[stuartcr]

To accomplish a mission.

Location isn’t a factor because if someone has a signal, then they know it’s near anyway. All that other data, is insignificant. If the aircraft is just used for this purpose, then even shooting it down wouldn’t matter, because all they would get, is some commercial wi-fi equip. If someone wante to jam it, then they do. All that would need to be done, would be to change the aircraft location, and the jammer would be out of range. It’s not like any critical intel would be lost, just peoples connections.

[grey_whiskers]

You seem to be missing my point -- I'm not concerned with individual, specific Predator giving the Wi-Fi. My concern is that by using the Predators for trivial missions like this, we give away important performance characteristics and details of operational usage and parameters, which would NOT be otherwise readily available.

Which could then be used to devise counters for those Predators carrying (say) Hellfire missiles, or those "loitering" in theatre for long periods of time.

Cheers!