Posts tagged drone
UK to take major role in making new ‘eurodrones’
Plans to build a new generation of “fighter drones” that can wage war by remote control are set to be agreed today by Britain and France. David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy are preparing to put their recent tensions behind them to launch proposals for the pilotless stealth aircraft at a summit in Paris. In a second agreement, they will promise closer co-operation on civil nuclear power.
Western nations increasingly regard the deployment of drones to launch surgical strikes on targets as a way of keeping military casualties to a minimum.
Several senior al-Qa’ida figures have been killed by unmanned American drones flying over Pakistan, while British drone missions could begin within months over Afghanistan. Critics claim the aircraft can cause “collateral damage” among civilians and that the low risk to service personnel from their use can encourage countries to turn to military force rather than diplomacy.
But the two leaders are preparing to put any qualms to one side as they sign a letter of intent of cross-Channel cooperation on the project.
Under the plan, Britain’s BAE and the French planemaker Dassault – rivals in the battle for sales of the present generation of fighter planes – will be asked to collaborate in the creation of a prototype of a Star Wars-type, ground-controlled “fighter drone” by 2020. Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy are expected to present the project as proof of continuing – or revived – Anglo-French friendship despite last year’s rift over tighter fiscal discipline in the eurozone.
The Paris summit, delayed from last November, will be the first lengthy one-on-one meeting between the two leaders since Mr Cameron vetoed an EU-wide fiscal pact in early December.
Mr Cameron will be accompanied by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, and Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary. The two governments will sign a declaration signalling their commitment to nuclear power as a source of safe and affordable energy that will also help cut carbon emissions.
Under the agreement, British and French public and private sector bodies in the civil nuclear power industry will work more closely on education and training, research and development and security. The two sets of ministers will also discuss cooperation in transport. Mr Cameron last night stressed the “strength and depth of Britain’s ties with France”. He said: “Our commercial relationship is deep and growing with exports increasing and French investment sustaining almost 10,000 jobs in the UK. Our militaries are working together on cutting-edge military technology. This relationship is vital for the national security and the prosperity of both Britain and France.”
The Franco-British “fighter drone” would take aerial combat into a new age, replacing all the “conventional” piloted fighter-planes now on offer. The two governments are thought to be ready to put a modest amount of public cash into the project at this stage.
The possibility of French and British co-operation on a drone aircraft – or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) – was first mentioned in November 2010 when Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy signed a defence treaty committing the two countries to co-operate in military deployment and research. French sources said yesterday that German or Italian, or wider European, participation in the project would be welcomed. But the newspaper Les Echos reported yesterday the letter of intent to be signed by Mr Sarkozy and Mr Cameron was intended as a signal that the project would be under Anglo-French leadership.
American-made drones, sometimes controlled from thousands of miles away, are in service in Afghanistan for surveillance or to attack difficult ground targets. The proposed Anglo-French drones would take the concept a stage further – and into uncharted technological, strategic and moral territory.
The intention is to have a prototype flying by 2020 but it might take many more years before a computer-controlled fighter started service in the RAF or with the French air force.
Sources in Paris told Reuters that the summit would today announce the “next steps and intentions” for “a UAV design and development programme” and an “unmanned combat air system demonstrator programme”.
Unmanned aircraft: Britain’s fleet
Britain operates a fleet of six Reaper MQ-9 drones, and is spending £135m to expand it to 10 aircraft. They are operational over Afghanistan and last year fired their weapons for the 200th time. The drones are operated by 39 Squadron from a base in Nevada, but this year it is intended they will be controlled from RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire.
Reaper-MQ unmanned aircraft are US-made and can carry up to 14 Hellfire missiles, cruise at a speed of 170kts, and remain aloft for 14 hours.
A UK drone under development has the potential to stay in the air indefinitely. QinetiQ’s solar-powered Zephyr can reach altitudes of 70,000ft and in 2010 set a world flight record of more than 14 days.
(Source: independent.co.uk)
US drone kills 10 in Pakistan
American drones have killed as many as 10 people in the first such missile strike since Barack Obama officially acknowledged the covert CIA programme.
The attack happened in North Waziristan, an area used by members of the Haqqani network to launch operations against international forces across the border in Afghanistan, according to local intelligence officials.
“Two missiles were fired on a compound killing at least 10 in a house believed to be in the use of militants,” said an intelligence official.
Foreign fighters may have been among the dead in the village of Tappi about 10 miles from the main town of Miranshah, he added.
The US had long declined to comment on the use of unmanned drones against militant targets in Pakistan.
The programme is hugely controversial and blamed by Pakistani politicians for turning tribesmen into Jihadis.
However, last month Mr Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize shortly after taking office, confirmed that the US was using unmanned aircraft in the skies over Pakistan.
“For the most part, they’ve been very precise precision strikes against al Qaeda and their affiliates, and we’re very careful in terms of how it’s been applied,” he said in a webchat.
Mr Obama’s administration has ramped up the use of drones as ground forces struggle to contain the militant threat in Afghanistan.
Tactics include targeting funeral gatherings and rescuers at the scene of recent attacks, according to research published by the Bureau of Investigative Reporting at the weekend.
The strikes were halted in November last year. Relations between the two allies nosedived in the aftermath of a Nato cross-border raid which killed 24 Pakistani troops.
However, the drones have since restarted their missions even though Pakistan has yet to re-open its roads to Nato supply convoys en route to Afghanistan.
(Source: telegraph.co.uk)
UFO Filmed Over Russian Protesters
(Editor’s Note: It looks like a government surveillance drone to me)
Russian protesters film UFO over Moscow
Video footage shows an unidentified flying object hovering above protesters in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow.
Witnessed by hundreds of pro-democracy protestors in the Russian capital’s Bolotnaya Square on Saturday, the unidentified craft drew confused stares.
Clearly not a helicopter, the silent UFO pulsated coloured lights and had five extended tendrils or pylons emanating from the body of the vehicle.
Onlookers, protesting against election results, climbed trees to grab a closer look at the mysterious craft which seemed to be observing the 25,000 people who had made their way down to Bolotnaya Square to protest.
Russia has been rocked by mass protests against elections in early December which pro-democracy organisers say were rigged in favour of Vladimir Putin and his party.
Iran says it is unlocking US spy drone secrets
A top Iranian official says his country will reverse-engineer the US spy drone it has in its possession and is in the “final stages” of unlocking the aircraft’s software secrets.
“Our next action will be to reverse-engineer the aircraft,” Parviz Sorouri, the head of Iran’s parliamentary national security committee said, according to the website of Iranian state television.
“In the near future, we will be able to mass produce it…. Iranian engineers will soon build an aircraft superior to the American [drone] using reverse-engineering.”
Iran says it captured the sophisticated US drone, a bat-winged stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel, on December 4 as it was flying in its airspace.
It claimed a Revolutionary Guards cyber-warfare unit hacked the aircraft’s flight controls.
US officials, who reportedly said the drone was flying a CIA mission over Iran, have expressed scepticism that Iran has the technology to perform such a feat.
They said it was more likely the drone suffered a malfunction, preventing it from returning to base, as programmed, when its data link was lost.
They have also cast doubts over Iran’s ability to replicate the drone - at least without the help of Russia or China.
But Mr Sorouri said: “We are in the final stages of cracking [the drone’s] code.”
He predicted that “we will acquire valuable intelligence through deciphering the Americans’ covert intelligence and espionage methods once the code is cracked,” though he added that he could not say when the unlocking of the software would be complete.
Mr Sorouri also said Iran “will not need Russian or Chinese cooperation” to copy the drone.
“They will definitely not be involved. This great defensive capability is reserved for us, and we are not ready to share it with others,” he said.
“We will use this capability as a deterrence. And I doubt the Islamic republic would share this technology with other countries.”
Beast of Kandahar
The RQ-170 Sentinel, built by Lockheed Martin, dubbed ‘The Beast of Kandahar’, was first acknowledged by the US Air Force in December 2009.
It has a full-motion video sensor that was used this year to monitor Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan ahead of the raid that killed him.
It is about 26 metres in wingspan, 4.5 metres in length and 1.84 metres in height.
The incident comes at a time of rising tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.
The US and other Western nations tightened sanctions on Iran this month and Britain withdrew its diplomatic staff from Tehran after hardline youths stormed two diplomatic compounds.
Washington has not ruled out military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to resolve a dispute over the program, which the US believes is aimed at developing atomic weapons.
AFP
(Source: abc.net.au)
New Police Drone Near Houston Could Carry Weapons
CONROE, Texas — A Houston area law enforcement agency is prepared to launch an unmanned drone that could someday carry weapons, Local 2 Investigates reported Friday.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Conroe paid $300,000 in federal homeland security grant money and Friday it received the ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter made by Vanguard Defense Industries of Spring.
A laptop computer is used to control the 50-pound unmanned chopper, and a game-like console is used to aim and zoom a powerful camera and infrared heat-seeking device mounted on the front.
“To be in on the ground floor of this is pretty exciting for us here in Montgomery County,” Sheriff Tommy Gage said.
He said the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) could be used in hunting criminals who are running from police or assessing a scene where SWAT team officers are facing an active shooter.
Gage said it will also be deployed for criminal investigations such as drug shipments.”We’re not going to use it to be invading somebody’s privacy. It’ll be used for situations we have with criminals,” Gage said.
It could have been used to help firefighters in the recent tri-county wildfires, he said, and it also could be handy in future scenarios like a recent search for a missing college student in The Woodlands.
In 2007, Local 2 Investigates uncovered a secret Houston Police Department test of a different kind of drone, fueling a nationwide debate over civil liberties and privacy.A constitutional law professor and other civil liberties watchdogs told Local 2 Investigates that questions about police searches without warrants would crop up, as well as police spying into back yards or other private areas.HPD fueled that 2007 controversy even further by suggesting that drones could be used for writing speeding tickets.
The backlash prompted Mayor Annise Parker to scrap HPD’s plans for using drones when she took office.Gage said he is aware of those concerns.”No matter what we do in law enforcement, somebody’s going to question it, but we’re going to do the right thing, and I can assure you of that,” he said.
He said two deputies are finishing their training and should be ready to fly police missions within the next month.Tapped to operate the Montgomery County Sheriff’s helicopter UAV are Sgt. Melvin Franklin, a licensed pilot, and Lt. Damon Hall, who heads the department’s crime lab and crime scene unit. The sheriff said Hall’s SWAT team background will assist the department in using the new tool on hostage standoffs or active shooter events.The ShadowHawk chopper was displayed on a small conference room table as it was unveiled Friday. It displayed a sheriff’s logo and flashing blue lights on the side. On the front of the chopper, a grapefruit sized back unit houses the camera and Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) sensor that can detect heat from a gun or a suspect’s body.Deputies said they can quickly switch between day and night vision on the camera, which is zoomed and moved from side to side by a game-like console inside a police command vehicle on the ground.
The display shows up on a small TV-like box, while the actual flight controls are handled from a laptop computer.Michael Buscher, chief executive officer of manufacturer Vanguard Defense Industries, said this is the first local law enforcement agency to buy one of his units.He said they are designed to carry weapons for local law enforcement.”The aircraft has the capability to have a number of different systems on board. Mostly, for law enforcement, we focus on what we call less lethal systems,” he said, including Tazers that can send a jolt to a criminal on the ground or a gun that fires bean bags known as a “stun baton.”“You have a stun baton where you can actually engage somebody at altitude with the aircraft. A stun baton would essentially disable a suspect,” he said.Gage said he has no immediate plans to outfit his drone with weapons, and he also ruled out using the chopper for catching speeders.”We’re not going to use it for that,” he said.
Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel said, “I’m tickled to death” about using the drone, pointing out that in his years of police work he could imagine countless incidents having ended more quickly and easily.”It’s so simple in its design and the objectives, you just wonder why anyone would choose not to have it,” said McDaniel.At the same time Houston police were testing a different drone, the Miami-Dade Metro Police department was also taking test flights of a helicopter UAV, and the Federal Aviation Administration said that department is now using its drone for local police work.
The San Diego Police Department also made local headlines in 2008 for beginning its own flights with a fixed-wing UAV.But Les Dorr, an FAA spokesman in Washington, said very few local police departments actually have the required certificate of authorization (COA) to fly police missions nationwide.He said Montgomery County is the first COA by a local police department in all of Texas.In September 2008, the Government Accountability Office issued a 73-page report that raised issues about police drones endangering airspace for small planes or even commercial airliners.The report’s author, Gerald Dillingham, told Local 2 Investigates that 65 percent of the crashes of military drones on the battlefield were caused by mechanical failures.He said a police UAV could lose its link to the ground controllers if wind knocks the aircraft out of range or the radio frequencies are disrupted.”If you lose that communication link as the result of that turbulence or for any other reason, then you have an aircraft that is not in control and can in fact crash into something on the ground or another aircraft,” said Dillingham.Pilots of small planes expressed those concerns in the original 2007 Local 2 Investigates reporting on police drones, and the FAA reported then that police departments across the country were lining up to apply for their own drones.
At Montgomery County, Franklin said an onboard GPS system is designed to keep the UAV on target and connected with the ground controllers. He said coordinates are plotted in advance and a command is given for the UAV to fly directly to that spot, adjusting to turbulence and other factors. He said he and the other controller can alter “waypoints” quickly on the laptop to move the chopper to areas that had not previously been mapped out. He said the aircraft moves at a speed of 30 knots, which he said makes it unsuitable for police pursuits.Small aircraft pilots have expressed concerns that drones cannot practice the “see and avoid” rule that keeps aircraft from colliding in mid-air. Since the camera may be aimed somewhere else, pilots said police controllers may not be able to see and avoid other aircraft in the area during a sudden police emergency.
Gage said he would take every concern into account as his UAV is deployed.The only routine law enforcement flights inside the United States over the past four years have been the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their border flights over Texas and Arizona have included one crash, where the drone lost its link to the ground controller.
US terror drone kills 25 civilians in Somalia
The US drone carried out attacks Thursday morning near Afmadow city in southern Somalia, leaving 25 people dead and 50 others wounded.
The US has expanded the number of its aerial terror attacks by unmanned remote-controlled aircraft in Somalia. Many civilians have fallen victim to the unsanctioned assaults as a result.
Somalia has become the sixth country where the US military has engaged in unauthorized aerial bombing campaigns through the use of its remote-controlled aircraft.
The United States has also deployed its assassination drones for aerial attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.
Washington claims the assassination airstrikes target anti-American militants, though most of such attacks have mainly resulted in civilian casualties.
(Source: presstv.ir)
