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I have never heard of a drone running anything other than an RTOS. However the ground stations for command/control/monitoring are typically run on traditional Windows-OS machines.

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If the drone is running a RTOS, wouldn't the GCS need RTOS-like reliability as well to communicate with it? That's all I can say (I think)

No. Windows boxes can communicate to an RTOS like VxWorks over a network just fine.

The level of performance needed in the GCS is even less than you might think, too -- for most of the UAVs, you don't have direct flight controls -- it's more like a naval ship, where you instruct it to go to certain altitude and fly a flight path you plot on a map. Some of them have more stick/rudder style controls, mainly for landings, which are often controlled by another operator physically at the launch/recovery site (and who might be a contractor vs. soldier/airman).

it's more like a naval ship, where you instruct it to go to certain altitude and fly a flight path you plot on a map.

Woah, what Navy has ships like that? Bowser's navy?

But yah, I know what you're talking about.

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