Contrary to the thoughts of your AF major, this isn't something that has any traction. One simply has to read AF doctrine and the musing of its leaders to know this.
All things being equal, of course this idea would never gain any traction. Theory is not enough to finish a large institution with a budget larger than the GDP of most countries that has existed for 60 years. Necessity, of the financial kind primarily, could bring this to pass. Not in 5 years, but maybe in 10. My Major friend told me that since he came on active duty in 1991 (enlisted), until the present time, the Air Force has shrunk 12-15,000 servicemembers a year, averaged out over time. If this rate keeps up, and remember, the Air Force is undergoing "force shaping" right now - the Air Force will come to the point where it is too small in terms of manpower to support being a full service. It is getting close in size to the USMC; that service of course is subordinate to the Navy and many of its functions, logistical and administrative, are done by the Navy. It is too small to be independent. The Air Force as currently constituted has more missions than the USMC, and most importantly, relies on vastly more expensive gear to carry it out. Can't remember the source right now, but I believe an Air Force general said publicly that the current round of force shaping was undertaken largely to afford the F-22. Considering that combat aircraft only get more expensive over time (much more, in our case), this problem will just get worse.

These factors taken together paint a very bleak future for the Air Force. The Air Force's reliance on it, its insistence to have the absolute, very best technology, combined with a future of small wars and shrinking defense budgets (and probably shrinking US economy, at some point), is going to put that service into an intolerable squeeze. It won't be able to afford its gizmos and all the bits that go into making it a service.

What happens in the financial world when organizations become too expensive to operate? They get reduced, redundancies get dropped, organizations get merged with others to save money and boost efficiency. I can easily see such a future where the Air Force could face being folded back into the Army on just such financial grounds; perhaps the new USAAF could maintain its identity just as the USMC maintains its own in the Department of the Navy? Maybe not, but it seems a plausible scenario to me.

Of course only the AF pursues its budgetary agenda aggressively! Seriously though, I fail to understand how the UAV issue is "poaching" a broad Army competency. <snip>

Oh, another thought. Instead of arguing like children over who should get what, maybe we should be talking about how we (the AF) can better serve you (the Army). I've never understood the parochial nature of our armed services; maybe its because I'm a retread. Or maybe I'm just a dreamer...
wm addressed the UAV issue more succinctly than I ever could.

On a side note, parochialism will always exist where you have strong institutional identities. It's not always bad, but when budgets and strategy get involved, it is. As annoying as it all can be, I don't think it's really a childish matter, because past the pettiness, you get down to real differences in strategic outlook and military policy that have great consequences for the country and the world. And these issues unfortunately are greatly complicated in that those services and organizations who are competing to have their visions validated, funded and put into practice are playing a multilevel game - the choices made, say in the conduct of a war, have effects beyond their immediate context. Whatever is decided affects the future form, size and sometimes even existence of the contending organizations. Add to that the humans who comprise these organizations have personal ambitions, they have mortgages to pay and families to feed, their personal futures are tied up with the organization they serve, so they will push agendas out of self interest as often as they will out of national interest.