Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Pentagon Orders $521 Million Worth of New Drones

They're coming.

From Business Insider Military & Defense
General Atomics, the people behind the wildly successful Predator and Reaper drones, just scored two huge contracts this week.

One contract is $411 million for Gray Eagle systems, a derivative of the Predator drone. The second contract is for $120.6 million and will buy MQ-9 Reaper spares for the Air Force. They’ll also get ground support systems and spares.

Presently, approximately 200 unmanned aerial vehicles owned by 100 non-government entities like law enforcement agencies and academic institutions, have already been authorized to fly in the U.S., Congressman Michael McCaul said in his opening statement last week at the Homeland Security committee's subcommittee on oversight investigations, and management.

In May, "the FAA began a three-year process of integrating drones into U.S. airspace by allowing police, firefighters and other civilian first-responders to fly UAVs that are no heavier than 11 kilograms," CBC News reported Friday. The next step in the integration is to select six test sites where the FAA will test how safe it is for civilian drones to share airspace with other aircraft.

Also in May, a young Pakistani filmmaker of the award-winning movie about drones, The Other Side, was denied entry into the United States to receive his prestigious award at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth in Seattle. His film follows a child whose entire family was killed by a drone.

12 comments:

  1. Drones Shmones...
    I think the IDEA of drones is kinda cool. I flew model planes and it was neat. Put a camera in it and it's a DRONE. In and of itself, what's the BFD?

    The PURPOSES to which they're put is another kettle of fish, however.

    What really torques me in this post is the denial of entry for the kid with the movie. Now, THAT is totalitarian!!

    It's IDEAS that enslave us, it's IDEAS that will set us free.

    Sermon over....

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  2. Capn Mike,

    I can appreciate your effort to minimize the idea of surveillance. Just because these droned are funded may not guarantee their use as cities across the country go belly-up. But no one likes the prospect of the latest weapons technology in the hands of sadists. I for one am tired of a surveillance state. The idea that one exists is enough to deter going outside. The sadistic mindset of police in uniform sitting at an arching desk with 25 security monitors to study. But given the context in which drones have been used--to kill innocent families--doesn't readily lend themselves to people viewing them in neutral terms. It's like petting a pit bull--you know what they're capable of but they are behavior modifiers. I'd rather base my behavior on intelligence, a moral creed, and adjusting tactically to a situation. I don't like to bullied--drones are bullies. What's to stop the gov. from dropping malathion--oh, wait, they already do that. What's to stop the gov. from spraying the skies with weather-modification chemicals? Oh, shit, they've already done that. So now we're supposed to wax naive and assign to the gov innocuous intentions with their new million-dollar weaponry? What's the big idea?

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    Replies
    1. Cap'n Mike was being sarcastic. F the drones!

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    2. What do you mean, you're tired of a surveillance state? If we don't maintain our surveillance state, people will shoot up movie theaters and cities like Chicago can expect dozens of people killed every weekend. Is that what you want? Think of the children!

      The surveillance state prevents that from happening.

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  3. These drones are already taking over the skies of Texas, militarizing the border. There's a new radio show online that has been talking a lot about this. It's worth checking out: http://tracesofreality.com/2012/07/28/torradio-borderland-battlefield-ep-03/

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    1. Actually, the show covering the drones is the one from the previous week. For those interested, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftggIVCf8QM

      Americans who give a damn about this NEED to keep their eyes on the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus (CUSC), which is totally in the pocket of the usual suspects (military contractors, "defense" establishment types, etc.). Shit's getting real.

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  4. 11kg? Just imagine what kind of damage 11kg of flying metal junk does to a passenger jet's engine or windshield when it collides with it at 250 knots. Unlike human-piloted planes drones are nearly invisible and thus impossible to avoid. And the drone pilots see the world through video screens lacking both resolution and field of view to see the surrounding air traffic.

    And the thought of having desk jockeys from the ranks of armed bureaucrats with no actual pilot training to navigate those deadly toys makes me shudder.

    Drones and civil airplanes do not mix, period. At least until every flying object is equipped with synthetic vision, traffic advisory alarms, and broadcast their precise position at all times (i.e. have ADS-B transponders) - something which defeats the very purpose of having surveillance drones in the first place (since any evildoer will then have a cheap piece of electronics which tells him that a drone is nearby).

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    Replies
    1. The predator has synthetic arpeture radar. It sees everything crystal clear.

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    2. It also weighs as much as Cessna 172. (1020 Kg with full fuel). And only early Predators were equipped with SAR; active airborne radar is actually a liability in a slow-moving easy-to-shoot combat a/c. (Grey Eagle drones got the radar back, under the name of STARLite; this radar system is intended for scanning ground, not the airspace - it can only work in Strip and Spot modes and is useless for detecting airborne objects which can be anywhere in the sphere).

      We're not talking about Predators anyway; we're talking about 11 Kg drones, flying nearly blind.

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  5. "non-government entities like law enforcement agencies"

    Nongovernmental law enforcement agencies?? Please elaborate.

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    Replies
    1. I believe that he was speaking in terms of non-Federal government.

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  6. A third party only promise the socialist to control Congress for decades to come. What moderate need to do is to continue to repossess the Republican Party?Contract Agreements

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