Loadstar 243/243.d81/t.predator

Text File | 2004-01-01 | 8.4 KB | 283 lines

u
       T H E   P R E D A T O R


The following forwarded email is
probably true unless it is a fiction
story based on fact. One hopes the
names and places were changed for
security reasons. To learn more about
the Predator go to this Air Force
webpage:

http://www.airforce-technology.com
/projects/predator/


SUBJECT: PREDATOR

[NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE:] Six days a
week, Shannon Rogers kisses his wife
and two young kids goodbye and wheels
his battered 1989 Chevy Cavalier out
of the driveway of his suburban
Nevada home. The houses here are
cookie cutter, done in beige stucco.
Like most of the other dads and some
moms in this traditional middle-class
community, Rogers heads down
Interstate 215, toward his job near
Las Vegas, using the 30-minute drive
to make the mental transition from
family man to workplace professional.

    But Rogers will end up in a place
far different from that of his fellow
commuters: when he arrives at work, he
will be at war in Iraq. Rogers, an Air
Force major and experienced fighter
pilot, is part of an elite group of
U.S. Troops playing a crucial role in
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from
the U.S.'s most notorious playground.

    From Nellis Air Force Base,
outside Las Vegas, Rogers controls a
Predator, a flimsy drone that has been
transformed from a spy plane into one
of the wars' most lethal weapons.

    Predators played a key part in
catching Saddam Hussein and have
killed Al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan
and Yemen. In September a Predator
tracked 11 insurgents who had attacked
a U.S. Base in Iraq, then killed them
as they fled.

    What makes the Predator mission --
and Rogers' job -- so unusual is the
7,000 miles between pilot and plane.
Basing the crew members at home rather
than at the front keeps them out of
harm's way and saves the military
money. Still, "for us, it's combat,"
says Rogers, 34, who has been deployed
to battle zones twice, most recently
Iraq this summer. "Physically, we may
be in Vegas, but mentally, we're
flying over Iraq. It feels real."

    Certainly the decisions they face
are life and death, as TIME observed
when it was recently granted exclusive
access to operations of the Air
Force's 15th Reconnaissance Squadron,
which commands 25 Predators from
Nellis. It was 10:30 p.m. In Nevada,
9:30 a.m. In Iraq, and after two hours
of watching insurgents fire a
pickup-truck-mounted .50-cal. Machine
gun at U.S. Troops in western Iraq,
Rogers and the sensor operator with
whom he works were given the command
to shoot the truck.

    Both developed a case of what
Rogers calls the "trembles"--the
nervousness of wanting to kill the
enemy but injure no one else, combined
with the enormity of taking human
lives. Just as Rogers pushed the
button to let fly one of the
Predator's Hellfire missiles, a car
appeared and started to drive toward
the pickup.

    His partner's job is to keep the
missile locked on target or, if
necessary, divert it to a place where
it would cause as little damage as
possible. "What do we do, sir?" the
partner asked in a shaky voice. "Stay
on the target and hope he drives
fast," said Rogers coolly. The car
passed, and the truck exploded
violently when the Hellfire struck.
Rogers let out a whoop and exchanged
high fives with his partner.

    The Predator is an unlikely star.
In military terms, it is an unmanned
aerial vehicle, or UAV. It was first
flown a decade ago and for years was
armed with only an unsophisticated
camera for intelligence-gathering.
After the fall of 2000, when Osama bin
Laden was spotted in Afghanistan by an
unarmed Predator, the U.S. Government
sped up a program to fit each aircraft
with two Hellfire missiles.

    Awesome sounding but benign
looking, the 27-ft.-long Predator is
painted a dull gray and shaped like an
upside-down spoon with wings. The
drone is made of lightweight composite
plastic and metal and has a tiny,
propeller-driven engine -- adapted
from a snowmobile's -- with a
decidedly unimpressive top speed of
only 150 mph. Rogers' previous craft,
the supersonic F-15 jet fighter, can
fly up to 900 m.p.h.

    The Predators commanded by the
15th Reconnaissance Squadron are
launched and landed by troops at the
front, but while they are in the air,
up to 24 hours straight every day,
they are controlled by Air Force crews
sitting in six grounded cockpits at
Nellis.

    Each cockpit consists of two large
armchairs set in front of banks of
computer screens with keyboards,
control joysticks and live video
images. Video is relayed from a camera
mounted on the bottom of the Predator
not only to Nellis but also to troops
on the ground, commanders in the
region and the Pentagon. The crew
consists of a pilot who flies the
plane and launches missiles and a
sensor operator who controls the
camera and the laser targeting device
for the two Hellfires. The crew
members communicate with troops and
commanders in the war zone through
secure instant-messaging systems as
well as radio transmissions routed
through a mission controller who sits
in a command center at Nellis and
issues orders to the crew.

    The conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan have proved the worth of
unmanned aircraft -- which are cheaper
and, because there is no pilot to be
shot down, politically more palatable
than traditional airplanes. The
thousand-plus UAVs in the military's
arsenal range from tiny craft that can
fit in a soldier's palm to ones the
size of business jets. Military
analysts are predicting that within
two decades, UAVs may even take over
the jobs of pilots flying fighter
jets.

    It makes economic sense; the $4
million Predator is a bargain compared
with the Air Force's newest fighter,
the $354 million F-22. The
effectiveness of the Predator in war
zones, however, has translated into
stresses in an unlikely place: back
home.

    The operational tempo puts intense
pressure on the small group of men and
women who deliver death from a
distance. The 180-person Nellis unit
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, with no holidays. The unit has
logged more flight hours than any
other squadron in the Air Force yet is
only 65% staffed.

    Crew members are so tightly
scheduled that when on duty, they have
to ask permission to go to the
bathroom and cannot leave their chairs
unless there is someone to replace
them. The troops call the Predator
compound Shawshank because it reminds
them of a prison. The schedule demands
that the men and women change shifts
-- days, evenings and overnights --
every three weeks, which makes fitting
into normal civilian life off base
nearly impossible.

    Morale, say many crew members, is
suffering. Crew members are
experiencing more problems in their
personal lives, including separation
and divorce. One may expect that being
home would be a plus for the troops,
but actually it's often a
complication. Soldiers in the field
have to cope with danger, but at least
they live in one world, whereas their
counterparts at Nellis commute daily
from war to civilian life.

    "How many people can say they went
to work today and killed or captured a
few terrorists?" says Lieut. Colonel
John Harris, commander of the 15th.
"Our people are proud they contribute
to the war from home. But being at
home brings some additional stresses.
We're very close to a crisis."

    Rogers says he feels pulled in two
directions, between spending more time
helping with the war effort and being
an integral part of his family. He
rushes home after his day shift to
jump in the pool with his kids. "At
least I get to sleep in my own bed,"
says Rogers.

    But he says being deployed in Iraq
was easier because he was isolated
from the daily errands and the
emotional demands of family life. His
wife Laura feels differently about his
being home. "It takes the edge off
being a pilot's wife," she says, "that
at least I know I won't be getting
that phone call in the middle of the
night telling me my husband has been
shot down."

[DAVE'S NOTE:] I remember reading a
book years ago -- Peacemakers, by Ben
Bova. The opening chapter was all
about remote-control aerial combat.
That was science fiction -- then.

This is but the tip of the iceberg.
How about remote-controlled tanks?
Other mobile weapons? Killer Droids!
The only dangerous job in a conflict
would be those who provide security
for the on-the-scene tech crews.

Marvelous stuff, eh? Now, what happens
when such weapons are in the hands of
an oppressive, adventurous government
that uses them to quell any
resistance -- from halfway around the
world?

"Resistance is Futile..." announced
the mechanically voiced robots in Dr.
Who.

 DMM