Inside the Predator’s War on Terror
A firsthand look at the Air Force's hi-tech hunting of terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On Victory over Japan Day, also known as V-J Day, General Henry “Hap” Arnold told the world that “the next war may be fought by airplanes with no men in them at all.” He was off by two and a half wars.
Last week, after passing a federal security clearance, I was privileged to visit Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada, where the 432nd Wing currently flies airplanes without men over Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The drones, called the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper, fly above the conflict zones while their pilots sit in chairs 50 miles outside Las Vegas. It was from there that I, wearing a business suit and suede shoes, witnessed live action on the battlefield from over the drone pilot’s shoulder.
“Take everything you’ve learned about aviation in war, throw it out of the window, and let’s go to work on tomorrow’s aviation,” General Arnold told his men. “It will be different from anything the world has ever seen.” How true were the general’s words.
Chances are as a 42-year-old mother of two young boys, I would never have witnessed live action in a war zone were this World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. And while drones have been in battle since World War II (Joe Kennedy died on a drone mission), only in the war on terror have they taken center stage. At Creech, Hap Arnold’s prediction of war unlike anything the world has ever seen before unfolded in front of my eyes. There I was, watching Afghan sheep slumber outside a building that had suspected enemy combatants inside — in real time.
The drones are remarkable to watch in action. Video screens in front of the pilot display satellite images of what is going on down on the ground in varying degrees of close-up. The best resolution is such that in addition to seeing those black sheep on the ground, I could see shrubs and concrete blocks. The Predator relaying this real-time video feed was flying at 20,150 feet above the scene. While some Predators are equipped with Hellfire missiles, others are not. Those without missiles have maximum surveillance capabilities and carry a camera equipped with synthetic aperture radar, or SAR. (Predators can’t currently carry both SAR systems and Hellfire missiles.)
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Annie Jacobsen writes about aviation and intelligence. She blogs at TheAviationNation.com and is working on a new book for Little Brown and Company.
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17 Comments
1. Paul -Indiana:I wonder if those terrorists being targeted even understand that their opponent, controlling the drone, is probably sitting at a computer in the middle of the US, drinking coffee while he goes about capping their sorry butts.
Oct 15, 2009 - 5:33 am 2. Paul of Alexandria:One of the great unsung revolutions of the past 30 years is that the Air Force is finally realizing its proper role. Raptors and Eagles are cool and have their proper place, but it’s all worthless unless the Army gets the support that it needs. Ground support is finally “cool”.
Oct 15, 2009 - 6:15 am 3. Federale:Sorry to hear that they took HV-1 alive. What is the point after you mirandize him? Should have put a Hellfire in the house.
Oct 15, 2009 - 11:19 am 4. M. Report:They can recruit all the operators they need
Oct 15, 2009 - 12:21 pm 5. Paul -Indiana:at a High School Robotics competition.
As a bonus, these kids will design vehicles
which do 10 times as much for 1/10 the cost.
The generation after that will be autonomous;
Mines with minds, and mobility.
Hey, Guerrilla Guy: Do you want to go on a
mission which includes infiltration past
robotic rattlesnakes in the grass (or sand) ?
#4. That sounds great. In addition those robotic devices can spout out their miranda rights automatically without misquoting the bleeding hearts.
Oct 15, 2009 - 1:37 pm 6. Larry J:One of the great unsung revolutions of the past 30 years is that the Air Force is finally realizing its proper role. Raptors and Eagles are cool and have their proper place, but it’s all worthless unless the Army gets the support that it needs. Ground support is finally “cool”.
Predators and Reapers only work if you have complete control of the air. They’d be dead meat against even a WWII era fighter. Don’t fall into the trap of “preparing to fight the last war.” Raptors and Eagles have their place. They just aren’t needed in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Sorry to hear that they took HV-1 alive. What is the point after you mirandize him? Should have put a Hellfire in the house.
It’s kind of hard to interrogate a dead man.
Oct 15, 2009 - 2:44 pm 7. John "birther" Samford:What Larry J. said.
Oct 15, 2009 - 3:43 pm 8. Thor-Zone:When it all shakes out, they are still just target drones. If the Paki’s had a problem with UAV’s killing terrs, they would just put up a couple of F-16’s and let their pilots get a little target practice.
Very cool story!
Oct 15, 2009 - 4:38 pm 9. Good Ole Charlie:@6 & @7:
Shoot down UAVs? Not if UAV (future generations) also carries air-to-air missiles themselves.
And if they catch unfriendly aircraft on the ground?…their radar cross-section can be made very, very tiny and a air-to-ground missile is very accurate.
The Nasties would also loose a lot of conventional birds in the shoot-down process…
Oct 15, 2009 - 6:12 pm 10. Anonymous:My father died in WWII in a B17. I didn’t fly, but I had a role in Apollo.
It’s unfortunate that Hap Arnold and this commentator think just because we can come up with the technology and the military and technical leadership to put men on the moon or run successful predator wars, that we actually will.
Neither envisions the ignorance of the public nor the veniality of its political and academic institutions (cit. Washington, NYC-Hollywood, Chicago, S.F)
Oct 16, 2009 - 6:55 am 11. Aged Cheddar:The word on the street says the most remarkable part of UAV development is that it happened, more or less, in the background. Since it’s difficult to sell the Air Force on the benefits of “pilot-less” aircraft, it all happened in the back rooms of Wright Patterson AFB, and was a proven system before the USAF caught on. Since they couldn’t un-ring the bell, the Air Force had to concede and adopt the UAV as part of the force. The Global Hawk has flown non-stop from the US to Austrailia, so no, these are not just target drones, just as cruise missiles are not just missiles. Welcome to the 21st century battlefield ladies and gentlemen. Don’t forget to duck and cover.
Oct 16, 2009 - 11:46 am 12. John "birther" Samford:Actually, they ARE just target drones. Hanging missiles off them or increasing the range won’t change their target drone status.
Oct 16, 2009 - 1:13 pm 13. dck:Anyone that thinks it is the missiles that matter in air to air combat is clueless. Nor does the amount of G’s it can pull or the rate of vector change available.
The #1 thing in Air to Air combat is SA ( situational awareness). This has been a fact ever since men started hunting each other in airplanes.
You cannot program a computer to both care if it lives or dies AND be willing to die to perform the mission. Those are mutually exclusive terms. Only humans can handle conflicts such as those.
If you program the machine to avoid being shot down, then that is what it will do. If you program it to attack, then that is what it will do. Machines CANNOT think. They just follow instructions. They cannot ‘wing it’. which is what a fighter pilot HAS TO DO in Air to Air.
Then there is the problem of getting it paid for. Congress won’t turn loose the money to buy a few hundred more F-22’s. If you think they are going to shell out billions to buy Cylons, you are deeeeeep into the koolaid.
Sorry, UACV’s are great for Air to Mud, which doesn’t require much of an OODA loop. Better then humans, since they won’t flinch when the flak comes up and the SAM’s are as thick as the trees in Yellowstone park.
Any robot smart enough to go wing to wing with a human is going to be smart enough to ask “WHY?”.
It’s interesting that the number of actual strikes goes down with these birds, and, presumably, also the number of “collateral” casualties. They ID targets definitively and they destroy them decisively. That should satisfy the Liberals, right?
I wonder how long it will take Liberals to find this “improvement” in the efficiency of warfare immoral, and complain bitterly about infallible “killer robots” unleashed on suffering humanity by the United States? Where there is “virtually” no chance of escape, there will be moral objection: mark my words.
We’ll probably have a serious debate (on one side) over whether we should handicap the technology by writing in an absent odds factor in the name of humanity.
And then there is the question of the psychological effect on remote “executioners” in Nevada. Is it all too much for the Human Conscience; are they becoming souless psychopaths, like computer game players? We may have to bring in the equivalent of the old west hangmen to fire a lethal shot. Of course, the anti-death penalty lawyers will want a piece of that action. The media will demand to sit in on the court action and broadcast close-ups of the result on the ground.
Oh yeah, this is gonna be great fun.
Oct 16, 2009 - 3:55 pm 14. mr. knowitall:The history of the Predator UAV is truly a tale of cosmic justice. The General Atomics Predator/Reaper UAV, that is so successful at killing extremist Islamic terrorists, was originally developed by an Israeli immigrant named Abe Karem.
Abe Karem came to the US (from Israel) in the late 70’s with nothing more than the shirt on his back. He built the first version of what would eventually become the Predator, by himself in his garage at night. It was called the Gnat. The Gnat attracted enough interest that he was given a contract to build a larger version called Amber, and started a company called Leading Systems to produce it.
Unfortunately, Leading Systems was a commercial failure and went bankrupt. General Atomics purchased the Amber technology and turned it into the very successful Predator UAV.
Following the commercial failure of Leading Systems, Abe Karem regrouped, started a new company (Frontier Systems) and produced the A160 Hummingbird UAV. He sold that successful UAV project to Boeing, who is now producing them for Army SOCOM.
Abe is now busy with his third business venture, Karem Aircraft, working to build a tilt-rotor aircraft the size of an A400. His little company is competing head-to-head with giants Sikorsky and Bell-Boeing on the JFTL program.
So, I wonder if the virulent anti-semitic members of Al-Qaeda, for whom the Predator UAV is currently causing so much grief, appreciate the fact that the Predator was the brainchild of a small, quiet, humble, Jewish man. Now that’s cosmic justice.
Oct 16, 2009 - 9:06 pm 15. Adina Kutnicki, Israel:Israel is a pioneer in these types of drones. The difference is that when Israel utilizes ANY type of defensive measures they are called ‘war criminals’.
It is due to the fact that wars are NO longer being fought by conventional armies, that unconventional means are being used. The fact that the west is now fighting terrorists that hide in caves, hide in civilian centers, hide in mosques etc, is exactly the reason why fighting outside the box is mandatory.
So, the next time the howling choruses exorciates Israel for taking the fight to the enemy-all the while sparing terror supporting civilian populations (via leaflets, text messages, cell calls, etc to get out of the areas)where NO other army makes such an effort, they would do well to remember who is the victim and who is the aggressor.
The US would surely not take kindly to being called war criminals for defending their people from barbarians who are still living in the 7th century!
Oct 17, 2009 - 2:11 am 16. bd:“Predators and Reapers only work if you have complete control of the air.”
In five years manned aircraft for air superiority missions will be a thing of the past. A UCAV will be able to out turn a manned aircraft and will have superior sensors on board than the current “M1 Eyeball” that the current generation of F-22 Pilots are equpped with.
Imagine a UAV that has a pilot using radar to track and a ball payload to acquire visually an enemy aircraft using a 35X optical system five or six times the distance of the current ability of a pilot, then imagine his ability to pull 15G in a turn to engage a target?
And then his replacement comes in the door so he can go eat lunch?
Flight suit guys, your days are numbered.
Oct 17, 2009 - 7:20 am 17. Roy66:Early in the novel Chagoo is found dead; his body was locked in the reptile room from the outside, apparently with Chagoo’s own key. ,
Oct 22, 2009 - 2:21 pm