Yesterday the U.S. Air Force's RQ-1 Predator caught my eye. Unlike the myriad UAVs on display at the air show, the Predator has seen plenty of combat in the war on terror. If robots could win medals, the Predator would have fruit salad. Built by General Atomics, the Predator has a wingspan of 48.7 ft, a maximum speed of 135 mph, a range of 454 miles, and a ceiling of 25,000 feet. The Air Force officially describes its primary mission as "interdiction...and armed reconnaissance against critical, perishable targets." A secondary mission is "reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition." The Predator also has obvious and probably underexploited potential as a tool for securing American borders.
The Predator RQ-1, armed and dangerous.
By no means obsolete, the Predator's success has also the set the stage for the next generation of combat-effective unmanned vehicles, including Boeing's A-160 Hummingbird and Israel Aerospace Industry's new behemoth, the Heron II. But with price tags for new UAVs sky-rocketing as the designs grow in complexity, commanders must now be more cautious in using the aircraft, which are ever less expendable. Still, if new UAVs aren't pushed to the brink, they may not fulfill their implicit mission--to prevent American pilots from being killed or captured. There's been much griping, some of it legitimate, about the current limits of UAV technology, and thus the barrage of new models. The Predator, for example, can't take off without a runway and requires significant manpower both to operate and maintain. Perhaps as a result, the military is showing more and more interest in vertical takeoff UAVs and mini-UAVs. But to most observers, every Predator shot down in the course of supporting our troops and killing our enemies means potentially another American pilot saved from the same fate. Judging by the looks of things here at the show, though, despite the rising popularity of the UAV, we won't have a glut of unemployed pilots on our hands anytime soon.
I also had the chance to speak with two Airmen who work maintaining the Predator. Senior Airman Terrance Mose and Staff Sergeant Angelo Munoz, based out of Nellis AFB in Nevada, are having a fantastic time in a fancy hotel in Paris--the Air Force lives up to its sterling reputation, again. Enlisting out of Mobile, Alabama and Chicago respectively, these Airmen are big fans of the relatively trouble-free Predator. Senior Airman Mose described Predator maintenance as a "piece of cake" compared to his old job as an A-10 crew chief. And Staff Sgt Munoz says the most frequent work done on the aircraft is a simple oil change, though as a comm guy his responsibility is to make sure the Predator responds to whatever commands the control operators give it.
Airman Mose enjoyed his two deployments as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, getting into a routine of "wake-up, work, gym, sleep" that made life easier, while Staff Sergeant Munoz has deployed once as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Both mentioned the girls back home as the thing they missed most, and both were enthusiastic about redeploying. Finally, I asked the most important question--how are they spending their nights in Paris? Answer: go to bars "as long as you can stay up and still make it to work in the morning."
