US Customs' Predator Drone

[PhilDernerJr]

I was reading in a magazine about the US Customs Predator UAV that patrols the Arizona/Mexico border.

Do they shoot hellfires at fence-jumpers or something!? haha

Really cool to see a pic of it, though. The debate/discussion going on in the FAA involves how to manage unmanned vehicles in civilian airspace.

I had the priliedge last year of walking just a few feet from a pair of Global Hawks. Pictures do them no justice. It's impressive how big they are.

[moose135]

The latest Flying magazine has a report on a Customs UAV that crashed a while back - they use them for surveillance. It was an interesting article, that went beyond just the details of the crash.

Apparently, there are two work stations, one for the pilot, one for the camera operator, with identical controls, so you can use them interchangeably. They were experiencing some software/hardware problems, and the pilot moved to the other console. Unfortunately, the camera control handle now became the fuel control handle, and fuel was shut off to the engine (I'm oversimplifying here...) Because the same warning horn is used for multiple malfunctions, the pilot thought he had a loss of communications with the UAV, not an engine failure, and before they could get it restarted, it dropped below line-of-sight communications, the satellite receiver turned off as part of the normal energy management programming when the engine fails, and it crashed.

While there aren't many of these flying right now, this crash brought to light some areas that will need to be addressed before we find UAVs in wide-spread use. An interesting read if you can find the magazine.

[cancidas]

it's a really great technology for them. i remember when the predator mission was flown by army and CBP helicopters. those were long, dull missions. it also saved a lot of footwork for the guys on the ground, who by the way work in a very unforgiving territory. i hope they manage to resolve the problems surrounding this bird, and i'm waiting patiently for my FLYING mag to come in the mail.

[emshighway]

We are trying to get a few to observe manpad sites

Also want a few miniatures to fly over the checkpoints :borat:
Miniature hellfires will keep the lines moving!!!!

[Matt Molnar]

We are trying to get a few to observe manpad sites

Since pretty much every good spotting location doubles as a potential manpad site, we could have some neat new birds to photograph. :-)

At least until they start raining Hellfires on us. :|

[emshighway]

We are trying to get a few to observe manpad sites

Since pretty much every good spotting location doubles as a potential manpad site, we could have some neat new birds to photograph. :-)

At least until they start raining Hellfires on us. :|

:twisted: