gambit
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No technical barriers to that idea, but depends on the degree of control, you may end up defeating the purpose of the concept of the UAV in the first place.
I will explain this the same way I explained to my avionics trainees many years ago when I was in aviation. We should FIRST look at this from a philosophical (or high) level.
Why is the horse/rider combination more effective than the horse/carriage version?
In the first combination, we have the rider in DIRECT contact with the horse, from bodily contact to control contact, the reins are shorter. The rider is able to feel what the horse is doing at every moment throughout every maneuver. With the shorter reigns, the rider is able to effective quicker commands, will receive quicker responses, and feedback is immediate.
In the second combination, the driver is in direct contact with the carriage, not the horse, and the control contact, the reigns, are long, which inevitably increases time in command, response, and feedback. Increases in time for anything regarding control is 'lag' and is undesirable. Because the driver is in contact with the carriage, he is more aware of the carriage's motions and responses, than he is of the horse. He is less conscious of the horse's strength, stamina, and fatigue.
It is no different -- philosophically -- in designing and engineering avionics systems. The pilot in the cockpit has the greater situational awareness (SA) factor than the pilot remotely operating the aircraft. Commands are sent in the shortest possible route: pilot - cockpit - computer - flight control elements. Responses and feedback are in the same route, just in reverse, of course.
Once you understand controls at the philosophical level, you will be able to better design and finally engineer at the technical level, and that includes the technology you CURRENTLY POSSESS, not what the 'other guys' possess, because certainly if those other guys are hostile to you, they are not going to voluntarily help you to gain parity or, heavens forbid, superiority.
In the horse/carriage combination, controls are longer but still are line-of-sight (LoS) limited. No different if you are using electromagnetism (EM) at the speed of light. So if you are going to engineer a high altitude remotely control system for an over-the-horizon (OTH) aircraft, the first question is: What is the level of communication technology you CURRENTLY POSSESS, especially to minimize 'lag' in this real time two-way communication path?
This question is crucial because it set the foundation for your entire UAV program. The lower that OTH technology, the greater the degree of autonomy your aircraft must be, which segues into the second crucial question: What is the level of control (avionics) technology you currently possess? The lower that technology, the less capable your aircraft will be when it is out of your line of sight (LoS) and must rely on its own programming to accomplish its mission and to survive hostile actions directed against it.
Here is the kicker: The higher the level of technology in communication and flight controls avionics, the greater the degree of autonomy your aircraft can be, which give you the luxury of briefly abandoning attention to its operations and redirect your attention to somewhere else, meaning you can monitor and analyze data instead of constantly 'flying' the aircraft, as in how the driver must be in constant control of the reigns in that horse/carriage combination.
So if your communication avionics is high enough to allow you to engineer a system of aircraft-to-aircraft communication but not so high that you must maintain constant control from the parent aircraft, then how large is the parent aircraft going to be? You are going to need a large parent aircraft because the pilot is not going to fly his own and the UAV at the same time. And what is the maximum 'safe' distance it must be in order to minimize communication 'lag'? Is this 'safe' distance going to be so short that you might as well send a manned aircraft? It is of communication and flight controls avionics technology that will allow us to depart from the horse/rider and horse/carriage analogy because our 'horse' is so smart that he can operate on his own with only periodic commands from either rider or carriage driver.
Designing and engineering an entire UAV program cannot be broken down into discrete sub-systems, in other words, you cannot have a brilliant aircraft flight controls avionics engineer who has been on the job for a decade and a fresh out of school graduate student assigned to communication engineering. Or vice versa. Neither situations are going to give you a viable UAV program. The horse/carriage analogy is applicable here. You cannot have a team of powerful Clydesdale pulling a rickety wagon.
