The Death of Airlines
“No Capes!”
The movie, The Incredibles, offers many lessons for a child bent on becoming a superhero, but perhaps the most informative is Edna’s adamant proclamation about the additions (or exclusions) for a proper super suit. She points to the iconic fallen heroes (Thunderhead, Stratogal, Meta Man, Dynaguy, and Splashdown), whose demise stemmed from the popular accessory. The most notable depiction of course, comes at the film’s climax. Syndrome’s cape is sucked into his jet’s engine, leading to a fierce explosion. While it appears Edna’s biggest lesson was on proper apparel for superheroes, the more poignant takeaway is that planes have an incredible vulnerability! In fact, we saw this firsthand in 2009 with US Airways Flight 1549, or more famously, The Miracle on the Hudson. Eastwood’s film Sully further immortalized the heroic actions of Captain “Sully” Sullenberger and his crew – completing a successful emergency landing in the Hudson river after a flock of Canadian Geese collided with both engines. The scene in reference.
Recent geopolitical events in the Middle East further demonstrate commercial airlines’ vulnerability after a plane was taken down by missiles. Military-grade weapon systems aren’t pervasive though, and they don’t normally down civilian aircraft. Yet even so, it’s an ominous lesson for airlines in the beginning of the new decade.
Planes are not fortresses – they carry supplies and civilians. They’re equivalent to the cargo ships crossing the Atlantic in 1915. Innocent, but exposed. And while there aren’t u-boats patrolling in the sky right now, there will be, and once there are, we’ll find a modern Lusitania.
Fluttering Fireworks
Meanwhile, as people around the world celebrated 2020, interesting videos started circulating on twitter, mocking the marvelous firework displays conducted around the globe. Fireworks, these videos showed, were unimpressive! They’re the horse and buggy at the end of the 19th century, trying to trot with relevancy, only to be trampled by 15 million Ford Model T’s. Fireworks still entertain, but everyone is anticipating what’s next, the next form of aerial entertainment: drones.
While some of these twitter videos were fabricated, it’s evident we’re on the precipice of mesmerizing displays of lights, creativity, and innovation. Drones promise all of the visual grandeur of fireworks, but with added control, coordination, and possibilities outside of celebrations. Will we have new age drive-in theaters where a wall of flying drones light up as a picture? Will drones move together as characters and dance in the night sky? What about augmented reality displays mimicking Mysterio’s performance in Far From Home? It’s fascinating to hypothesize what will transpire in the air above. But here lies the issue: the air is already ‘filled’ with airplanes, and there’s the risk that we make it too crowded.
So now we grapple with two distinct points: drones are becoming ubiquitous, and planes have an incredible weakness in their design. At first pass, nothing raises concern, but a closer inspection does.
The Arms Race
Drones are becoming smaller, cheaper, and faster. They are harder to detect, easier to produce, and more accurate than any missile system in production. And, a single user can operate them – no trained specialist or multi-billion-dollar defense budget needed. What stops someone from targeting others?
Consider the proliferation of drone activity in the past two years alone:
London Gatwick airport had to shut down in December 2018 due to drone activity near runways
Ninety-five countries now have military drones (over 30,000 total drones)
Saudi Arabian oil refineries were attacked by drone strikes
Amazon, FedEx, and UPS are all deploying fleets of delivery drones
This is not an exhaustive list, but it illustrates the developments in a host of markets and geographies. Different drones exist for military, commercial, and consumer sectors. Widespread military adoption, and proliferation of commercial drone fleets will present their own dangers, but the capabilities of consumer drones are accelerating, and these are the most dangerous.
Military drones are often the size of aircraft and operate almost exclusively in active war zones. The 30,000 military drones fall in this category. The attacks on Saudi Arabia oil fields in late 2019 were conducted with these devices. Unless there is a large surge in global military conflict, there’s a low probability these will be used to attack commercial aircraft. Additionally, it’s quite challenging for a lone person to get their hands on a military drone.
Commercial drones range in size, and focus on package delivery, at least in the near term. The major shipping companies are building fleets and getting clearance to test in specific areas. There will likely be a few accidents as drone deliveries ramp up, but probably negligible in the long term. Apart from security vulnerabilities, commercial also doesn’t appear too dangerous, especially if the technology is specialized for deliveries. Someone could steal one, but corporations presumably will be adept at monitoring their fleets.
Small drones, like the ones attacking pig farms (see above), present the most frightening scenarios. By definition, any consumer can have access to the technology, and it’s getting easier to buy, assemble, and deploy consumer drones. For sake of simplicity, any further reference to drones will pertain to this consumer segment.
As Easy as LEGOs
Consider the following trends:
Drone hardware is getting cheaper
You can control drones with a range of different controllers, including a smartphone
Components are becoming more compact and drones soon will be smaller than a human fist
Facial recognition software is becoming very accurate and cheap
The smaller anything is, the harder it is to find and defend against (think mosquitoes)
Drones will be able to fly themselves with machine learning
Mass surveillance has spawned a new age where people are monitored 24/7
Drones use to require an engineer’s touch. You had to build the motherboards, program the software, and extensively test your creation before it could fly. The entire tech stack has become commoditized, which means now you just need to purchase the parts and follow the assembly instructions. Unlike IKEA instructions, these are pretty straightforward!
Since it’s becoming easier to assemble drones, more people will use them. YouTube has been flooded with videos of people flying their GoPros around the world. We’re seeing increasingly creative forms of expression. Fortunately most of this creativity has been channeled for cinematography, but as the tech stack gets simpler, the number of users increases, which means creativity will be applied to other initiatives. The twitter video above with the New Year’s Drone Celebrations shows one new creative development: synchronized flying.
Synchronized movements exist across nature: bees swarm, surgeonfish shoal, and starlings create murmurations. National Geographic captured an excellent example:
In the not too distant future, drones will be able to do this. Imagine seeing a swam emptying out of a military convoy and move towards a city. Drones are already quite nimble and difficult to detect – automating their navigation to mimic starlings will only further heighten their capabilities. Capabilities that can be easily weaponized.
Software commoditization compounds these problems. Just like adding small sensors and cameras, it will be easy to upload facial recognition software to drones. And since these would be small devices, you could add explosives cheaply. In short time, someone could develop a fleet of drones capable of flying together, that identify predesignated targets, and when activated, become miniaturized suicide bombers.
But what will they target?
Exposed Infrastructure
The world is vastly unprepared for drone fleets’ stopping power. How destructive could these be? Take an NFL stadium – how many drones would you need to cause a truly catastrophic event? Even one drone, packed with an ounce of explosive, could descend onto the field and fly into a star quarterback. Five could eliminate the five best players, or they could target referees, coaches, owners, or fans. Larger drones could target the stadium infrastructure to compromise its integrity, and a swarm of 50 or more could eliminate a whole team.
Sport events are just one of a few natural choices for a terrorist – government buildings, colleges, concerts – anywhere there is a large gathering of people. Attacks on political candidates would be terrifying, especially if used to specifically target members of a specific caucus or party. But, as horrible as this is, nothing would be as terrifying as witnessing plane after plane fall from the sky.
If it were not for Captain Sullenberger and his crew, Canadian geese would have downed a commercial aircraft. Unfortunately, no crew would be able to counteract a drone strike. The geese didn’t know when to hit the engines, they just did. By chance, Flight 1549 was close enough to the Hudson river that an emergency landing was feasible. But what if the geese calculated the best time to strike? To my knowledge, there is not extensive information about how to properly down a civilian aircraft, which means that terrorists will use trial and error. Some planes will get hit, and survive, and some will not. I’d argue that this is even more frightening. And, if you are on a plane that does happen to survive an attack, there is a fair assumption that those passengers would avoid flying again at all costs.
Speaking of costs, the global economic impact of such attacks would be devastating. IBISWorld values the US commercial airline industry at $145.6 billion, and Forbes states that air travel is projected to double in 20 years. Both of these figures would be eviscerated following drone strikes. But the biggest cost would be the emotional turmoil that ensues. There is a reason that 9/11’s legacy still shapes geopolitical policy and action – it has such a lasting, vivid impact upon the world, and any future attack on commercial aircraft would undoubtedly be viewed in a similar way. However, following 9/11, there were clear steps and policies that were taken in order to protect the public (these policies’ effectiveness is a whole different discussion). No policies exist for a drone strike. Society would torment itself – especially since there would be no way to defend.
Countermeasures
The recent assault on Saudi Arabia's Aramco Oil Production Facilities highlights how vulnerable existing infrastructure is – this attack was conducted with much larger, expensive military drones (that are far easier to detect!), and still weren’t prevented. How can we be expected to defend against drones smaller than our hands?
We could follow the Chinese pig farmers’ lead and use signal jammers, but that would disrupt wireless and cellular networks, which means we wouldn’t be able to use any electronics on a network. Further, there will eventually be a ‘self-flying’ software module that will enable drones to fly themselves without the need of a controller. The objective and location could be pre-programmed, and once turned on, the drones would navigate themselves where they needed to go on their own.
What about Snipers? We’d need to have snipers stationed at every large public gathering, they’d have to be equipped to detect and successfully hit drones, and they’d need to be able to take down hundreds to thousands of drones, which, will likely have anti-sniper counter measure software. Plus, snipers wouldn’t be able to protect planes. It’d be like playing Balloon Tower Defense and only being able to use spikes instead of gunners. Eventually, the balloons (or drones) will overwhelm and advance.
Ultimately, there are two persistent problems for defending against these attacks:
The best way to eliminate the threat is to disrupt all electrical equipment in an area (ex: EMP).
Even if you create a garrison of defenders, it’s impossible to protect every location that could be attacked.
There seem to be only two ways to counteract these drone attacks: EMPs blasts and Defender Drones. EMPs seem to be a final solution, where they would eliminate the incoming attack, but at immense cost to the world. EMPs would destabilize the electrical grid entirely and expose the region to a litany of other attacks, whether they be drones, armed forces, or nuclear attacks. So, an EMP would stop one attack, but it would increase the chances of more, and exacerbate the damage. Defender Drones could theoretically intercept incoming hostile drones, but the demand for these defenders would skyrocket. Most likely, they’d eventually be stockpiled among the governments, corporations, and the wealthy.
These both point to the sheer impossibility of defending everything against these drone strikes. And that’s the most damaging part: the threat of a drone strike will change our psyche. We’ll always be on edge. Anyone could launch these attacks, and any plane could be the target.
Drones need to be evaluated based upon their weaponized potential. They aren’t gimmicky flying camera systems or delivery vessels. On a long enough timeline, they are weapons. Weapons that eliminate the expense, danger, and risk of waging war.
The Future of Flight
It’s unclear if commercial airlines will be viable in the future. If a single bad actor could launch a wave of drones that decimate plane engines quickly and cheaply, then it will be hard to create adequate countermeasures. The technology is too commoditized to ban it effectively. Current defense systems cannot stop small drones without compromising the integrity of all electronics within the area. Right now, we have no solution.
When I began writing this piece, I wondered whether I should explain what types of targets drones could strike. What if someone truly evil read this and felt inspired to act? I realized though, that all of these targets have already been attacked – the Boston Marathon bombing disrupted a massive sporting event, the Las Vegas shooting terrorized a concert, and 9/11 is seared into the minds of the world. The bad guys already know what the targets are, but most of us don’t realize what the next weapon could be. If you had gathered a group of bright people in 2000 and put them into a room to brainstorm ways the US could be attacked, I’m sure they would have eventually realized a plane could be used as a weapon. What safeguards would the United States have deployed if we were prepared? How many lives would have been saved? The good news is that we already know what this next weapon will be. The bad news, is that not enough people know, which means we are not taking this into serious consideration. South Korea’s response to the novel coronavirus shows that preparation saves lives. We need to begin preparing.
Failure comes from a failure to imagine failure. While we don’t have much time before this technology exists, but we do have time. And even though viable solutions don’t exist right now, that doesn’t mean there will never be solutions. But we have to understand tomorrow’s problems, because if we glide to the future by just reacting to technology, we will be overwhelmed and overcome. If we anticipate where technology is going, then we can understand how to prepare. Drones are only one of the many future challenges for humanity. Preparation, while not a complete solution, give us a fighting chance. Highlighting these dangers is necessary if we aim to approach future technology with open arms.
We cannot de-invent technology. Drone hardware, and now software, are becoming commoditized, and as more get access to these two ingredients, the more challenging it will be to fly. But flying has always been difficult – humanity was destined for the ground, yet all it took were a few determined minds to change our species’ trajectory. Humanity is at its best when we act, think, and collaboratively solve problems. Just as we learned how to sail into the heavens, we will learn how to solve our future problems, because there will always be people determined to soar past expectations.
Additional Resources:
Naval Ravikant and Rob Reid – After On Podcast: End Games (Part One)
Rob Reid’s ‘Privatizing the Apocalypse’ Medium Posts:
Edit: I decided to provide a more updated link for an example of a drone delivery fleet being developed by UPS. Given the rapid advancement of COVID-19 in the United States, they have begun to focus on medical deliveries, which will certainly help alleviate some of the challenges of national quarantines.