The other aspect of Afghanistan
Aviation author Bill Sweetman describes the first available photographs of a stealth UAV operating out of Afghanistan in his blog in Ares. Sweetman says it may be a high altitude, long endurance UAV. “The jet has long, slender outer wings, spanning as much as 80 feet, mated to a stouter, deeper centerbody with a pointed nose. One important detail: the overwing fairings are not B-2-like inlets, but cover some kind of equipment – satcoms on one side, perhaps, and a sensor on the other.”
In an earlier post, Sweetman speculated that the “Beast of Kandahar” may have related to a secret requirement for a platform that would fly at 70-80,000 feet using classified engines produced for a deleted program. But the key problem is what such a vehicle would be doing in Afghanistan.
Perhaps the biggest mystery, though, is what the birds were doing in Kandahar. Why use a stealth aircraft against an adversary that doesn’t have radar? And if it was part of some Secret Squirrel operation against the Taliban, what in the blue blazes was it doing outdoors in daylight?
One possibility is that it was sending a message to Pakistan. Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times writing in 2008 reported that US UAV flights over the stalwart American ally were confined to a set of “boxes” beyond which they were forbidden to snoop.
the Pakistani government has long restricted where the C.I.A. can fly Predator surveillance drones inside Pakistan, limiting flight paths to approved “boxes” on a grid map. The C.I.A.’s answer to that restriction? It deliberately flies Predators beyond the approved areas, just to test Pakistani radars. According to one former agency officer, the Pakistanis usually notice.
But the Pakistani radars might not notice the “Beast of Kandahar” with its stealth airframe at 80,000 feet. The Times Online reported in early February that the US was flying UAV missions out of Shamsi Airbase in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan from as early as 2006.
The advantage of Shamsi is that it provides a discreet launchpad within minutes of Quetta — a known Taleban staging post — as well as Taleban infiltration routes into Afghanistan and potential militant targets farther afield.
Sweetman speculated that “It could be, therefore, that the Kandahar UAV – which cannot be particularly sensitive, or it would not have been seen in plain sight – is a four-year-old demonstrator, pressed into service in an information-operations role to meet an urgent requirement.” The Pakistanis would certainly notice a vehicle in plain sight, especially one reported by the aviation trade press. The Times online article made intriguing reference to the possible deployment of Global Hawks to Shamsi, although that aircraft did not correspond to the appearance of vehicles spotted there. The Global Hawks are strategic reconnaissance platforms. This suggests that the war in Afghanistan, far from being a conflict against primitive combatants hiding in caves, is entailed with regional power politics. Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan would all be very interested in discovering what the US UAVs were up to.
Just as the secret UAV may have been exhibited under diplomatic pressure to “send a message”, President Obama’s recent speech announcing a surge followed by a definite plan for withdrawal may have also been intended to signal America’s adversaries and “friends” that they didn’t need to worry too much. America would not press its advantages. Maybe the Pakistanis could not keep the US in its box, but the President could.
The newest version, or any other version, of Damocles’s sword depends for its effectiveness on the perceived likelihood it will fall.
With the current US administration, building and deploying this sort of thing is nothing more than jobs for the boys. Nice to have, when we get a new administration–presuming ACORN allows it–but for now just R&D with no political effects.
Looks like field testing of a prototype. Just boys and their toys. Short fat body doesn’t look high altitude to me. B-2 service ceiling listed on Wikipedia as 50,000 feet.
In fact, maybe the point is to fly low and quiet – Predators are buzz bombs.
Former spook has some at In From the Cold. Says it been in theater for a couple years.
He thinks its target is Ayatollaland.
Buraq has created plausible deniability if the Israelis light a candle.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 12/02/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Polecat
the picture in wikipedia and the picture I saw are the same.
Alleged to have been takebn at Farnsworth Air show in Scotland.
The UAV in this pic was destroyed and was the only one made according to wikipedia.
I know wikipedia is not reliable as a source.
Check the pictures and see the same horizon and the same terrain and angle of flight.
Excuse the digression but a few posts back was the topic of the recent evidence-based recommendations re mammograms. On the matter of climate fraud I think we all agree that politics should not be mixed with science. The same should be true of mammography–as much as possible, policy should be based on sound science; policy itself is political, but ideally not science. With all that, here are two letters in today’s WSJ on the subject of the data of mammograms; I think the gist is clear even if some of the terminology isn’t.
***********************
Breast Cancer: Radiologists Need to Do More Reading
In response to your Nov. 19 editorial “A Breast Cancer Preview”: Here is what has substantially changed in the clinical evidence regarding breast-cancer screening since 2002: The British randomized Age Trial limited to younger women under 50 and beginning at age 40 found a relative risk reduction of 17% and absolute risk reduction of 0.4/1000, but the results were not statistically significant (Lancet, 2006). Perhaps radiologists do not best know the medical literature, since the Lancet study has been cited six times in PubMed and 67 times in Google Scholar, but never by a radiology journal.
Furthermore, according to the 2006 Cochrane Review, about 10 women receive harmful overtreatment including mastectomies for pseudodisease found by “false true-positive” exams (not the false-positive evaluations) for every life saved. Finally, the relevant statistic with screening is not the lifetime development risk but the 5/1000 (0.5%) screen-free death risk from breast cancer for 40-year-old women over 15 years (Keen, 2009).
What is now clear is that the American College of Radiology knows that $3.3 billion is spent annually on mammography (The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 17). There is an obvious conflict of interest with screening mammography for radiologists and other doctors, including oncologists, which is a good reason for the USPSTF to be made up of independent experts using evidence-based methods clearly described in the Annals. I encourage my radiologist colleagues to read the study before condemning it, and to support informed decision-making regarding screening.
John D. Keen, M.D., M.B.A.
Perhaps women are willing to be frightened by a test with about an 80% false-positive rate that causes untoward numbers of unnecessary procedures, but I’d guess that given the facts, most women would understand the reasonableness of the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force guideline proposals. The trouble is that breast cancer discussion is politicized beyond discussion.
Mammography makes lots of money for radiologists.The vehemence of the American Cancer Society isn’t surprising, and can easily be discounted.
When I was at what is now called Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, we knew that there were breast-cancer patients who did well no matter how little we did, that there were breast cancer patients who did poorly no matter how much we did, and that there were some for whom our interventions were of value.
How to identify these groups is still an ongoing problem.
Joseph R. Barrie, M.D.
**********************
Again, pardon the digression but I fear some of us confused the politics of policy decisions–how to spend the money–and the data that hopefully inform those decisions.
“Always leave the enemy guessing,” is as good a reason as any. With the current administration? Who knows?
Maybe it was privately contracted by O.J. to find Nicole’s real killer.
Herb 3 said:
“Former spook has some at In From the Cold. Says it been in theater for a couple years. He thinks its target is Ayatollaland.”
Herb beat me do it. An ordinary Predator armed with Hell Fire missiles is more than adequate for killing al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban. A stealth UAV makes no sense at all for that specific application. The stealth UAV is obviously intended for monitoring nukes, probably Iranian nukes. The only real surprise is they are basing this thing in Afghanistan rather than in Iraq or Qatar. Was this done for secrecy? Does this tell us they’re working both Pakistan and Iran? Does this imply that there are Iranian nuclear facilities close to the Afghanistan border with heavy anti-aircraft defense? Lots of questions…
Off topic: Our fearless leader has painted himself into a corner with his “surge in Afghanistan” speech. The moonbats, cynical liberals with money and the MSM are what got the Chosen One elected. The moonbats will oppose any military escalation and are now very unhappy with their Messiah.
Obama did the worse thing possible by trying to appease the moonbats while at the same time paying lip service to pursuit of a viable military strategy in Afghanistan. The Chosen One can do one or the other but not both.
8. Eggplant: “You can’t ride two horses with one ass.”
When I was at KAF Bad Guys used to observe us from Three Mile Mountain north of the runway. Smaller mountains west and east, Registan Desert south. KAF is at the bottom of a bowl. Everybody up on the lip of the bowl can study the ants down below and their machines. The main highway from Spin Boldak to Kandahar City runs close to the east end of the runway, providing the occassional motorist with exciting encounters with overladen Ilyushins.
I don’t think any really secret aircraft flies out of KAF in daylight. There is a major civilian airport using the same runway. Major for Afghanistan, anyway.
More U.S. troops now under Canadian command in Afghanistan
my guess is that the uav fast movers (variations of the x-45, predator avenger, etc.) are to provide a platform for suppression of enemy air defenses or a platform for missile defense
there is a reason the constellation of air bases in the geography
Yes, it would be very nice for America to press its advantages in Afghanistan . . . but do so will require a tremendous amount of new funding, and the American people are not about to pony up. How many here at the Belmont Club are willing to pay a “war tax” in order to win this fight?
Is the number of troops for this latest Surge too few? Should they stay longer? Maybe, but none of my co-workers seem willing to pay for it. Why aren’t the Republicans in Congress pressing for a war tax so we don’t pass this ballooning fiscal disaster on to our children?
Iranian targets occurred to me, too, but Kandahar is more than twice as far as Baghdad from Tehran or Qom, would think it much easier to operate out of Iraq to look at most of Iran.
Could be testing Iranian radar, I suppose. If that’s it, please nobody tell 0bambus.
perhaps uav fast movers (evolution of the x-45) are positioned for suppression of enemy air defenses and missile defense
afghanistan would seem to be an unsinkable aircraft carrier and there is a purpose for the constellation of air bases
“Perhaps the biggest mystery, though, is what the birds were doing in Kandahar. Why use a stealth aircraft against an adversary that doesn’t have radar?”
Perhaps it’s the only platform available that carries certain sensors and/or weapons. The stealth is just along for the ride, so to speak.
Once we take the two facts in conjunction – Obama’s speech and the UAV – the only real message they could possibly send is, “Don’t call our bluff even though you know we’re bluffing. We’ll throw a temper tantrum if you do, and I know you don’t want to hear us cry all afternoon.”
This is pretty shameful. It evinces nothing more than a total commitment to non-comittal. Obama’s well-known proclivity for vacillation has now ossified into a permanent stance of indecision. To my great misfortune and sadness, I must inform our brave men and women in uniform: expect nothing.
A man and his drones: on the front line of robotic warfare
62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron runs the Reapers and Predators.
Cannoneer No. 4 @ 10 said:
“I don’t think any really secret aircraft flies out of KAF in daylight. There is a major civilian airport using the same runway. Major for Afghanistan, anyway.”
That puts a different spin on it. So the US wants the Iranians to know that we’re watching them with a stealth UAV and the UAV is coming in from an unexpected direction. Supposably this UAV is little more than a prototype. It might be carrying a sandbag as payload, flies out into Iranian territory to some safe but unimportant location, loiters there for 30 minutes and then returns.
Here’s a possible explanation: the US and/or the Israelis have some people inside the Iranian nuclear facilities who are providing quality intelligence. However we don’t want to tip our hand by taking action on the intelligence (a replay of Churchill’s dilemma concerning the attack on Coventry and not revealing the German codes were broken). So we openly fly these prototype stealth UAVs as decoys so we can take action based upon the vulnerable intelligence.
wretchard wrote:
Prescient as always.
The thing that got me was that as soon as the surge-up is completed the withdrawal is announced. I posted the same sentiments elsewhere but it is thus:
Col. Ralph Peters states that the winners of a war are decided not by the victors but by the loser. When the loser says he will fight no more and that the opponent has won, that is the decision. Nothing else. With that in mind, what The Juan did is declare the date of our defeat. Sometime after late summer ’11.
If I were the bad guys I would fight a tapering engagement. One that started at a level and tapered off to, say, late spring of ’11. Then in early summer ’11, stop operations and wait for the withdrawal. Then once the US is out, the real war can begin.
If my dumba$$ can figure this out, then surely one of the smart guys at Taliban HQ can figure out one better. What is eternally sad is that the big brains at the WH cannot think this out in the same way OR maybe they have …… and just do not care. At any rate, we now know the date, time and method of our next defeat at the hands of those who we have already beaten but who we choose to capitulate to anyway. (Sound familiar?)
Oslo @#12
how bout this, strip the NEA, unions, EPA etc of fed funding and use that money. We could probably fight on mars with they recieve.
RagnarD said:
“Col. Ralph Peters states that the winners of a war are decided not by the victors but by the loser. When the loser says he will fight no more and that the opponent has won, that is the decision.”
The moonbats wanted us to fail in Iraq. One of their strategies to insure failure was their constant demand that G.W. Bush announce withdrawal timetables. Now we see Obama announcing a surge in Afghanistan WITH withdrawal timetables. Does Obama want this thing to fail or is it simple stupidity? Surely Obama must realize that his name is stenciled on the side of this thing. If it fails, he’ll be blamed and not his predecessor.
Concerning the stealth UAV: It occurs to me that the presence of the stealth UAV was first revealed by a very left wing French publication. If a national intelligence agency wants to leak classified information, a standard operating procedure is to anonymously pass the information to some no-account left wing publication. Typically these minor left wing publications are so clueless that they’ll publish anything seen as harmful to the US without asking the obvious question: “Why did this information fall into our lap?”. I think the story’s source is another clue that the stealth UAV is a decoy.
I would love to think that they have been overflying Iran, Pakistan and other interesting areas with this thing in stealth mode while they distract the Air Defenses with other noisy stuff. It would make me even happier if they were forwarding the data on the Iranian anti-air missle sites to the Isrealis.
I would also like to be richer and better looking.
Ragnar D,
If I were the bad guys I would fight a tapering engagement
The Pakistanis are clients of the Chinese and the Taliban are clients of the Pakistanis. The historical model for overthrowing the lackey of Western Imperialism is the Chinese Civil War. Mao and Chou and the CCP got the Americans to back a false period of peace and negotiations while the victorious powers withdrew from Asia. Remember the Soviets actually occupied Manchuria and formally turned it over to their ostensible ally the Nationalist government of China. Then the Communists baited a trap and got Chiang to send the KMT army North into Mukden. My guess is that the Americans will pull out and Karzai will be drawn into Kandahar to be destroyed. If he declines the battle then Afghanistan reverts to a collection of feuding warlords with the Pakistani backed Taliban holding the winning hand again. Unlike the American Democrats these people actually study history.
Regarding the mystery UAV there are three possible explanations that come to mind.
1) Something to do with tracking nukes or refining mapping data for future strikes East or West.
2) The war is winding down so everyone in Crystal City with a program to justify is pulling things off the shelf
and getting them deployed under the “only war in town” theory.
3) It is equipped with a Super Secret Birth Sertificat (BS) Detector.
Oslo Burkitt,
I’ll play once before I ignore you.
What would I sacrifice to fund a military victory?
1. Health Care “Reform.”
2. Cap and Trade
3. Government bailouts/subsidies for the UAW and SEIU and NEA.
That alone should give us enough to triple tha armed forces, especially since doing so will unleash a growth cycle in the greatest source of wealth creation in history, the US economy and Free Enterprise.
Polecat from the Skunk Works….nice. Time to spread more stink in the sand box and beyond.
When it comes down to the “intelligence” level there’s deception within deception to the utmost power.
I’m not in any position to know, and this is just sheer speculation, but could this be a tactic to drive a wedge between the Taliban and the elements of the Pakistani government that are sympathetic towards them?
The odds are, almost to a certainty, that elements of the Pakistani government provide the Taliban with information about what the NATO forces are doing. They may be “rogue” elements to one degree or another but they exist nonetheless.
Picture now the viewpoint of the Taliban when they hear of such a thing–there’s some sort of new UAV about and the Americans don’t even consider it a secret–but WE didn’t hear about it from our “friends” in the Pakistani government. Are we being set up for betrayal? Can we depend upon what they tell us in the future?
Its just speculation on my part, but as a goal alienating the Taliban from their supporters in the Pakistani government seems like a good one.
Eggplant #18:
If we have intelligence sources and special ops forces operating inside Iran – or for that matter in other areas in that neighborhood – then they would likely find a stealthy communications relay aircraft to be very useful.
The same is true for low altitude UAVs going where no man should have gone before.
Iridium has certain disavantages for military use – disadvantages that made us wish that our adversaries would use it back when it was being proposed.
RagnarD@19 and 84 from previous thread,
I still think the surge speech’s only aim is for domestic (only one half, for that matter) consumption.
Otherwise, such a uninspiring speech (and also his Afghan/Pakistan policy) would not have taken so long to work out.
Josh @2,
The 50K ceiling doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with performance capability. The US military services restrict flight to 50K or below unless the pilot/crew wear pressure suits. Bad things happen to the human body in the low ambient pressures above 50K, which would be encountered with the loss of cockpit pressurization.
#2 Josh
Service ceiling of 50,000 feet is a standard security measure. IIRC, the SR-71 was listed at 50,000 feet long after is set a high altitude record.
http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/spd_run001.html
85,000 feet. I don’t know what the record is today, but B-2 pilots at Nellis claim to have no problem topping 80,000 feet with a bomb load. I found that believable, considering a B-2 is ALL wing and has oxygen/air injection for it’s jets as part of the heat cloaking system
The B-2 is listed at 50,000 feet also.
The F-22 is listed at 19.8 Km’s ( 60,000 ft)
Altitude is important to any stealth aircraft, since stealth doesn’t make anything “invisible”. It just lowers the detection threshold to below the range of the weapons on the aircraft. That makes it possible for the stealth aircraft to kill it’s enemies before they ‘see’ it.
Radar is linear. The RCS (radar cross section) can be calculated for a stealth aircraft. Given that, it is possible to calculate how much power is required to detect the stealh aircraft at range “X”.
That makes knowing what “X” is critical.
The more power out of a radar, the more expensive it is. Cost is not linear, but logarithmic. Being non-coherent, radar is subject to the laws of propagation.
Altitude is range. Both ways. When you look at radar coverage on a flat map, it looks like a circle. Out in the real world, it’s a bowl. Right now the Sovie……er, Russians have to build their power output to a level that can detect at about 25 Km’s. That gives them a little slant range. Which means their ‘on the map’ coverage overlaps. That can create interference, which offers possibilities.
Detection range by power level vs RCS is not linear either. So twice the power will not get a return for twice the range against the same RCS.
Bill Sweetman wrote an excellent book on the subject. “Stealth Aircraft”, Motorbooks International, no ISBN. I got it thru the Military book club, so I’m not sure how it sold. All the formulas you need are in there, since Stealth has been around since WW2.
Anyway, altitude is key, which is why the US Air Force keeps the altitude capabilities of it’s stealth aircraft secret. Or tries to.
altitude schmaltitude!!
I dunno. An anonymous, but seemingly knowledgeable commenter over at dreamlandresort.com says that the vehicle was declassified a month ago, but that no announcement was made on the grounds that ‘why explain unless/until somebody asks?’
That said, these things don’t happen by chance, and it’s pretty obvious that anybody with a pair of binoculars has recently been able to see this thing come and go. So, there’s a message being sent. But to whom? I’m thinking this has something to do with our interest in Pakistan’s nukes and their security provisions. On the one hand, we’d like to know how well the gates are locked. On the other, we’d like the Paks to know that we can watch those gates w/o the Paks knowing it.
I dunno. An anonymous but seemlingly knowledgeable commenter over at dreamlandresort.com said that the vehicle had been declassified a month ago, but not publicized on the grounds that ‘there’s no need to explain if nobody asks.’
That said, this thing has been plainly visible to anybody with a pair of binoculars. These things don’t get revealed by chance. There’s a message in this, but to whom? I’m thinking that it’s all about Pakistan’s nukes and their security provisions. On the one hand, this tells the Paks that we’re able to surveil their facilities; on the other, it tells the Paks that they won’t know when we’re doing it.
Sure, it might go higher to be stealthier or escape interception, or go lower to get a better view. It’s a U(C)AV and can probably dodge pretty well if it comes to that.
Let’s see, wingspan of a 757 is about 120 feet, so if this has a wingspan of 80 feet, that’s some kind of scale.
FWIW
Many, if not most, of the comments focus upon the capabilites or presumed mission of the UAV. My concern is why was it exposed. What purpose was served by showing it to the world? Did President Obama deliberately and with forethought expose an indispensable CIA asset that caught top level Al Qaeda in places they thought they were safe? Did he do it to mollify Pakistan’s ISI, who objected to our taking out high value targets? Or did he do it to ingratiate himself with the Taliban who he rightly believes will resume power in Afghanistan after he leaves? The evidence that he deliberately dropped a dime on the CIA’s wonder UAV is unclear, but who else had the authority or motive? If the motive was to show someone, the Iranians perhaps, that we are watching them, that’s one thing, but a subtlety I don’t think this White House is capable of. The motive would more likely be the asme motive that has driven the Obama foreign policy since taking office, which is to be nice to our enemies in the hope they will one day embrace Barack Obama in return. It has been noticed that the word Victory has never passed Obama’s lips.
And now it seems Barack Hussein
Has stepped into the brambles
His humble bowing now in vain
His policy a shambles
He showed the Paks our UAV
That caught Al Qaeda big shots
In daylight for the world to see
Just setting up for MiG shots
One wonders what Obama thinks
When lying late abed
I fear when crisis comes he blinks
And we will all be dead
The craft could have been conducting all sorts of mapping for some time now. The sort of mapping needed by cruise missles to find their way to certain targets that upset the US. The Last Dem in the WH was a great fan of cruise missles. Perhaps this is being made public to send a shiver down certain “bad actors” spines. At least that what I hope.
Viewed from the “other side” a base in Afghanistan would allow acess to many areas that would otherwise be hard to take a look at. Satellites move in predictable ways, if there are gaps in coverage they can be exploited. If we can put a bird up during that satellite coverage gap we may find something that people don’t want us to know, seems like it could be mighty useful.
I doubt the current Administration would continue such a policy.
ashen,
Great minds think alike. bows
John Brown = KSM ?
Cannoneer No.4 @10
Re: Canadian command
More of the same, but different.
Read or scroll down to yesterday.
“Afstan: After a short absence…”
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/
Heyyoukids
12. Oslo Burkitt: Are you and your leftist friends willing to pay a “stimulus” or “healthcare’ tax?
#35 Anton
The real question is not which such a craft can do, but rather why was its existence made public? Experts can derive much of its possible utility from its appearance in the picture.
But the question remains–why was its existence made public? Is this a true “leak?” Somehow I doubt it. Who is it supposed to impress or reassure or confuse? And why? Inquiring minds wish to know.
As others have highlighted some specific ways, the presence of an undiscussed, but observed stealth UAV in Afghanistan would serve much the same purpose as implementing Star Wars during the ’80s–it throws off the calculations by America’s opponents in the theater.
Though the national-level policy and even timeframes have been articulated, elements from Iran to Pakistan to China and Russia and beyond do not necessarily know how the commanders on the ground may go about implementing the muddled middle between now and the end. Similarly, there are other crises due to come to a head (or not) in the next 18 months, including an Iran who must now incorporate this device into their air-defense contingency planning. Their Russian advisers installing AA systems must be grinding their teeth, again.
–JC
regardless of the new craft, the presence of RQ-4 Block 40 Global Hawks in Afghanistan are worrisome enough to neighboring countries -
and a forward operating location in support of overseas contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
the new craft may be Boeing’s Phantom Ray (looks somewhat similar) -
the platfom might be coupled with air-to-ground weapons such as Boeing’s 250-pound Small Diameter Bomb that would allow the aircraft the ability to destroy more targets per sortie and Raytheon’s APG-79 AESA radar for electronic attack and synergy with other platforms
just speculation
always right @ 27:
That would be nice but somehow I think you forget this innertubes thingy. It does make worldwide, instant communications pretty possible. (You know, our host blogs this from Oz) [Sorry, just being flip tonight for some reason]
Personally, from today’s net traffic I think The Juan managed to piss off just about everyone from the Tranzis to the VRWC. Not to mention who caught a case of the a$$ internationally. Probably pretty much everyone.
[Edit] Oh, and I don’t think this is a strategery that The Juan is advocating, just a calibration of trying to seem like the CiC and voting present. Ghafla, IOW.
O/T – Our local talk radio afternoon guy seems to think or wanted to discuss that there was some national newsies that said there were only about 100 al Qaeda left in Talibanland. He then questioned WTF The Juan thought he might be doing in Afghanistan. Oh, and the local color guys fodder and schtick is getting all us rubes to call in. It IS entertaining.
The purpose of the model B-2 UAV? Who knows. But I always try to watch the magicians OTHER hand.
Don’t forget about the politics and money involved in the competition for defense contracts. If this is a Lockheed plane (which I think it probably is) it’s good business for Lockheed to get the word out that their secret UAV is actually out in the field saving the world (or something). It makes it easier for CongressCritters to stump for work for their local favorite companies if they can hold up pictures and point to results. Remember that the big money in aerospace airframe work for the forseeable future is in UAV’s. Lockheed has been generally viewed as behind the others in the UAV world, but only because most of their UAV projects are classified. They haven’t been getting the publicity that Boeing and Northrup-Grumman have. PR is important to CEO’s and stockholders.
Most likely Lockheed has put a pile of its own money into the development and field operation of these planes. It’s probably Lockheed people flying and servicing them, under the direction of the “customer”, who is most likely the CIA, but could also be the Air Force or another agency. The customer is paying Lockheed via a contract, but the money probably only covers a portion of what it costs Lockheed to build and operate these planes. It’s a two way deal: It’s an investment for Lockheed to gain experience and credibility in the UAV world. For the customer, it’s a fast and inexpensive way to get some specialized planes to use in the war.
Once the planes have been operating successfully for a while, and some information about them has leaked out, then it’s in Lockheed’s interest to get them declassified. The customer may have agreed to allow the security to slacken.
My point is that the decisions about a program like this may be driven more by defense industry business, than by geopolitical motives. What missions the customer is using the planes for may be secondary and experimental. They’re trying to figure out what planes like this are good for during this kind of conflict too.
#12. I, for one. Contributing to this blog is also recommended, in the form of a subscription!
40. Tcobb:
Well, if it was up to me, I would have disclosed it because I had something better in place. Then the guys on the other side will be watching my right hand while my left hand does the works. Magic tricks, distract and then act. While they are frantic about what I might have seen (and in that part of the world there have been quite a few things that I might have seen over the last six-seven years) the newer asset pays close attention to the activity while the revealed asset very publicly does not. This would lead the guys on the other side to think that they are not my target.
How long would it take in infiltrate the nuke sites in Iran or Pakistan (not as a scientist, but just as the guy doing grunt work) with ground assets? Perhaps the bird is not as important because we have somebody inside?
Intel/PsyOps is a tricky game, sometimes I overthink this stuff. Maybe it was just a mistake.
As long as we are all speculating I wonder if the aircraft emanated in Iraq and flew to Afghanistan. Perhaps a have blue operation of the USAF.
This photo in Sweetman’s article looks just like an X-47B, doesn’t it? The X-47B is the naval variant of the X-47A Pegasus, and it was funded by Northrup Grumman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-47_Pegasus
If it’s not subject to security (rolling around in plain sight in Kandahar), it’s most likely not some black project. It wouldn’t be the first time since 9/11 where previously unknown capabilities just showed up in daily use. Remember when we first heard about the manned Predator? It showed up in simple news reports (where the reporters didn’t seem to know they were breaking a major new technology) of successful Hellfire attacks on AlQ dudes in Yemen. I had never seen a whisper of such a capability in Aviation Week prior to that combat use.
Ashen @20: I don’t think so. NEA funding for fiscal year 2009 is $155 million. Though I don’t see why we need the NEA, that’s nothing when it comes to military expenditures. The EPA’s budget has ballooned to $10.5 billion, but even cutting that in half for 2011 won’t make up much of the necessary war budget deficit. Besides, with the Dems in both houses I severely doubt that NEA/EPA funding will be cut. I think even some RINOs would likely vote against the latter.
Ragnar D. @ 23: Health care reform is likely to pass, but I’m not so sure about cap and trade. The auto bailout’s already passed, and I think there’s a decent chance that it would’ve done so under GOP leadership as well (remember Chrysler and Ronald Reagan?). You don’t like it and I don’t but them’s the fiscally realities. So, where’s the money going to come from for today’s war effort? How can this be both a national threat, yet not worth shared sacrifice?
Tom @ 39: I’d be willing to pay for some targetted stimuli, but certainly not the stimulus package that passed earlier this year. But it has passed, and we must face the consequences, not try to shift blame for our sins onto future generations. We must take responsibility for letting gov’t get away from us and spending recklessly. I oppose Obamacare. . . . and what’s with “the leftist” crack? Since when has fiscal responsibility been a “leftist” cause? Isn’t conservatism supposed to be about facing harsh realities in the cold light of truth? Of paying the necessary prices for out principles and beliefs?
A digression, but had to be addressed
@ Gordon (6)
Be careful what you read. This letter by Dr Keene is incorrect and misleading.
He writes ” The British randomized Age Trial limited to younger women under 50 and beginning at age 40 found a relative risk reduction of 17% and absolute risk reduction of 0.4/1000, but the results were not statistically significant (Lancet, 2006). Perhaps radiologists do not best know the medical literature, since the Lancet study has been cited six times in PubMed and 67 times in Google Scholar, but never by a radiology journal.”
He Googled this, and his words betray him. It is Keene who does not know the literature. In fact the Lancet study to which Dr. Keene refers was addressed in the Radiology literature (in an article by none other than Dr. Daniel Kopans. (Google that name Dr. Keene)
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/180/1/21
Kopans slices the Lancet study with surgical precision. In fact what the authors of the Lancet paper did was even worse that the global warmers have been caught doing.
From Kopans article “Gotzsche and Olsen were members of this well-respected collaboration, and they chose to review the mammography screening trials. The two reviewers first published their analysis in the British journal The Lancet in 2000 [2]. In that review they decided that five of the seven randomized controlled trials were not performed properly, so they discarded the results from those trials (which happen to show a clear benefit of mammographic screening). They argued that only the Malmö trial and the National Breast Screening Study (NBSS) of Canada were fairly well performed and that only their results were valid. Because they interpreted those two trials as showing that mammographic screening had no benefit, Gotzsche and Olsen concluded that there was no benefit from mammographic screening for women at any age.”
Their orginal draft did not survive peer review, somehow they got the Lancet to publish it (remember the Lancet everyone? MMR and Autism? Iraq death tolls?) In this case, the editor of the Lancet published only a summary of the article, not the full article with the methodology and other data because that had already been rejected by the reviewers. Pure sensationalism in what has become the supermarket tabloid of the medical world under Richard Horton.
Sorry again but I hope that Belmont Club will permit this space to rebut this nonsense.
Spindok
S/52–thanks for the correction. Like you, I’m no fan of Lancet, even less now. Looks like I’ll have to look elsewhere to keep politics out of medical science. I still like Cochran, though.
OT
From Hot Air: Honduran Parliament to Obama, Pound Sand. Our doctors and hospitals are already moving to Costa Rica. Maybe those seeking intellectual and economic freedom can add Honduras to that list. This could make for a nice comparison test in a small place. El Salvador and Nicaragua under retread Leftists on one side and Costa Rica and Honduras on the other. All of our Democratic Party affiliated lawyers, actors and writers can go to the the first pair and all of the Republican Party affiliated doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs can go to the second pair. See which prospers.
Oslo # 12 – Should you be any kind of a student of history; you would realize that there has SELDOM been a tax that was imposed that was EVER repealed. I say seldom because in 2006, we finally stopped the telephone tax. The tax was imposed in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American War. It was designed as a tax on wealthy Americans, back when phone service was considered a luxury. And you’re saying those that support it institute a WAR TAX? Well, you have a sense of humor! On your last post # 53 – You’re two letters off. Fiscal irresponsibility is a leftist cause. When conservatism veered from their historical past of ‘facing harsh realities in the cold light of truth’ they paid heavily.
C.I.A. Authorized to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan
The White House has is expanding the drone program in Pakistan’s tribal areas, paralleling the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.
DWB @ 55: I am a student of history so let me point out some historical facts: In the 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was 91%. It was drastically reduced, starting with JFK. Gov. Gray Davis of CA applied a car tax that Gov. Schwarzenegger then repealed. Also in CA, Prop 13 reduced property taxes. I could write a 2,000 word essay on how often taxes burdens have been reduced or shifted. As citizens, we pay a much lighter tax burden than we did in the 1950s. Look it up.
Your last comment on fiscal responsibility evages any notion of responsibility. How will we pay for the current deficit? According to the CBO, Defense spending has risen 9% to account for 37% of defense expenditures. This is sancrosanct, yes? If we can not control our budget under Republicans, as we certainly couldn’t under Reagan, Bush I and II, then what hope for a balanced budget? Why is it that the only President to have recently balanced a federal budget was Slick Willy?
Oslo @ 57 – Clinton had a balanced budget because of the Republican takeover of Congress in ’94, the tragic cuts to the Defense and Intelligence budgets under Clinton, and the temporary but lovely dot.com boom.
Btw, Obama’s Stimulus package alone cost more than was spent on the wars during Bush’s entire two terms.