Drones versus The Rest of Us

I can't find the report right this second but IIRC it was around the last five years or so. After working many years with UAVs in & around the air traffic system I have no faith that, if allowed, UAVs flying in the U.S. airspace system will result in anything good.
 
Another article on "Drones".

It took a few seconds to figure out exactly what we were looking at. A white S.U.V. traveling along a highway adjacent to the base came into the cross hairs in the center of the screen and was tracked as it headed south along the desert road. When the S.U.V. drove out of the picture, the drone began following another car.

“Wait, you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?” a reporter asked. One Air Force officer responded that this was only a training mission, and then the group was quickly hustled out of the room.
Click to expand...

Interesting that the "practice" on civilian vehicles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/the-drone-zone.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

Taken with a grain of salt as its the New York Times. :rolleyes:
 
During my short-lived stint as a sensor operator, normal traffic was just about all I practiced on...plus houses and some boats...oh and a swimming pool at a YMCA one time.
 
Interesting that the "practice" on civilian vehicles.
Click to expand...

Prior to shipping out downrange, our training and qualification was stateside, and it was all on civilian targets. We followed cars and tracked them, orbited houses and ranches while identifying everything on the ranch, worked up target descriptions and flight patterns on civilian boats, aircraft, cars, etc, long before going into a hostile area to do the same.

We weren't building dossiers or prying into anyone's life; we were using what we all commonly see in public to build and develop mission skills that made us able to do our job, and to save lives.

Those same missions overseas were used to locate weapons caches, follow and observe weapons traffickers, catch terrorists, spot people putting in IED and to do route clearances, and other missions. Important stuff.

The people followed in the US were oblivious to having been tracked, and we didn't care who they were or what they were doing. We picked out a car on the highway and followed it; not an easy thing in traffic with a lot of turns, especially doing it through a camera or at night, while maintaining a low observable flight pattern. It might be a simple exercise of following the car to the mall, or a house, and identifying as much as possible about the car, the occupants, their behavior, etc...then moving on to find a different target. All exercises that paid off overseas.
 
Bob Noel said:
Why not practice on civilian vehicles?

What do you think some of the adversaries are using?
Click to expand...


I just said it was interesting, not wrong. Are you talking about the article's position?
 
DouglasBader said:
Different article, reference a previous post on the same subject matter, same hacking-intercept:

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/texas-college-students-hijack-drone-aircraft-20120628/
Click to expand...

We don't use unencrypted GPSs in the military. It's an Army requirement that not just aviation but all GPSs are required to be loaded. Now sometimes we're lazy and "forget" to load the fills but that would hardly hamper our operations overseas. If I was to get spoofed or jammed I could use a back up device called a map and would still arrive on time.

The problem we experienced overseas will be the same ones that will crop up here. It's no secret that we have UAVs in Iraq and Afghanistion. Where they're based and what specific types is what's secret. In OIF 2 there were few UAVs to contend with for manned aviation. In OEF X they were everywhere. It's impossible to fly cross-country without encountering their airspace. I've only had a couple close calls with them but the simple fact is they restrict our routes. Just as more and more crop up in the U.S. our routes will be restricted as well. I think we have enough airspace restrictions in America right now, we don't need anymore.
 
Last edited:
Anthony said:
I just said it was interesting, not wrong. Are you talking about the article's position?
Click to expand...

ah, I read more into your comment than intended.

No, I wasn't talking about the article.
 
I don't disagree with your comments about restrictions to operations; already there are a few places in the US where restricted airspace has been assigned to protect UAV operations (and a few where it should have been assigned to protect UAV operations).

Even now in Afghanistan, when a UAV is landing, it's not described as such or identified by type in radio transmissions.

I've personally witnessed the effects of a UAV which lost com, failed to revert, and crashed into the base after control was lost.

So far as encryption, a big issue in more than one general location involved the unencrypted nature of not just unmanned, but manned assets; enemy intelligence was recovered on computers which included extensive downloads of UAV-broadcast intel. The bad guys were looking at what we were seeing, with accurate GPS data and other information. This was occurring with large manned assets as well as numerous types of UAV's.

The operation with which I worked also used real-time downloads and intel, but it was all encrypted and unavailable to the enemy. The same couldn't be said of the UAV's.
 
DouglasBader said:
I don't disagree with your comments about restrictions to operations; already there are a few places in the US where restricted airspace has been assigned to protect UAV operations (and a few where it should have been assigned to protect UAV operations).

Even now in Afghanistan, when a UAV is landing, it's not described as such or identified by type in radio transmissions.

I've personally witnessed the effects of a UAV which lost com, failed to revert, and crashed into the base after control was lost.

So far as encryption, a big issue in more than one general location involved the unencrypted nature of not just unmanned, but manned assets; enemy intelligence was recovered on computers which included extensive downloads of UAV-broadcast intel. The bad guys were looking at what we were seeing, with accurate GPS data and other information. This was occurring with large manned assets as well as numerous types of UAV's.

The operation with which I worked also used real-time downloads and intel, but it was all encrypted and unavailable to the enemy. The same couldn't be said of the UAV's.
Click to expand...

Yeah totally agree with you. I was mainly pointing out the article states that other government aircraft don't have encrypted GPSs. It's common knowledge that the military uses encrypted GPSs. While encryption isn't that important now because the signals aren't scrambled and we haven't really encountered jamming/spoofing, it may be important in future wars.
 
Selective GPS is important, though, and the research and technology to manage that is active and ongoing.
 
DouglasBader said:
Even now in Afghanistan, when a UAV is landing, it's not described as such or identified by type in radio transmissions.
Click to expand...

They are identified by a name that is very difficult to confuse with anything else. At one airfield where we operated, it was always 100% clear when a UAV was landing or taking off.
 
I had a personal phone call from a UAS operator today wondering how to convert distance and bearing off a VOR into lat/long. I love the kid, but I did have to shake my head a bit.

After a little prodding (no, they don't provide him with paper charts), he figured out that Skyvector does it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top