Is the US using surveillance drones to look for the plane?

[Jesus Malverde]

Seems like some good PR for the flying killer robots.

According to dod.mil only the navy is involved/looking.

[Recursion]

1. The Navy has drones

But at that point we might as well use satellites (and probably are). Drones are expensive enough that you're usually better off using manned flight in a permissive environment.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. That is one that does not shock me

and they are potentially extremely useful in disasters and major accidents (or searches for a plane that is getting weird)

Drones, literally this

[Iwasthere]

3. I agree

They could implement a long line of drones covering an enormous area.

[jmowreader]

4. They're using the new P-8A Poseidon manned surveillance plane

You want an antisubmarine platform for this mission, and the P-8 is as good as it gets for this.

[Jesus Malverde]

5. We have thousands of drones and we're using 1 plane?

That doesn't make sense, considering this is confirmed to be a hijacking.

There are 20 employees of an american firm on board and 4 americans and all we can commit is 1 ship and 1 plane?

Surprisingly unmotivated and disinterested for an organization whose primary mission is the GLOBAL war on terror.

One imagines the pentagon knew what boeing knew in almost real time...and they

[Igel]

6. No, they're probably not.

You can say "the X" to name the kind of thing being used. It says nothing about the number of the thing being used. It's a prototypical use of the word.

[jmowreader]

9. We're using several of them

When the search started they assumed it was sitting at the bottom of the ocean...which means looking for it like they were looking for a submarine. They're inventing an antisubmarine drone but don't have one in active service yet.

[randome]

10. Who says we have thousands of drones?

And if we did, can you imagine how difficult it would be to keep them from ramming into one another? They're not conjured into existence by a Harry Potter wand, you know.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[FarCenter]

7. The Global Hawk would seem to be suitable for this work.

I doubt that there are all that many of them.

The Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance aircraft. It was initially designed by Ryan Aeronautical (now part of Northrop Grumman), and known as Tier II+ during development. In role and operational design, the Global Hawk is similar to the Lockheed U-2. The RQ-4 provides a broad overview and systematic surveillance using high resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and long-range electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensors with long loiter times over target areas. It can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 km2) of terrain a day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_Hawk

On the other hand, if the pilot ditched the 777 without it breaking apart very much, there wouldn't be much on the ocean surface to detect.

[spin]

8. If they are not, they should be. (n/t)