In college, I took courses for my Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcast Video. Since this was an engineering-related degree, I had to take some basic engineering classes. Nothing too deep, more of an introduction to engineering. One assignment was to write a paper of thinking outside the box idea and how you would implement the concept.

I was good at writing papers and fairly good at outside-the-box ideas, so I felt good about this assignment. I thought about what my subject would be. Airplanes were always a favorite subject, and so were cars, especially high-performance cars. At that time, the US made a deal with Saudi Arabia about selling them AWAC aircraft. That deal was controversial, but President Reagan stood firm with the contract. I was on the side of not selling the AWACs since it added a threat to Israel. For the paper, I decided I would work on an idea of military aircraft. The most expensive part of military aircraft was the pilot and their training. My idea for the subject was hatched, and I decided to write on remotely flown fighter/bomber aircraft.

I got creative and wrote about how and why to develop drone fighters for the US Military. I described how the investments were heavy on pilot selection and training. Aircraft development and manufacturing were costly as well, but losing an aircraft was acceptable if the classified components were not compromised. In the writing, I proposed how a pilot would fly the aircraft remotely, even from a safer part of the world. If the fighter was shot down, it could be remotely destroyed to protect classified equipment from getting into enemy hands. I even described the G-Force aspect advantage of pilotless aircraft. Let’s say a remotely flown F-16 could pull 12 plus Gs while maneuvering on enemy aircraft to line up a kill shot while the pilot flying it was not affected since his seat was firmly on the ground. The advantages outweighed the disadvantages of fighter drones was my conclusion. At the end of the day, the most valuable part of the aircraft could go home and return to fight again.

I turned in my paper feeling good that I may have aced it. About a week later the graded papers were returned and I was sad to see that my paper received a B+. I was happy with the B+ but the side note is what I thought was the reason out-of-the-box designs were limited with that day’s technological progress. Written in red ink below the grade was this: ‘An interesting concept and good defense of the idea. Well written. We will never see this idea come to reality in our lifetime.’

After class, I asked the professor why I got a B+ instead of an A if I wrote it well and defended the idea. He responded, “If it were a feasible idea, I would have given you an A.”

Funny how I wrote that in 1981 when the only drones were target aircraft for pilot target training and drones outnumber piloted military aircraft today. I wish there was a way I could have patented the idea back then.