Why the Military Needs to Rebrand Drones | Nathaniel Zelinsky

Why the Military Needs to Rebrand Drones | Nathaniel Zelinsky
Don't fear the Reaper - The DEW Line

Its all about "Spin" applied to those remotely controled vehicles (not into the ground)


How can the government convince Americans to embrace the drone? First, break the link between drones and the cyborg trope from science fiction. At a basic level, we need softer nomenclature for unmanned systems. Here, the military is starting to catch on. The newest generation of the Predator has a less threatening name: the "Grey Eagle."


call them nice names like angel, pidgeon, or dove.

But more should be done to rebrand the drone. For one, the word "drone" needs a replacement, much in the way that car companies are talking about inventing "driverless cars," not "drone cars." And the
Pentagon needs to stop using terms like "swarm" to refer to large flocks of futuristic, self-guided missiles.


emphasize the controllers, the man behind the machine. Even NASA has gotten this. To dramatize landing of their unmanned probes, they show scientists at JPL cheering over their consoles in Pasadena.

More importantly, the military needs to emphasize that human beings operate drones safely and carefully (though, not without human error). [not including the autonomous ones] We need to make the Predator pilots into the cool characters of Top Gun, so people think beyond the technology to the people who control the technology.

this may also help getting legislation and rules passed for commercial applications.
Aviation Today :: Why is US Behind in Commercial ‘Drone Boom?’

While the FAA made a significant advancement in the integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS) for commercial with the announcement of six testing sites, manufacturers and industry experts believe the nation is lagging behind other countries in taking advantage of this new technology. The blame is lay on a lack of regulatory development and market-stunting privacy concerns, according to witnesses who testified during a Senate transportation committee hearing about UAS integration.