CNN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY WEEK July 7, 2001 Saturday
Unmanned Plane Future of Aerial Espionage
ANN KELLAN, HOST: A plane that flies thousands of miles without a pilot could upgrade airborne spying. Also, archaeologists examine ancient engravings in a French cave. And a legal loophole may put coastal marshes in danger. Those stories and more are just ahead on SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY WEEK. Hello and welcome, I'm Ann Kellan. A new kind of spy plane is getting a vote of confidence from the Bush administration. It can stay airborne for long periods at high altitude, but the big surprise is who's in the cockpit.
David Ensor has the story.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are airborne, flight number one.
DAVID ENSOR, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It has the wing span of a 727 and can loiter for 24 hours at a time at 65,000 feet, 6,000 miles from where it took off, collecting pictures and, in the future, electronic eavesdropping.
The Global Hawk may be an ideal spy plane. And best of all, there is no one on board.
MAJOR CHRIS JELLA, U.S. AIR FORCE PILOT: The aircraft is mostly autonomous. The two commands we have to send to get it airborne is -- one is a taxi command to get it out to the runway. And the second is a takeoff command.
ENSOR: With the EP-3 surveillance plane standoff with China still fresh in its memory, the 11-day ordeal of the plane's crew, the Bush administration decided to more than double, to over $300 million, funds for the Air Force to fly Global Hawks -- four a year starting in two years time.
Will they replace the EP-3s? Experts say there are pros and cons to remotely piloted vehicles, or RPVs.
JOHN HAMRE, FORMER DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: If, off the coast of China, a Chinese interceptor hit an RPV, that airplane would have been lost, you know, whereas a pilot was able to save it and save the crew.
Now, the downside is, of course, then we had a pilot that had to land in -- on the Chinese island. And we had a political crisis associated with that. So there are trade-offs.
ENSOR: But U.S. officials predict a big future for Global Hawks. Not only can they be outfitted to eavesdrop, they can also take pictures that America's spy satellites just cannot get.
JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: The advantages that you have with aircraft is that, unlike satellites, you can't predict when they're going to show up. And unlike satellites, they can remain in a given area for an extended period of time. And both of those things make it harder to hide from an airplane than to hide from a satellite.
ENSOR: And Global Hawk's creators at Northrop Grumman say they hope to build an even larger unmanned spy plane soon, one that could go still farther and collect intelligence still longer.
For SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY WEEK, I'm David Ensor.
copyright 2001 Cable News Network
