42yo Programmer / Consultant from San Francisco, CA
I am not a neurosurgeon or Medical doctor.
Email: neurofog <at> gmail dot com
As indicated below, it would be a war crime.
More importantly, it's not uncommon when crossing Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) regions (eg. from Washington Center, to NY Center) for controllers to instruct pilots to change Squawk codes. Same applies when crossing from one country's airspace to another.
One of these drones, without a bunch of extra avionics would be unable to change transponder codes in flight, and talk with controllers via relay, that would probably double the cost of the drone, or at least significantly increase it.
So even doing something creative, like spoofing the transponder Squawk code, from another aircraft, probably wouldn't help.
Also, with Mode-C, and Mode-S transponders, the later used with ADS-B, which feeds all the flight tracking websites, the transponder transmits altitude.
A SAM operator will figure out somewhat quickly if an airliner is supposed to be at 10,000ft and 250mph but isn't according to primary radar tracking, but much lower and slower, that it's spoofing it's transponder.
The Airliner has a transponder and a radio. Pretty sure the drone does not.
The transponder code, assigned by various ATC would identify that aircraft as a civilian airliner when it checks in, and on the screens of the SAM operators.
Also, the speed and altitude of the airliner, even approaching Grozny would not be the same as a drone. Airliners, even on approach, are somewhat faster, probably 200-250mph, or faster, and much higher in altitude, at least 5000ft, probably more like 10,000ft until close to the airport.
This is going back a few years, but we used on our systems, AD620 In-Amp (Instrumentation Op-Amp) front-end IC, and a PIC 16F series micro, some filtering in between, for 2 channels. Even today, I think one could get to 2 or 4 channels with wet saline solution, with a low BOM (Board-of-Materials) cost.
I used to repair EEG systems, and work as an EEG tech.
The irony that military healthcare, while far from perfect, has many advantages like it's part of the benefits to servicemembers and dependents, some retirees.
A surprising number of people, especially prior to the Affordable Care Act, would call expanding public healthcare "Socialism", even though many in Congress are veterans. The late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), A Vietnam veteran A-4 pilot, and POW, cast the deciding vote against repealing the ACA. He earned his military healthcare, and then some.
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