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The air war in Afghanistan showed that sometimes the hottest pilots
are sitting on the ground operating the remote controls of
UAVs—or unmanned aerial vehicles. In newly declassified
footage, "Spies That Fly" reveals the astounding capabilities of
UAVs and the ambitious plans for future models.
As demonstrated in every aerial operation involving United States
forces since the Gulf War in 1991, UAVs can fly places and perform
missions that are often too dangerous for humans to risk. Among the
advanced UAVs now under development are super-efficient jets that
can soar halfway around the world on autopilot without refueling and
six-inch flying disks with penny-sized cameras. Right now the
Marines are developing their own UAV, which can be carried in a
backpack and launched by small units for battlefield intelligence.
The ultimate robotic flyer could be as small as a bee, however.
Because of recent breakthroughs in understanding how insects hover,
the future may hold fly-sized, flapping UAVs that can infiltrate
buildings as antiterrorism surveillance vehicles.
Currently, the top gun of UAVs is the Predator—credited with
helping destroy 700 targets in Afghanistan. Predator can stay aloft
for up to 40 hours, making it ideal for spying day or night and in
all weather conditions thanks to visible, infrared, and radar
imaging sensors. When Predator identifies a target, it can spotlight
it with a laser for destruction by one of its own missiles or by
weapons fired from manned aircraft in the vicinity.
Although Predator is good for tracking known targets, it's not very
efficient at broad area surveillance. "Predator is a very good way
for following a truck driving down a highway," says John Pike,
director of GlobalSecurity.org. "It's not a very good way to look
over an entire city to try to find that truck to begin with."
In the future that mission will be performed by the Global Hawk.
Still in flight testing, this high-flying eye-in-the-sky was sent to
Afghanistan where it was able to survey vast areas from 12 miles up.
Global Hawk has the added advantage that it can be programmed to fly
itself from take-off to landing.
UAVs are now coming of age thanks to advances in satellite
communications and navigation that allow the vehicles to fly with
accuracy to targets far out of sight of ground control stations.
This technology also allows the UAVs to send their images to
commanders all over the world.
Historically, UAVs are an outgrowth of the Cold War strategy of
espionage from above. In the late 1950s, the piloted, high-flying
U-2 performed this function over the Soviet Union until improved
Soviet surface-to-air missiles made it vulnerable. With the 1960s
came invulnerable surveillance satellites.
Neither of these systems worked well for intelligence gathering
during the Vietnam War, however, because of Southeast Asia's
frequent cloud cover and thick rain forests, along with the U-2's
susceptibility to missiles. As a result, the U.S. spent billions of
dollars to develop an automatically piloted, low-altitude UAV. But
the technology of the day was too primitive for this early robotic
vehicle to be effective.
During the Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. Navy used a UAV called Pioneer
as a forward spotter for battleship guns, which were pounding
defenses on the mainland. This led to one of the most bizarre
incidents of the war. Iraqi troops learned that the noisy Pioneers
presaged an imminent artillery barrage. One Iraqi garrison therefore
took the initiative and actually surrendered to the UAV.
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