Free Republic

A U.S. drone aircraft missile attack targeting a militant camp in Pakistan killed at least four people and wounded three, a Pakistani intelligence official in the South Waziristan region said. Officials said the drone fired four missiles as dusk fell on Baghar, a village in the mountains 55 km (35 miles) west of Wana, the main town in the region.

EDWARDS AFB - Engineers at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center are testing extremely small sensors - about the diameter of a human hair - to monitor changes in an airplane wing's shape during flight, hoping to harness the information to improve aircraft efficiency and safety by controlling the changes. "We want to be able to change the shape of a wing," said Lance Richards, Dryden's Advanced Structures and Measurement group lead. "The first step in changing the shape of a wing is knowing the shape." The fiber-optic sensors, unlike traditional sensors and strain gauges, are extremely lightweight and are small...

EDWARDS AFB - In response to a request from the state Office of Emergency Services and the National Interagency Fire Center, NASA on Wednesday sent an aircraft equipped with sophisticated infrared imaging equipment to assist firefighters battling several of the Southern California wildfires. The Ikhana unmanned aircraft system, a Predator B modified for civil science and research missions, was launched at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday from its base at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. It is expected to fly over the major blazes burning in the Lake Arrowhead and Running Springs areas and possibly down into...

Sophisticated computer systems on a 10,000-pound unmanned drone were no match for its pilot's failure to follow a checklist when confronted with a computer glitch. The mistake set off a chain of events that led the $6.5 million Predator-B to smash into the Arizona desert near Nogales, Ariz., the National Transportation Safety Board concluded yesterday. The NTSB also cited poor oversight by Customs and Border Protection officials as a factor in the April 2006 crash. It was the first accident involving an unmanned vehicle that the NTSB investigated, and board members said they hoped their findings would prod government officials...

PALMDALE - The Department of Homeland Security plans to evaluate unmanned, high-altitude vehicles as a platform for a counter-missile defense system for commercial airliners in answer to the threat of shoulder-fired missiles being used to attack aircraft as they take off or land. While seeking bids for development of such a system, the department plans to conduct trials using the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Global Hawk and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' Predator B aircraft. Both are built and tested in the Antelope Valley; Global Hawk at Northrop's facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale and Predator B at General Atomics'...

High-tech infrared sensors mounted on an unmanned aircraft were used to aid firefighters against the recent Esperanza fire in Riverside County. The project was the first practical application of a program by NASA's Dryden Flight Research and Ames Research Center, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and the U.S. Forest Service to utilize unmanned aircraft in mapping and battling wildfires. The aircraft, dubbed Altair, is a high-altitude version of General Atomics' Predator B aircraft and designed specifically for scientific missions. It is equipped with an infrared sensor, developed at NASA Ames Research Center in northern California, used to identify hotspots and map...

ADELANTO - General Atomics Aeronautical Systems will begin work on its latest unmanned aircraft system under the first $6 million installment of a development contract for the Army. The Warrior is based on the company's Predator unmanned vehicle, a system already proven successful in combat over Afghanistan and Iraq. The entire program, including eventual follow-on production, is worth just under $1 billion, said Kimberly Kasitz , General Atomics spokeswoman. "It's a major contract for us," she said. The new system is expected to replace the Army's existing unmanned reconnaissance system, the Northrop Grumman Co.-built Hunter, which entered service in 1996....