USA Today October 29, 2001
Unmanned craft gain appeal
Armed models planned as planes prove themselves over Afghanistan
By Byron Acohido
An ungainly, windowless airplane brimming with cutting-edge digital imaging gear and wireless data transmitters may turn out to be Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare. Since 1995, the Air Force Predator, an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, has been quietly proving itself as an indispensable surveillance tool in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq.
Now Predator, built by San Diego-based General Atomics, is poised to take a starring role in the hunt for bin Laden. Meanwhile, an even more sophisticated UAV, the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, now being tested by the Air Force, could emerge as a linchpin reconnaissance tool for the protracted war on terrorism, military experts say. "The basic appeal of the UAV is you can get real-time intelligence without putting your human pilots at risk, and intelligence is the key to any battle, isn't it?" says Ken Munson, editor of Jane's Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Targets.
Battlefield surveillance has come a long way since the Air Force used unmanned drones in Vietnam to bring back raw film of enemy territory. Thanks to advances in computer processing power, digital imaging and wireless communications, UAVs have begun to emerge as a military commander's virtual eyes in the sky.
UAVs represent a small part of sales and profits for the privately held General Atomics, whose main business is nuclear technology, and Northrop Grumman, maker of the B-2 stealth bomber. But each is developing armed UAVs in hopes of cashing in as the military increasingly moves toward using remote-controlled attack aircraft.
"It's a revolutionary capability, but for the moment its profit consequences are relatively moderate," says Loren Thompson, military expert at the Lexington Institute, a government watchdog group.
UAVs work essentially the same way as the remote control airplanes hobbyists fly. Flight-control surfaces on the wing and tail are manipulated by radio signals sent from a pilot/controller on the ground.
Roughly the size of a four-seat Cessna 172, the propeller-driven Predator is equipped with digital video cameras, infrared sensors and synthetic aperture radar for looking through clouds or smoke. The pilot sits inside a van, much like a TV news truck, up to 400 miles away manipulating a joystick, which transmits radio signals to the aircraft's control surfaces.
'A force multiplier'
Predator can circle enemy territory for 16 hours before it must refuel, all the while transmitting streaming video and snapshot images back to the van, which can relay it onto to a command post. In Bosnia and Kosovo, it helped aim weapons and distinguish friend from foe. In Iraq, it helps enforce Iraq's adherence to no-fly zone restrictions.
"UAVs are becoming increasingly important, because they function as a force multiplier," says Chris Hellman, analyst for the Center for Defense Information. "The ability to know, moment to moment, where your enemy is and what he's doing makes your forces much more effective."
With Afghanistan's air defenses largely in ruins, Predator could be dispatched to provide detailed, extended looks at remote, hostile areas, military experts say. Flying at 12,000 to 15,000 feet, its video cameras can monitor people and vehicles on the move. Or it could record images of the same place at the same time for several days -- and reveal the appearance of tire tracks or other evidence of suspicious activity.
"What we might see is recurrent patterns of movement on the ground that might be a tip-off to Osama bin Laden on the move," says Thompson.
Just how adept military commanders will be in putting such information to use in the hunt for bin Laden remains to be seen. Traditionally, it takes the military hours or sometimes days to process intelligence through the chain of command and take action.
But the war in Afghanistan and technology are providing an impetus for the military to make tactical decisions based on fresh intelligence in a matter of minutes.
The Air Force has taken delivery of 50 Predators since 1994. Nineteen have crashed, including 11 counted as combat losses. Air Force officials wanted to move quickly to deploy Predator in Afghanistan. But some Pentagon officials preferred waiting until equipment and protocol for communicating with other services are in place, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology, a trade magazine.
"UAVs provide new capabilities that don't fit neatly in existing organizational charts of military units," says John Pike, military specialist at GlobalSecurity.org, an Alexandria, Va.-based think tank.
In testing last February, the Air Force fastened a Hellfire laser-guided missile to the Predator's underbelly and launched it accurately enough to strike an Army tank parked in the Nevada desert. Air Force officials deny news reports that armed Predators are being used in Afghanistan.
'A star, or a real dog'
Even so, should Predator simply perform its surveillance role well in Afghanistan it could accelerate development of more sophisticated UAVs, including armed versions. In particular, it could make or break the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, a jet-powered UAV the Air Force has been testing since 1998.
"We don't know yet how adequate Predator will be to the task at hand," says Pike. "It could turn out to be a star, or a real dog."
Global Hawk can fly 13,500 miles and stay aloft 24 hours, surveying an area the size of Illinois from 65,000 feet. It has performed well in a flight from the USA to Australia and in military exercises in Alaska and Europe. It could provide valuable ongoing surveillance of terrorist training camps and other terrorist-support activities, a senior Air Force official told USA TODAY.
Should Predator fare well in Afghanistan, the Air Force could make a stronger case to increase Global Hawk production from two per year to as many as 10 a year, says the official, who asked to remain unidentified for security reasons.
"Global Hawk offers revolutionary capability with respect to endurance and range," he says. "We're getting to the point where we're able to establish a 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week presence in a region that may be thousands of miles away from where the aircraft is based."
According to the official, the military services are 3 to 5 years from developing "command-and-control" protocols that would allow "trigger pullers" -- those with authority to deploy troops or fire at targets -- to make swift use of UAV intelligence. But a strong showing by Predator in Afghanistan could shrink that timeline.
"We've already demonstrated bits and pieces of that architecture, and we are rapidly closing in on the entire piece of it," the official says. "Now it's a matter of closing all the seams and getting it seamless."
Copyright 2001 Gannett Company, Inc.
