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| Science & Technology |
| More Predators, Faster |
| 2007-07-15 |
| Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley is accelerating delivery of the Defense Department's December 2009 goal of 21 daily MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle combat air patrols, or CAPs, by one year. At the chief of staff's request, Air Force officials coordinated deployment actions with the Joint Staff and Central Command to increase three additional Predator CAPs, boosting full motion video and rapid strike capability to the Joint Force commander in Iraq. Two of these CAPs are expected to be active this summer or early fall. "The Predator provides a tremendous capability for our joint and coalition forces on the ground," said Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, the deputy Air Force chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "The Air Force is pushing to expand Predator air patrols for Admiral (William J.) Fallon's use as quickly as possible." Admiral Fallon is the commander of U.S. Central Command. Currently, Airmen operate 12 Predator CAPs providing combat capability to joint forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The acceleration is possible due to the chief of staff's "total force" approach to fielding enhanced combat capability. The recently increased Predator training capacity, and the inclusion of additional Air National Guard Airmen supports both increased flight operations and a more robust exploitation of Predator data. Each Predator CAP provides 24-hour, seven days a week combat operations. They are flown by both active duty and Air National Guard personnel through secure communications to bases in Nevada, California and North Dakota. The Air Force also will begin flying Predator combat operations from Arizona next week, all part of the chief of staff's "total force" approach in combining Active, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard capabilities in a much more inclusive and effective manner. The Air Force continues to deploy all operational Predator assets and will look to sustain this combat capability as new production aircraft, ground stations and aircrew are delivered. To fully man this new level for Central Command, the Air Force will maintain 160 "total force" Predator crews, up from 120 last year. The Predator is an armed multi-role intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance asset with sophisticated sensors and weapons delivering critical combat capability to U.S. and U.K. forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This weapon system has the capability to find, track, and, if necessary, strike an enemy threat with immediate effect. This type of tactical agility is imperative to neutralize insurgent activity. The Air Force's Predator is the most requested medium- or high-altitude UAV in the U.S. Central Command theater of operations. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #13 Right, lotp. The Buckeye system. We own the sky. We own the view from the sky. It kinda makes me happy to pay taxes....well almost. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-07-15 19:06 |
| #12 OP - my son's class at Ft. Huachuca graduated 147 (from 220 at the start) in June - they are pumping out as many as possible |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-07-15 17:07 |
| #11 There's one more major problem with increasing the number of Predators and other platforms, from smallest to largest (Global Hawk?). The schools at Goodfellow and Fort Huachuka can only turn out so many qualified interpreters a year. The class sizes at both have been increased, but there's still a shortfall. Lots of former military are working as contractors to span the gap, and there's still a shortfall. The Air Force is considering increasing its total reconnaissance force by 35-50% in the next year. Already the number of people required to support reconnaissance has almost doubled. That's a major change since the draw-down following the fall of the Berlin Wall. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2007-07-15 16:38 |
| #10 Thanks for the confirmation, Besoeker. Although some of the folks I work with have recent operational experience, there's always the danger of being caught in a program echo chamber ..... wxjames, I didn't find the RB post in question but I think you're referring to the Army's Buckeye system. It's airborne, can fly on manned or unmanned aircraft. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-07-15 12:35 |
| #9 There is also the USAF issue re: owning air space management. USAF has traditionally owned that responsibility, Army wants it for battlefield assets and it's both a turf war and a matter that has significant operational impact. Or so I'm told by people on both sides of that issue ... ;-) Posted by lotp 2007-07-15 09:47|| Front Page|| ||Comments Top You were informed correctly lotp. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-07-15 12:11 |
| #8 Didn't that system we read about 2 weeks ago rely on UAVs to take pictures several times a day ? Remember it can determine the smallest change in any location so it's used to locate planted IRDs and such. Or was that using a maned platform ? |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-07-15 11:26 |
| #7 Raven-style Made that "miniUAV". The micros are much smaller. Raven is backpackable, has a 5' wingspan. The micros in development are much smaller than that and are likely to be deployed in self-organizing swarms rather than under direct human operator control. Huge amount of work going on both in unmanned technical development and - of equal importance - in working the tactics and doctrine for their use. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-07-15 09:53 |
| #6 Raven is for sub-tactical and tactical ops, i.e. at the squad level. Fits well with the Marine tactics & is their platform altho I understand Army uses it where available. Predator's a battalion-level asset. Wholly 'nuther sensor package, flies at a higher altitude and requires airspace management. Army's plans for the Future Combat System included 4 types of UAVs, from a Raven style microUAV to a 'flying trashcan' fan/induction vehicle at the company level, a Predator-class fixed wing for the battalion and an unmanned helo at the brigade level IIRC. The company level Type II is on hold for budgetary reasons, but also because there is some reason to question whether it would really provide a lot of mission enhancement for the bucks, vs. additional fixed wings to be shared. The micro and the helo are under contract. Which leaves the Predator class replacement. The existing Predators are pretty limited in various ways. I've heard that a lot of operator training goes into working around its limitations. There is also the USAF issue re: owning air space management. USAF has traditionally owned that responsibility, Army wants it for battlefield assets and it's both a turf war and a matter that has significant operational impact. Or so I'm told by people on both sides of that issue ... ;-) |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-07-15 09:47 |
| #5 A Predator by itself isn't much What makes it effective are the personnel operating it and the communications net to move the data and integrate it into combat operations. Even the Reaper needs trained operators. We are not at the point where we are willing to send armed Reapers out without a human finger on the trigger. Also, a CAP is exactly what it says, a Combat Air Patrol, not a reon mission. The services have a stable full of other birds for recce. The Raven comes to mind. |
| Posted by: RWV 2007-07-15 08:53 |
| #4 Perhaps a combination of UAVs with higher altitude station-keeping LTA (Lighter Than Air) observation blimps might avoid airspace conflicts and provide wide-field observation capabilities that could augment the Predator fleet's more localized missions. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-15 04:45 |
| #3 Nice article and nice advertisement. Relatively inexpensive and easy to manufacture, Unmanned Aeriel Vehicles (UAV) have not caught on in the past in the USAF for some very obvious reasons. Current requirements in the GWOT and successes achieved by the military have brought the Air Force around and they are beginning to see business development opportunities. Yes, it is all about |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-07-15 03:13 |
| #2 Bottleneck is probably satellite communications since they are controlled from Nevada. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-07-15 02:11 |
| #1 Since Predators are cheap compared to planes or wounded ground troops why isn't the Air Force covering all of Iraq with 100 or 200 of these a day? 21 is FOR SHAME! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-07-15 02:00 |