The imagery appeared to be highly addictive, leading to it being called “Predator crack” because it seemed that commanders right up to the White House could never get enough of it.
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On the other hand, intelligence analysts were accustomed to imagery in the form of black-and-white still photographs, not color video. Initially their approach was to take stills from the video feed and print them out.
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The plane can be broken down and stored in a shipping container known as a “coffin” and flown around the world on a transport aircraft. In theatre, it needs a five-thousand foot runway and a dedicated ground support team. Once it is rolled onto the runway, the drone is piloted by a local crew who get it into the air and on its way. Then it is handed over via satellite link–it has its own special twenty-foot dish and dedicated satellite systems–to a remote team. From then on the Predator is flown from Creech Air Force Base, forty minutes outside Las Vegas.
Unmanned aircraft like Predator have major support requirements, but each flight provides twenty-four hours of continuous surveillance on station with cameras, infrared, and radar sensors. By using the drones in relays, the Air Force can maintain a permanent presence over an area, known as a “combat air patrol,” “CAP” or “orbit.” Each CAP requires at least three drones. In 2010 there were fifty Predator/Reaper CAPs; by 2013 the number was up to sixty-five, with plans to replace all the Predators with Reapers by 2016.
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The plane may keep going for twenty-four hours, but that requires several shifts of pilots, with replacements for those that are sick or otherwise not available.
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One study suggested that ten pilots were needed for each predator CAP to keep operations going 24/7. These days less than half of drone pilots qualified on other aircraft first. Pure drone pilots may have some advantages; reports suggests that pilots have to unlearn some of their skills before they can fly the Predator effectively, as they may have become reliant on feeling the tilt of the aircraft or the change in note of the engine to tell how it was flying.
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One of the biggest differences from other aircraft is the time lag of a few seconds (latency) due to the satellite communications.
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The real business end of the Predator is a “sensor ball” eighteen inches in diameter. This is the AN/ AAS-52 Multi-Spectral Targeting System (3), which has a stabilized gimbal mount with two axes of rotation, keeping the cameras pointed in exactly the same direction regardless of the motion of the drone. It has normal visible-light cameras for daytime use and image-intensified night cameras, as well as infrared imaging, along with software that combines the inputs from different cameras into a single image. It features various levels of zoom, from a forty-five degree wide-angle view down to an ultra-narrow 0.2-degree view. This is equal to a x200 zoom range. On a standard 35mm camera, the equivalent lenses at the extreme ends would be a 50mm wide-angle lens and a 12,000mm telephoto.
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The sensor ball also contains a laser illuminator, like an invisible searchlight indicating targets for friendly forces, a laser designator for the Hellfire missile, and a laser rangefinder to determine the exact location of the target.
Even in pitch darkness–or in the rain, which was a problem previously–the Predator can pick out objects on the ground with great accuracy. This is thanks to a radar system called Lynx developed in 1998 by Sandia National Laboratories (4) to overcome the limitations of cameras. Existing radar was too large for the Predator at some four hundred pounds. In a major feat of miniaturization, the necessary electronics were crammed into a package weighing just a hundred and twenty pounds which generates an image resembling a black and white video with an impressive level of detail.
From fifteen miles away, Lynx produces images in which features four inches across can be distinguished. It also has some other clever tricks. A process called coherent change detection shows the difference between the current scene and one recorded previously. This is accurate enough to pick up the disturbance left by a bomb buried under the road surface.
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The Predator can also carry various electronic warfare packages that allow it to detect, locate, and intercept radio signals. The simplest of these was a radio receiver bought from Radio Shack; the most advanced are highly classified and cost millions. These could, for example, pick up walkie-talkie or cell phone transmissions and pinpoint the users. Predators can reportedly track individual cell phones when they are on by their SIM cards.
UC Santa Cruz historian Benjamin Breen’s Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science tracks the souring of the idealism once associated with the study of psychedelic drugs in the 20th century:
