The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is an
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used primarily by the United States Air Force
(USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Initially conceived in the early
1990s for reconnaissance and forward observation roles, the Predator carries
cameras and other sensors but has been modified and upgraded to carry and fire
two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or other munitions. The aircraft, in use since
1995, has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Yemen,
Libya, and Somalia.
The USAF describes the Predator as a
"Tier II" MALE UAS (medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft
system). The UAS consists of four aircraft or "air vehicles" with
sensors, a ground control station (GCS), and a primary satellite link
communication suite. Powered by a Rotax engine and driven by a propeller, the
air vehicle can fly up to 400 nautical miles (740 km) to a target, loiter
overhead for 14 hours, then return to its base.
Following 2001, the RQ-1 Predator became
the primary unmanned aircraft used for offensive operations by the USAF and the
CIA in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas; it has also been deployed
elsewhere. Because offensive uses of the Predator are classified, U.S. military
officials have reported an appreciation for the intelligence and
reconnaissance-gathering abilities of UAVs but declined to publicly discuss
their offensive use.
Design
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
and the Pentagon began experimenting with reconnaissance drones in the early
1980s. The CIA preferred small, lightweight, unobtrusive drones, in contrast to
the United States Air Force (USAF). In the early 1990s, the CIA became
interested in the "Amber", a drone developed by Leading Systems, Inc.
The company's owner, Abraham Karem, was the former chief designer for the
Israeli Air Force, and had immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s. Karem's
company had since gone bankrupt and been bought up by a U.S. defense
contractor, from whom the CIA secretly bought five drones (now called the "GNAT").
Karem agreed to produce a quiet engine for the vehicle, which had until then
sounded like "a lawnmower in the sky". The new development became
known as the "Predator".
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems
(GA) was awarded a contract to develop the Predator in January 1994, and the
initial Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) phase lasted from
January 1994 to June 1996. The aircraft itself was a derivative of the GA Gnat
750. During the ACTD phase, three systems were purchased from GA, comprising
twelve aircraft and three ground control stations.
From April through May 1995, the
Predator ACTD aircraft were flown as a part of the Roving Sands 1995 exercises
in the U.S. The exercise operations were successful, and this led to the
decision to deploy the system to the Balkans later in the summer of 1995.
During the ACTD, Predators were operated
by a combined Army/Navy team managed by the Navy's Joint Program Office for
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (JPO-UAV) and first deployed to Gjader, Albania, for
operations in the Former Yugoslavia in Spring 1995.
By the start of the United States Afghan
campaign in 2001, the USAF had acquired 60 Predators, and said it had lost 20
of them in action. Few if any of the losses were from enemy action, the worst
problem apparently being foul weather, particularly icy conditions. Some
critics within the Pentagon saw the high loss rate as a sign of poor
operational procedures. In response to the losses caused by cold weather flight
conditions, a few of the later Predators obtained by the USAF were fitted with
de-icing systems, along with an uprated turbocharged engine and improved
avionics. This improved "Block 1" version was referred to as the
"RQ-1B", or the "MQ-1B" if it carried munitions; the
corresponding air vehicle designation was "RQ-1L" or
"MQ-1L".
The Predator system was initially
designated the RQ-1 Predator. The "R" is the United States Department
of Defense designation for reconnaissance and the "Q" refers to an
unmanned aircraft system. The "1" describes it as being the first of
a series of aircraft systems built for unmanned reconnaissance. Pre-production
systems were designated as RQ-1A, while the RQ-1B (not to be confused with the
RQ-1 Predator B, which became the MQ-9 Reaper) denotes the baseline production
configuration. These are designations of the system as a unit. The actual
aircraft themselves were designated RQ-1K for pre-production models, and RQ-1L
for production models. In 2002, the USAF officially changed the designation to
MQ-1 ("M" for multi-role) to reflect its growing use as an armed
aircraft.
Command
and sensor systems
During the campaign in the former
Yugoslavia, a Predator's pilot would sit with several payload specialists in a
van near the runway of the drone's operating base. Direct radio signals
controlled the drone's takeoff and initial ascent. Then communications shifted
to military satellite networks linked to the pilot's van. Pilots experienced a
delay of several seconds between moving their joysticks and the drone's
response. But by 2000 improvements in communications systems (perhaps by use of
the USAF's JSTARS system) made it possible, at least in theory, to fly the
drone remotely from great distances. It was no longer necessary to use close-up
radio signals during the Predator's takeoff and ascent. The entire flight could
be controlled by satellite from any command center with the right equipment.
The CIA proposed to attempt over Afghanistan the first fully remote Predator
flight operations, piloted from the agency's headquarters at Langley.
The Predator air vehicle and sensors are
controlled from the ground station via a C-band line-of-sight data link or a
Ku-band satellite data link for beyond-line-of-sight operations. During flight
operations the crew in the ground control station is a pilot and two sensor
operators. The aircraft is equipped with the AN/AAS-52 Multi-spectral Targeting
System, a color nose camera (generally used by the pilot for flight control), a
variable aperture day-TV camera, and a variable aperture infrared camera (for
low light/night). Previously, Predators were equipped with a synthetic aperture
radar for looking through smoke, clouds or haze, but lack of use validated its
removal to reduce weight and conserve fuel. The cameras produce full motion
video and the synthetic aperture radar produced still frame radar images. There
is sufficient bandwidth on the datalink for two video sources to be used at one
time, but only one video source from the sensor ball can be used at any time
due to design limitations. Either the daylight variable aperture or the
infrared electro-optical sensor may be operated simultaneously with the
synthetic aperture radar, if equipped. All later Predators are equipped with a
laser designator that allows the pilot to identify targets for other aircraft
and even provide the laser-guidance for manned aircraft. This laser is also the
designator for the AGM-114 Hellfire that are carried on the MQ-1.
Deployment
methodology
Each Predator air vehicle can be
disassembled into six main components and loaded into a container nicknamed
"the coffin." This enables all system components and support
equipment to be rapidly deployed worldwide. The largest component is the ground
control station and it is designed to roll into a C-130 Hercules. The Predator
primary satellite link consists of a 6.1 meter (20 ft) satellite dish and
associated support equipment. The satellite link provides communications
between the ground station and the aircraft when it is beyond line-of-sight and
is a link to networks that disseminate secondary intelligence. The RQ-1A system
needs 1,500 by 40 meters (5,000 by 125 ft) of hard surface runway with clear
line-of-sight to each end from the ground control station to the air vehicles.
Initially, all components needed to be located on the same airfield.
Currently, the U.S. Air Force uses a
concept called "Remote-Split Operations" where the satellite datalink
is located in a different location and is connected to the GCS through fiber
optic cabling. This allows Predators to be launched and recovered by a small
"Launch and Recovery Element" and then handed off to a "Mission
Control Element" for the rest of the flight. This allows a smaller number
of troops to be deployed to a forward location, and consolidates control of the
different flights in one location.
The improvements in the MQ-1B production
version include an ARC-210 radio, an APX-100 IFF/SIF with mode 4, a
glycol-weeping "wet wings" ice mitigation system, up-graded
turbo-charged engine, fuel injection, longer wings, dual alternators as well as
other improvements.
On May 18, 2006, the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) issued a certificate of authorization which will allow the
M/RQ-1 and M/RQ-9 aircraft to be used within U.S. civilian airspace to search
for survivors of disasters. Requests had been made in 2005 for the aircraft to
be used in search and rescue operations following Hurricane Katrina, but
because there was no FAA authorization in place at the time, the assets were
not used. The Predator's infrared camera with digitally-enhanced zoom has the
capability of identifying the heat signature of a human body from an altitude
of 3 km (10,000 ft), making the aircraft an ideal search and rescue tool.
The longest declassified Predator flight
to date lasted for 40 hours, 5 minutes. The total flight time has reached 1
million hours as of April 2010.
Armed
version development
The USAF handed the Predator over to the
service's Big Safari office after the Kosovo campaign in order to accelerate
its testing in a strike role, fitted with reinforced wings and stores pylons to
carry munitions, as well as a laser designator. This effort led to a series of
tests, on February 21, 2001, in which the Predator fired three Hellfire
anti-armor missiles, scoring hits on a stationary tank with all three missiles.
The scheme was put into service, with the armed Predators given the new
designation of MQ-1A. Given that a Predator is very unobtrusive and the
Hellfire is supersonic, such a combination gives little warning of attack.
In the winter of 2000–2001, after seeing
the results of Predator reconnaissance in Afghanistan, Cofer Black, head of the
CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC), became a "vocal advocate" of
arming the Predator with missiles to target Osama bin Laden in the country. He also
believed that CIA pressure and practical interest was causing the USAF's armed
Predator program to be significantly accelerated. Black, and
"Richard", who was in charge of the CTC's Bin Laden Issue Station,
continued to press during 2001 for a Predator armed with Hellfire missiles.
Further weapons tests occurred between
May 22 and June 7, 2001, with mixed results. While missile accuracy was
excellent, there were some problems with missile fuzing" In the first week
of June, in the Nevada Desert, a Hellfire missile was successfully launched on
a replica of bin Laden's Afghanistan Tarnak residence. A missile launched from
a Predator exploded inside one of the replica's rooms; it was concluded that
any people in the room would have been killed. However, the armed Predator did
not go into action before the September 11 attacks.
The USAF has also investigated using the
Predator to drop battlefield ground sensors and to carry and deploy the
"Finder" mini-UAV.
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