Army Vice-Chief of Staff General Peter W. Chiarelli subsequently presented UAS Roadmap at a different conference. "Unmanned aerial systems must provide the ability not only to see but to shape the battlefield," said Chiarelli, adding, “they have forever changed the way the Army operates."
Attack, transport and re-supply missions will be unmanned. The only manned aircraft will be first aid units.
Presently the aircraft are gradually moving from optionally piloted aircraft to fully unmanned aircraft.
The US Army plans to train more than 2,000 UAS operators and maintainers in fiscal year 2012, a roughly 80 percent increase in the course of a decade.
Just to show how serious the US military system is, currently the Air Force has revealed a full sized fighter built by Boeing, the Phantom Ray. It is triangle shaped, mostly wing.