Posts tagged drones
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)
Drones over U.S. get OK by Congress
Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s … a drone, and it’s watching you. That’s what privacy advocates fear from a bill Congress passed this week to make it easier for the government to fly unmanned spy planes in U.S. airspace.
The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015.
Privacy advocates say the measure will lead to widespread use of drones for electronic surveillance by police agencies across the country and eventually by private companies as well.
“There are serious policy questions on the horizon about privacy and surveillance, by both government agencies and commercial entities,” said Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation also is “concerned about the implications for surveillance by government agencies,” said attorney Jennifer Lynch.
The provision in the legislation is the fruit of “a huge push by lawmakers and the defense sector to expand the use of drones” in American airspace, she added.
According to some estimates, the commercial drone market in the United States could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars once the FAA clears their use.
The agency projects that 30,000 drones could be in the nation’s skies by 2020.
The highest-profile use of drones by the United States has been in the CIA’s armed Predator-drone program, which targets al Qaeda terrorist leaders. But the vast majority of U.S. drone missions, even in war zones, are flown for surveillance. Some drones are as small as model aircraft, while others have the wingspan of a full-size jet.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. use of drone surveillance has grown so rapidly that it has created a glut of video material to be analyzed.
The legislation would order the FAA, before the end of the year, to expedite the process through which it authorizes the use of drones by federal, state and local police and other agencies. The FAA currently issues certificates, which can cover multiple flights by more than one aircraft in a particular area, on a case-by-case basis.
The Department of Homeland Security is the only federal agency to discuss openly its use of drones in domestic airspace.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the department, operates nine drones, variants of the CIA’s feared Predator. The aircraft, which are flown remotely by a team of 80 fully qualified pilots, are used principally for border and counternarcotics surveillance under four long-term FAA certificates.
Officials say they can be used on a short-term basis for a variety of other public-safety and emergency-management missions if a separate certificate is issued for that mission.
“It’s not all about surveillance,” Mr. Aftergood said.
Homeland Security has deployed drones to support disaster relief operations. Unmanned aircraft also could be useful for fighting fires or finding missing climbers or hikers, he added.
The FAA has issued hundreds of certificates to police and other government agencies, and a handful to research institutions to allow them to fly drones of various kinds over the United States for particular missions.
The agency said it issued 313 certificates in 2011 and 295 of them were still active at the end of the year, but the FAA refuses to disclose which agencies have the certificates and what their purposes are.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the FAA to obtain records of the certifications.
“We need a list so we can ask [each agency], ‘What are your policies on drone use? How do you protect privacy? How do you ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment?’ ” Ms. Lynch said.
“Currently, the only barrier to the routine use of drones for persistent surveillance are the procedural requirements imposed by the FAA for the issuance of certificates,” said Amie Stepanovich, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research center in Washington.
The Department of Transportation, the parent agency of the FAA, has announced plans to streamline the certification process for government drone flights this year, she said.
“We are looking at our options” to oppose that, she added.
Section 332 of the new FAA legislation also orders the agency to develop a system for licensing commercial drone flights as part of the nation’s air traffic control system by 2015.
The agency must establish six flight ranges across the country where drones can be test-flown to determine whether they are safe for travel in congested skies.
Representatives of the fast-growing unmanned aircraft systems industry say they worked hard to get the provisions into law.
“It sets deadlines for the integration of [the drones] into the national airspace,” said Gretchen West, executive vice president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an industry group.
She said drone technology is new to the FAA.
The legislation, which provides several deadlines for the FAA to report progress to Congress, “will move the [drones] issue up their list of priorities,” Ms. West said
(Source: m.washingtontimes.com)
Grim Reaper Drones to Fly Over US Cities
Chances of Central New York drone flights improve as new law allows six national test sites
Washington — The Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing is a step closer to gaining federal permission to fly unmanned Reaper drones out of its base at Hancock Field, according to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer.
The National Defense Authorization Act signed into law last week by President Barack Obama allows for the establishment of six national test sites where drones could fly through civil air space.
Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday he pushed for the establishment of six spots, instead of the planned four, to improve the chances that Hancock Field would be included. The 174th Fighter Wing has been trying for almost five years to convince the Federal Aviation Administration to allow flights of the MQ-9 Reaper drones out of Hancock Field.
The FAA bans such unmanned flights because of concerns about the remotely piloted drones flying through civil airspace used by commercial aircraft at Syracuse’s Hancock International Airport.
Schumer said he sent a letter Tuesday to FAA Acting Commissioner Michael Huerta, asking for Hancock to be one of the national test sites.
Hancock Field, which will eventually host a full squadron of Reaper drones, has the largest potential training space in the Northeast. Most of the drones assigned to the 174th Fighter Wing are now remotely operated in Afghanistan and Iraq by pilots at the Mattydale base.
Schumer said Hancock already meets FAA requirements for unmanned aerial vehicles because about 7,000 square miles surrounding the airport is designated as “special use” airspace.
He said that “making Hancock a test site for this technology would be a boon for Central New York, creating jobs and bringing new investments to our defense contractors that provide thousands of good paying jobs.”
The senator noted that two Central New York companies, SRC and Saab Sensis Corp., are working on technology to help integrate drones into the national airspace with “sense and avoid” ground-based radars. In addition, the Mattydale base employs more than 1,200 people.
In his letter to Huerta, Schumer said Hancock Field’s assets make it an ideal location, including the large open spaces of Lake Ontario and the Adirondack Park.
“Hancock Field is ideally positioned to be a test site because of its attractive air space, and because the region has two restricted areas, four seasons, a varied terrain, an over water range, air to ground gunnery capability and large airspace volume – all essential to ensuring that our drones and their pilots are able to complete their missions abroad,” Schumer wrote.
FAA officials had no immediate comment.
Col. Kevin Bradley, commander of the 174th Fighter Wing, has said that any Reaper drones that eventually fly out of Hancock would not be equipped with missiles or bombs. No training would take place within civilian air space, Bradley said.
The drones would be armed with live ordnance only when used at firing ranges at Fort Drum near Watertown. Central New York peace activists have protested the Air National Guard’s decision to base the drones at Hancock Field.
(Source: syracuse.com)
