Actually... apart from being a massive pork barrel this system doesn't seem that far fetched... presumably the droids would be controlled from the ground at least during take off and landing... the system would probably be scrapped faster than you can say british beef if one of the droids decided to clip a 747 either by accident or by design (on apparent colision course with master: check, hot exhaust profile: check, 'fired' from ground: check... must be a missile then ;o)

.selissim 2 kcap ot hguone revelc t'nera stsirorret eht taht epoh tsuj stel

because Islamic terrorists would never think of reading from right to left....