DTN News - INTELLIGENCE REPORT/NEWS: Attack Of The Drones....NSI News Source Info # 1440

DTN News - INTELLIGENCE REPORT/NEWS: Attack Of The Drones....NSI News Source Info # 1440

**Unmanned aircraft are now a vital tool in war zones, but our skies could soon be buzzing with spy planes that feed information back to the police – and even the paparazzi

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Owen Bowcott and Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk, Sunday 16 January 2011 20.30 GMT

(NSI News Source Info) - January 17, 2011: There is a second-and-a-half delay between the RAF operator pressing his button and the Hellfire rocket erupting from the aircraft he is controlling, circling in the sky above Afghanistan.

That's a long time in modern warfare, but the plane is an unmanned "drone" and its two-strong crew are 8,000 miles away at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Right now, the Reaper is being commanded from a console with twin video screens shaped to resemble a plane's cockpit.

The UK has five Reapers like this one operating in Afghanistan. With a wingspan of 66ft, they are 36ft long, reach a top speed of 250 knots and usually carry four Hellfire rockets and two laser-guided bombs. These Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – which rely on fibre optic cables, European "upstations" and satellite links – are part of an international trend towards remote combat. RAF-controlled Reapers used their weapons in Afghanistan 123 times in the first 10 months of 2010.

British forces are also using smaller drones, such as Lockheed Martin's hand-launched Desert Hawk. The lightweight surveillance aircraft is flown by Royal Artillery controllers to provide army patrols with "over the hill" vision for improved reconaissance. Last summer the Ministry of Defence ordered £3m worth of an enhanced version that will give troops in Afghanistan "greater situational awareness" and upgraded "target acquisition" capabilities. On the US side, there were more than 100 CIA-led drone strikes in Pakistan last year and the Pentagon is about to deploy its intimidatingly named Gorgon Stare airborne surveillance system, a multi-image video device for tracking suspects across large areas.

But interest in UAVs is not limited to the military. Advances in remote control, digital imagery and miniaturised circuitry mean the skies might one day be full of commercial and security drones.

They're already being used by the UK police, with microdrones deployed to monitor the V festival in Staffordshire in 2007. Fire brigades send similar machines to hover above major blazes, feeding images back to their control rooms. And civilian spin-offs include cheaper aerial photography, airborne border patrols and safety inspections of high-rise buildings.

http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2011/01/dtn-news-intelligence-reportnews-attack.html