Posted on 04/11/2010 7:18:40 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The success of drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan has battered Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Since January 2009 they have killed between 400 and 500 militants. These strikes are reported to come from unmanned aircraft (often called drones), which may lead you to believe that nobody's behind the wheel. You couldn't be more wrong.
While filming "War Stories with Oliver North: High Tech Warriors on the Battlefield," which airs Sunday, April 11 at 9 p.m. on Fox News, I was given the opportunity to travel to Creech Air Force base in Nevada with Oliver North and co-producer Steven Tierney.
Creech is one of a number of bases in the United States flying missions in Afghanistan and around the world. While there, we got to meet the people behind the drone missions -- and wow are there a lot of them. Like most people, I didn't realize how many personnel it actually takes to fly and upkeep these planes.
We spoke with Col. Peter Gersten, the 432nd wing commander for operations at Creech. When asked about unmanned aircraft Gersten bristled. He calls them RPAs, or remotely piloted aircraft.
"It's not a drone, it doesn't fly by itself," he pointed out. "I get a little concerned because of the amount of manpower that it actually takes to operate the system … you're looking at somewhere around 50 Air Force individuals. Any given time for a 24-hour period, it'll take around five to seven crews, and a crew consists of three people, a pilot, a sensor operator, and a mission intelligence coordinator. So there's 30 people right there. Then you strap on the maintenance portion of that -- another 20 to 30 maintainers that keep that aircraft going -- and right away you're at 50."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Drones are not so much robots as they are very mean muppets!
It’s all fun and games until they are hunting “right wing extremists” in the USA.
Not because of something in the Constitution, but because U.S. airspace is their rice bowl and nobody is going to tell them what they do with it.
Uhhh....WRONG!
I worked Global Hawk over Florida over 5 years ago.....and predators are flying border patrol in TX, AZ & NV.
And I worked Global Hawk as a controller for the.......FAA
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