Commercial off-the-shelf drones have become a common presence on the battlefield, presenting opportunities and threats for militaries because of their versatility, low-cost and speed.
Corporal Ryan Hodson grapples with these issues in his winning Air Force Writing Competition essay, The Weaponisation of Toys and Implications for the Air Force.
He said his chosen essay topic occupied a 'weird' intersection of overlapping facets of his life.
"The implications towards security pursuant to my role in the RAAF, the wide array of technological issues and subjects I've been working across within the Defence APS, and frankly, the aspects that we have all seen publicised in the news and in open-source online media since the very first days of the Ukraine war," Corporal Hodson said.
"The complexities around finding, tracking, targeting and doing something about a small $3000 drone you can buy from JB Hi-Fi are very real and extremely difficult to unpick in isolation."
His essay is the most recent winner of The Corporal Margaret Clarke Award. Corporal Hodson hopes his piece will generate awareness among his colleagues in the security trade about these highly technical issues that affect them.
"The next war will be fought with a mix of new systems, old doctrines, and principally by strategic mass - how much material we can bring to a fight, at what effect, to shape the terminus of the war from its onset," Corporal Hodson said.
"I certainly don't propose to have answers to the questions and issues I've raised, but by talking about them and having even the water-cooler type chat, maybe the next aviator will."
The Air Force Writing Competition: The Corporal Margaret Clarke Award and The Wrigley Prize are facilitated by the Air and Space Power Centre. The next round of submissions are now open and close on December 31. To find more, visit the Air and Space Power Centre's website: airpower.airforce.gov.au/contribute
To read The Weaponisation of Toys and Implications for the Air Force, click here.
To read the winning Wrigley Prize essay, An Assessment of Australian Launch Capabilities and the Need for Sovereign Space Access by Flying Officer Ravijay Gampala and Khuong Nguyen, click here.
