Until now, most of the adversaries the US military and CIA have been flying their drones against do not have the anti-aircraft missiles necessary to bring them down. This is good for us, especially considering the tens of millions of dollars these UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles cost the American taxpayer. However, I would tell you that in the future all that will change. In fact, I have several reasons to believe this, and if you have a moment, I’d like to talk to you.

First, after Libya’s Gaddafi was removed from power, thousands of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles disappeared. It is believed that some elements of Al Qaeda had bought them and that some found their way to sub-Saharan Africa. Other intelligence officials believe that these anti-aircraft missiles will later be used against easy targets such as commercial airliners and attack planes and helicopters in the Middle East.

I wouldn’t be surprised if shoulder-launched missiles were used near US UAV bases, as these aircraft take off or land while at low altitude and are susceptible to such missiles. Generally these missiles only have an altitude range of about three or 4000 feet. Also, in the future we will use these UAVs against adversaries who have more advanced weaponry and will be able to shoot down our UAVs, rogue nation-states like Iran, for example. In fact, that Islamic Republic has already claimed in the global media to have shot down one of our UAVs.

This means that in the future we will need stealthy UAVs that cannot be seen by radar and therefore cannot be attacked by radar-guided anti-aircraft missiles. Now, because we’ll want to keep these UAVs hidden from radar, this limits us to the types of weapons we can put under the wings. It also means that the missiles will have to be inside the body of the UAV, inside the bomb bays.

Now, I propose that we use small flaps on the top of the wings of these stealthy UAVs to increase vortex flow and therefore increase lift so they can carry more weaponry and increase performance. By placing the strakes on top of the wings, they will not give away the aircraft to ground radar. Perhaps this is something that aerospace engineers along with military equipment analysts want to think about.

Of course, if our enemy also has airborne aircraft or UAVs, these additional traces will unfortunately provide a greater radar signature. So it’s a trade-off, and the decision to use these aerodynamic techniques will have to be considered based on the type of opponents we expect in the near future. Maybe we need these strakes on removable strips? In fact, I hope you will please consider all this and think about it.