 THE NIGHT STALKER  |
Posted on 05/12/2008 10:07:01 AM PDT by shrinkermd
The sniper never knew what hit him. The Marines patrolling the street below were taking fire, but did not have a clear shot at the third-story window that the sniper was shooting from. They were pinned down and called for reinforcements.
Help came from a Predator drone circling the skies 20 miles away. As the unmanned plane closed in, the infrared camera underneath its nose picked up the muzzle flashes from the window. The sniper was still firing when the Predator's 100-pound Hellfire missile came through the window and eliminated the threat.
The airman who fired that missile was 8,000 miles away, here at Creech Air Force Base, home of the 432nd air wing. The 432nd officially "stood up," in the jargon of the Air Force, on May 1, 2007. One year later, two dozen of its drones patrol the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan every hour of every day. And almost all of them are flown by two-man crews sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of a "ground control station" (GCS) in the Nevada desert
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Powered by Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator?
Nothing like the Blue Screen of Death on the instrument panels.
From 8,000 miles away. Gives new meaning to, “reach out and touch someone”.
As my grandpa would have said ... if he had said it... Not enough of em to spread on toast.
The drones tend to work best in a situation of high-tech vs. low tech combat. I'm sure some advanced missiles could take down a squadron of drones if used against us.
It does me too, but damnit I don’t really want so much information to be aired in public. There are just some things I’d rather have left unsaid. It’s controled from iside the United States 8,000 miles away. That’s very cool, but why is it necessary to broadcast the exact base?
“One year later, two dozen of its drones patrol the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan every hour of every day.”
Money well spent. I’d blanket the country with them..
are those available at the local 7-11 these days? :)
With compliments to the Discovery Channel commercial ... “BOOM DE ADDAH”
That’s something I think about on at least a weekly basis, sometimes on a daily basis.
I had already thought of it this morning on another topic here.
I wish it weren’t so necessary to think along these lines in this day and age.
Interesting that you say that. When I’m involved in govt specs for anything other than trivial desktop machine stuff, I specify some Unix variant, or even Apple. Microsoft products are strictly forbidden for exactly what you joked about. No one in their right mind trusts that company for anything approaching quality.
Bump for later reading.
GET SOME!
“Nothing like the Blue Screen of Death on the instrument panels.”
Funny, that’s what the AF pilots sitting in the team chairs call it when they tell the Predator to fire the missile.
“Say goodbye Ahab, here comes the Blue Screen of Death”.
I love it. Zap the bad guys with a robot from twenty miles away without risking one of our boys. We should be cranking these babies out like cans of tuna fish until they blacken the skies over Afghanistan and Iran.
Of course, what can be used can also be abused. Let’s hope that such systems are used only for good, never for evil.
With Mack firing his 40mm grenade and a smile on his face.
To be honest as liberal as they are I am surprised they put that in the commercial.
I absolutely LOVED reading this story.
The drones are good in an area where we have absolute air superiority. They wouldn’t live a minute in an area protected by effective AA missiles.
I saw an interesting show on the History Channel Saturday. It was about future air combat. The Predators would be used as decoys for the real bombers to come in and destroy the AA sites. However, it seems to me that the Predator itself could be used as an expendable platform to launch HARM (High-speed Anti Radiation) missiles as soon as the AA radar sites came on line. Expendable because, as the AF pilot said, a Predator doesn’t have a mother or wife or kids.
When that happens, the fact that the targets are “citizens” will be secondary to the excuse that they use.
I was in the Marines '74-'78. Was a radio tech. Never saw any combat.
Yes, things have sure changed since then. Much more sophisticated stuff.
The day that stuff gets used against American citizens (by a socialist future President dealing with states that want to leave the union or perhaps enforcing gun control confiscation laws against radicals who just won't get with the program, or whatever Civil War Two type situation anyone can think of) this country and it's individual citizens will have much bigger problems than the tactics of hiding from and dealing with remote controlled missiles.
I understand your concerns and share them.
I can only hope that the video becomes public.
Or... as I’m fond of saying,
“nothing left but hair, teeth, and eyes...”; or,
“not enough to scrape up with a stick and a spoon.”
:D
Hoss
The interesting thing about blanketing an entire country with them....is that you have to have a real pilot (who makes in the $60-$90k range of pay) flying each one of those. The AF won’t accept the idea of a lesser ranked guy (like the Army does it)....and they currently run around and talk of the vast shortage of Predator pilots...because real pilots don’t want to fly UAVs.
Ick!
THE NIGHT STALKER |
That’s always been a problem with the AF; 21st century generals with 1940s brains. Take the Predators away from the AF and let the Army and Marines have them with NCO controllers.
It isn’t the salary of a pilot against a private that’s prohibitive, it’s the two or three million dollars they spent training the pilot to fly real planes.
Your tax dollars at work.
The beautiful thing about the Reaper is, it can tool around at high altitudes, for hours at a time, say 14 hours, and the enemy has not idea that the Reaper is there. I live in Las Vegas, and we are very proud of the Creech facility and the people that man the instillation
The beautiful thing about the Reaper is, it can tool around at high altitudes, for hours at a time, say 14 hours, and the enemy has not idea that the Reaper is there. I live in Las Vegas, and we are very proud of the Creech facility and the people that man the instillation
PINGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
That's a big part of my new novel. I'm even considering a Predator silhouette over the USA for the book cover.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the pilot rank irony goes even further. I believe that the actual take offs and landings are conducted by NCO’s at the local Iraqi air base, and the Predators are only “handed off” to the distant controllers when they are safely airborne.
So the “hard part” of the flying is not even done by the pilot officers, (USAF Pilots Union), that is 7,000 miles away.
You are correct.......
Sounds more humane than "Death by PowerPoint"...
Evryboddy nows you ken’t hav mere inlisted swine fliyng areoplanes. It jest woodent werk. No way, no how.
Excellent! That Hellfire ruined the snipers whole day and then some. :-)
Thanks for the ping.
I thought that, these days, those were pretty much the same thing.
I love this, a beautiful graphic!!
.
Thanks potlatch -
I could not resist it with this thread title!
Assumes that a)The Reporter was given the correct information. and b)The reporter reported it right.
Two big assumptions, to be sure.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think Joe means this technology used against us by our government.
I guess that’s fair. I just don’t like the idea of an enemy knowing where to go looking if they want to try to compromise an operation. The next thing you know they’ll name one of the men in this operation in a story about what an interesting job he has.
Perfect spot for it!
You forgot your /sarc tag since the article did just that.
That figures. I flit around to som many subjects here, that I sometimes miss parts of the articles.
Thanks for pointing that out. I do find that disconcerting.
Thanks for that Devolve. I don’t think folks will ever acuse me of having too much time on my hands after this.
That’s quite clever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.