronic-free environment and comparable types of planes and thus capale pilots were widely available. Also, such aircraft are multi-mission capable: transport, CAS, recon, FAC, liason, all within body. Sure, range is less than with some UAV, but since there is hardly military left with reach and range beyond operational level, your regular civilian sports plane will more than suffice.

Keep in mind that in certain places - Kenya, Korea and the Middle East - the US military is still very much a going concern - there is where you will probably find working drones and UAV's and the techs to keep them going