Eyes in the Sky

[TheGreenGoblin]

The place for details and history concerning reconnaissance, photographic, observation, S&R and similarly tasked aircraft...

Crew (or not) memories, scuttlebutt, stories, experiences and other interesting anecdotes, references and so on all welcome here...

I knew nothing about this aircraft until last weekend...

[Boac]

Likewise - good find.

[Pontius Navigator]

In 1973 I was lucky enough to stand in with another crew for a flight from Cyprus to Nairobi via Bahrain. There was a PR7 Canberra also slated for this trip but it was never intended that they would make Nairobi.

Our route, as was their's, was along the Oman coastline to Salalah and thence down the Somali coast. Setting south from Salalah they 'suffered' an engine failure of the starboard engine, put out a Pan call and executed a gentle turn back to Salalah.

During the turn back they over flew the island of Socotra and island that had been used during the war and whose runway was believed to have been repaired by the Russians.

All the kit, hotel rooms booked in Nairobi and knowing they would never get there.

[TheGreenGoblin]

In 1973 I was lucky enough to stand in with another crew for a flight from Cyprus to Nairobi via Bahrain. There was a PR7 Canberra also slated for this trip but it was never intended that they would make Nairobi.

Our route, as was their's, was along the Oman coastline to Salalah and thence down the Somali coast. Setting south from Salalah they 'suffered' an engine failure of the starboard engine, put out a Pan call and executed a gentle turn back to Salalah.

During the turn back they over flew the island of Socotra and island that had been used during the war and whose runway was believed to have been repaired by the Russians.

All the kit, hotel rooms booked in Nairobi and knowing they would never get there.

I doubt that the Russians bought all the subterfuge...

Socotra - In October 1967, in the wake of the departure of the British from Aden and southern Arabia, the Mahra Sultanate, as well as the other states of the former Aden Protectorate, were abolished. On 30 November of the same year, Socotra became part of South Yemen. The attitude of the South Yemeni government to the Soviet Union enabled the Soviet Navy to use the archipelago as a supply and supporting base for its operations in the Indian Ocean between 1971 and 1985.

Since Yemeni unification in 1990, it has been part of the Republic of Yemen.

[Pontius Navigator]

TGG, no need, not there. The landslip that had taken out the middle of the runway had not been repaired.

[TheGreenGoblin]

There was a PR7 Canberra also slated for this trip but it was never intended that they would make Nairobi.

Our route, as was their's, was along the Oman coastline to Salalah and thence down the Somali coast. Setting south from Salalah they 'suffered' an engine failure of the starboard engine, put out a Pan call and executed a gentle turn back to Salalah.

During the turn back they over flew the island of Socotra and island that had been used during the war and whose runway was believed to have been repaired by the Russians.

All the kit, hotel rooms booked in Nairobi and knowing they would never get there.

The Canberra was used by both the Rhodesian Air Force and the South African Air Force (and covertly, by both air forces, in Operation Vanity.) individually, as a tactical bomber. The aircraft was used by the SAAF in its photo-reconnaissance role in Angola in 1978 and the outcome of that resulted in the battle of Cassinga where the aircraft and its crews featured prominently as an eye in the sky and bomber as well.

By the beginning of 1978 SWAPO had improved its organisation and gained strength in Owambo and the Eastern Caprivi, UNITA was under pressure from the MPLA, and it became increasingly difficult for the SADF to operate in Southern Angola. South Africa also feared the disruption of elections it planned to hold in South West Africa excluding SWAPO.

The attack on Cassinga grew out of the plan for Operation Bruilof, wherein the SADF envisaged attacking six SWAPO targets around the town of Chetequera. During the intelligence-gathering portion of the planning for Operation Bruilof, the SADF concluded that the small town of Cassinga was the principal medical, training and control centre for the guerrillas in the region, and one of SWAPO's two regional HQ's (the other being further north at Lubango).

The SAAF still held air superiority over Angola at the time, allowing 12 Squadron to conduct aerial photo-reconnaissance with Canberra B12s in spring of 1978. These photos showed newly built military infrastructure including concreted 'drive-in' bunkers for armoured fighting vehicles covering approach roads, zigzag trenches surrounding the base, foxholes for machine guns/mortar crews – and the highly characteristic 'star-shaped' concreted base structure for a SAM-3 missile battery and its radar/command vehicle. Also identifiable from the imagery was a civilian single-decker bus.

PLAN combatants at Cassinga were aware of the overflights, and in a letter dated 10 April 1978, the camp's commander Hamaambo expressed concerns to his superiors about an "imminent invasion intention of our enemy of our camp in Southern Angola". In response to the reconnaissance flights, defenses were improved through the creation of a secondary camp north of the main camp, the addition of more trenches and the digging of holes for the protection of food provisions.

The SADF shelved the plan for Operation Bruilof and planning for a new operation, Operation Reindeer, began. Reindeer was composed of three main actions; the airborne assault on Cassinga, a mechanised assault on the Chetaquera complex at 17.1287°S 14.8938°E – that also involved SAAF defence-suppression strikes – and an assault on the Dombondola complex at 17.333°S 14.8334°E by a light infantry force.

Cassinga.jpg (15.74 KiB) Viewed 991 times

from //flecha.co.uk

One crew from the Canberra squadron was tasked with acquiring further photo-reconnaissance imagery, some to be used in the preparation of photo-strip maps for the Tactical Low Flying (TLF) legs that the various aircraft types would undertake – there being inadequate conventional mapping of much of the region – and additional and up-to-date detailed imagery of the Cassinga environs for the Parabat drop zone and Buccaneer target planning purposes. Particular attention was paid to identifying units of AAA deployed in/near the target complex. It was during this phase that a serious error was made, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Air-photo interpreters put the wrong scale on some of the maps that were used in the planning, despite the altimeter readings being clearly visible in the original reconnaissance photographs. Consequently, the air force planners overestimated the size of the DZ, believing it was long and wide enough to drop the paratroopers, when in fact it wasn't. This 'scale error' also mispositioned the 'Warning' and 'Drop' points on the run-in to drop. Compounding this error, the pilot of the lead aircraft was momentarily distracted by the effects of the bombing, and issued the 'jump' signal a few seconds late. The net effect was that many paratroopers overshot their intended DZs, many landing beyond the river – and some in it.

Playing a supporting role was a single Cessna C-185, which flew in the target area and acted as an observation post as well as a radio relay aircraft. In addition there was a single DC-4 Strikemaster fitted out as an EW and ELINT aircraft flying over the SWA/Namibia border with Angola. The purpose of this latter aircraft was to both intercept all Angolan, Cuban and SWAPO radio transmissions, before jamming their communications networks at the appropriate time. The successful jamming of the SWAPO, Angolan and Cuban communications network is one of the reasons for the late reaction by either of the latter two in responding to the attack.

[TheGreenGoblin]

YBR-49A - reconnaissance flying wing that never went into production.

Northrop Flying Wing

In June 1948, the Air Force ordered the type into full production as the RB-49A reconnaissance aircraft (company designations N-38 and N-39[6]). It was powered by six jet engines, two of them externally mounted in under-wing pods, ruining the aircraft's sleek, aerodynamic lines, but extending its range by carrying additional fuel. The use of jet engines had resulted in considerably increased fuel consumption and decreased its range significantly below that of the rival Convair B-36. One YB-35 airframe (s/n 42-102369) was chosen as the prototype for the RB-49 and designated YRB-49A.

During early 1950, the remaining YB-35Bs airframes, which were being converted to YRB-49As, were ordered scrapped. Flight testing of the sole remaining YB-49 prototype ended 14 March 1950. On 15 March 1950, that program was canceled. Coincidentally, the sole remaining YB-49 prototype suffered a high-speed taxiing accident and, as previously noted, was totally destroyed in the ensuing fire.

Only two months later, all Flying Wing contracts were canceled abruptly without explanation by order of Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force. Shortly thereafter, also without explanation, Symington turned down a request from the Smithsonian for the Air Force to donate one of these big wings to its collection of pioneering Northrop aircraft.

All remaining Flying Wing bomber airframes, except for the sole YRB-49A reconnaissance version, were ordered chopped up by Symington, the materials smelted down using portable smelters brought to Northrop's facility, in plain sight of its employees. Jack Northrop retired from both the company he founded and aviation shortly after he saw his dream of a pure, all-wing aircraft destroyed.[8] His son, John Northrop Jr., later recounted during an interview his father's devastation and lifelong suspicion that his Flying Wing project had been sabotaged by political influence and back room wheeling-and-dealing between Convair and the Air Force.

The sole prototype reconnaissance platform, the YRB-49A, first flew on 4 May 1950. After only 13 flights, testing ended abruptly on 26 April 1951. It was then flown back to Northrop's headquarters from Edwards Air Force Base (formally Muroc) on what would be its last flight. There, this remaining flying wing sat abandoned at the edge of Northrop's Ontario airport for more than two years. It was finally ordered scrapped on 1 December 1953

http://joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b49_2.html

[PHXPhlyer]

Kamikaze drones: A new weapon brings power and peril to the U.S. military
Some experts believe the spread of low-cost, light-weight "killer" drones will change ground warfare as profoundly as the machine gun did.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/k ... y-n1285415

These guys have some cool toys.
I'd like one of each please Santa, and multiples of the explody ones.
https://www.avinc.com/

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah — The killer drone whooshed out of its launch tube, spreading its carbon wings and shooting into the sky.

Flying too fast for the naked eye to track, the battery-powered robot circled the Utah desert, hunting for the target it had been programmed to strike. Moments later, the drone sailed through the driver’s side window of an empty pick-up truck and exploded in a fireball.

“Good hit,” exclaimed an operator from AeroVironment, the company that produces the drone and sells it to the U.S. military.

NBC News traveled to a military testing center for exclusive access to the first-ever public demonstration of the Switchblade 300, a small, low-cost “kamikaze” drone made by AeroVironment that sources say has been used quietly for years by the U.S. military in targeted killing operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The demonstration told a story of promise and peril.

Americans have become accustomed to images of Hellfire missiles raining down from Predator and Reaper drones to hit terrorist targets in Pakistan or Yemen. But that was yesterday’s drone war.

A revolution in unmanned aerial vehicles is unfolding, and the United States has lost its monopoly on the technology.

Some experts believe the spread of these semi-autonomous weapons will change ground warfare as profoundly as the machine gun did.

They can leapfrog traditional defenses to strike infantry troops anywhere on the battlefield, and they cost just $6,000 apiece compared to $150,000 for the Hellfire missile typically fired by Predator or Reaper drones. That capability could help save the lives of American troops, but it could also put them — and Americans at home — in great danger from terrorists or nation states that haven’t previously had access to such lethal and affordable technology.

“I think this is going to be the new IED,” said Shaan Shaikh, a missile expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s something that we can see that is going to be a problem, and we have some defenses, but not enough.”

Dubbed kamikaze, suicide or killer drones, these unmanned aircraft don’t fire missiles — they are the missiles. But unlike typical missiles, they can circle above a target, wait for the ideal moment, and strike with incredible precision.

The U.S. military could not have fought the way it did in Iraq or Afghanistan if the enemy had killer drones. America’s next battlefield opponent is likely to have them. And terrorists will eventually get them, too — a possibility that has homeland security officials scrambling to find a solution, given that there is no surefire defense against them.

“There are over 100 countries and non-state groups that have drones today, and the technology is widely proliferating,” said Paul Scharre, a former Army Ranger, scholar at the Center for a New American Security and author of “Army of None,” a book about autonomous weapons. “It levels the playing field between the U.S. and terrorist groups or rebel groups, in a way that's certainly not good for the United States.”

Today’s small lethal drones are difficult to detect on radar and can even be programmed to hit a target without human intervention, based on facial recognition or some other computer wizardry. And, while billions of dollars are being spent at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to come up with “counter drone” technology, experts say there is, as yet, no foolproof version of it.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Kamikaze drones: A new weapon brings power and peril to the U.S. military
Part 2

Brought into battle in a backpack
Weighing just five and a half pounds including its small warhead, the Switchblade can be brought into battle in a backpack and can fly up to seven miles to hit a target. The 300 model is designed to kill individuals, while a larger version, the 600, can destroy armored vehicles. AeroVironment is not yet allowed to show the bigger one to the public.

They are called “Switchblade” because their blade-like wings spring out on launch.

“It allows our warfighter to have a battlefield superiority, which our enemies can't see, can't hear, can't tell it's coming, and really precisely achieve a specific mission effect,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment’s Afghan-born CEO.

Nawabi said he’s been told the Taliban and others who have been on the receiving end refer to it as an angry bird or a buzzing bee.

Public procurement data shows that the Switchblade 300 costs a fraction of each Hellfire missile’s price tag, let alone the total cost of keeping Reaper drones in the air, flown by pilots in Nevada.

The Switchblade has a feature that allows the operator to adjust the blast radius, so that it can kill the driver of a vehicle but not the passenger, for example. The weapon can be “waved off,” up to two seconds before impact, AeroVironment says, in the event of a mistake or risk to civilians.

That wave-off capability is notable in light of the catastrophe in September, when the military killed ten civilians, including seven children, in an Afghanistan drone strike in what officials now call a tragic mistake. A Pentagon review found that the strike team was unaware of the presence of children when it decided to fire. Officials told NBC News that a child was observed through a video feed of the target area after the launch, but by then the Hellfire missile could not be recalled.

The Switchblade has cameras attached that show the target seconds before impact. But for a better view of the battlefield it’s often used in conjunction with a small surveillance drone.

For the NBC News demonstration, AeroVironment used the Puma, which is launched by hand like a large model airplane, and provides high resolution, color imagery of the ground. The images beamed back from the Puma’s cameras made clear that an operator could see the expression on the face of his target in the seconds before the Switchblade struck.

Portable drones provide air support to small ground force units even when overhead assets — fighter jets, helicopters, larger drones — aren’t available, Scharre said.

“The ability to have something that's small and tube-launched that's in your backpack that the squad leader has access to that they don't have to get on the radio and call in close air support … that is a real game changer from a military capability standpoint,” he said.

But it’s not just a game-changer for the United States.

The Switchblade may be the most advanced of the genre, but Russia, China, Israel, Iran and Turkey all have some version of a killer drone. Iranian-backed militias have used small drones in ten attacks so far this year on American bases in Iraq, the military says. No U.S. personnel have been hurt or killed, but this is only the beginning.


The tiny nation of Azerbaijan used small Turkish-made drones to devastating effect against the Armenian military last year, bringing a decisive end to a stalemate over a disputed enclave that had gone on for years.

Video released by Azerbaijan shows the drones pummeling artillery, tank and troop emplacements surrounded by trenches that offered no protection whatsoever from the fiery death raining down from above.

Russia and Ukraine have used armed drones in fighting over a disputed region, and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels used them to blow up Saudi oil facilities in 2019.

Drones, Scharre and other experts say, may usher in the largest transformation of ground war tactics since the advent of the machine gun at the turn of the 20th century, which quickly put an end to the practice of large formations of troops marching into gunfire.

Drones “are making the battlefield a much more dangerous place for ground troops,” Scharre said. “Now, hiding behind a wall, hiding in a trench line is not enough to protect you from the enemy.”

U.S. troops in Iraq are now experiencing that danger firsthand. Iranian-backed militias have used small drones in nine separate attacks on American facilities in Iraq this year, a U.S. military spokesman told NBC News. No one has been hurt or killed, but it’s only a matter of time.

A suicide drone attack on an oil tanker linked to an Israeli billionaire killed two crew members off Oman in the Arabian Sea on July 29.

“We have found that every time we come up with some way to defend ourselves against (drones), the technology rapidly advances to the point where it defeats our defensive capabilities,” said Michael Patrick "Mick" Mulroy, a retired Marine and former CIA officer who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019.

Mulroy, an ABC News analyst, said that drone defenses include electronic jamming and various methods to shoot them down, but there are technologies and tactics to bypass every possible defense.

The military, for example, can sometimes shoot high-powered weapons at incoming drones on a battlefield.

Inside populated areas, however, small, explosives-laden unmanned aerial vehicles pose a more vexing problem.

In a war zone, “you could do more things with electronic warfare…with using high powered microwaves that might be very disruptive in a domestic context,” Scharre said. “You could shoot bullets on the sky in a war zone, and you might be less concerned about where they're going land out in the desert than in a major American city.”

Meanwhile, all the barriers put up in cities to keep truck bombs away from buildings are useless against drones.

So far, no terror group is known to have used a suicide drone. But experts believe it’s only a matter of time. ISIS put explosives on hobbyist drones and used them to harass and occasionally injure coalition forces in Iraq and Syria.

The specter of a swarm of explosives-packed drones buzzing toward a crowded American sports arena keeps homeland security officials up at night.

But the U.S. government has been slow to react. It was only in 2018 that Congress granted the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies the authority to take down a drone deemed a threat inside the United States.

Since then, DHS has been contracting with outside firms and testing technologies in an effort to defeat the drone threat.

NBC News asked DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate for an update on the state of domestic counter drone programs, but a spokesman declined to comment.

In a July article on DHS’s web site, the agency discusses some of its counter drone efforts, and notes that tests have been conducted. But the article does not say whether the tests showed that any of the technology works consistently.

In 2018, the then head of DHS’s intelligence division told Congress that drones posed a major threat.

“Commercially available drones can be employed by terrorists and criminals to deliver explosives or harmful substances, conduct surveillance both domestically and internationally against U.S. citizens, interests and assets,” said David Glawe, then a DHS official. “This threat is significant and it's imminent and it's upon us.”

PP

[barkingmad]

"Shackleton’s lost ship Endurance found 107 years after sinking off Antarctica".

Bejaysus, that was one helluva 'Tapestry" exercise whatever 8 AEW Sqn were up to?!

I trust they rotated, not in a contra-rotating mode, the crews and the aircraft but some must have been getting very long in the tooth by the time the sighting was made.

[TheGreenGoblin]

For those who are interested in this kind of thing, I recommend this as reading material ref. the C-135 and the USAF experience...

A Tale of Two Aeroplanes

[TheGreenGoblin]

Kamikaze drones: A new weapon brings power and peril to the U.S. military
Some experts believe the spread of low-cost, light-weight "killer" drones will change ground warfare as profoundly as the machine gun did.

These guys have some cool toys.
I'd like one of each please Santa, and multiples of the explody ones.
PP

The age of the drone swarm coordinated by a network of space based, airborne and ground based reconnaissance assets is almost upon us.



I can think of a good candidate test target in Moscow right now.

Perdix drone

Testing

The first operational test of the militarized Perdix drones was conducted by the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School in September 2014 over Edwards Air Force Base.[9][10][11] The drones were placed in the flare canisters of F-16 Fighting Falcon and deployed to operate at a lower altitude. A year later, in September 2015, 90 Perdix missions were flown over Alaska to test maritime surveillance capabilities.

In October 2016, 103 Perdix drones were dropped from three F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets in a joint effort with the US Naval Air Systems Command over their base at China Lake, California.As with earlier tests, the drones were packed into flare canisters for the jets to eject.[14][15][16] The test was a success and elicited significant media coverage when announced on 9 January 2017.

These tests conclude that the drones can be safely launched at a speed of Mach 0.6 and in temperatures as low as −10 °C (14 °F).

Photographers shooting a feature of the drones for CBS television program 60 Minutes reportedly almost abandoned attempts to film the drones as their size and speed made getting a focussed image difficult.

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/us- ... ts-109900/

[TheGreenGoblin]

Death on a tight budget...

Drones on the horizon

The US military has since released details of the drone swarm in the form of a video. The clip showed testing of 103 Perdix drones released from three F/A-18 Super Hornets. Once deployed, the Pedrix drones display their decision-making skills and ability to fly together to reach certain waypoints. The drones are contained in the fighter jets’ flare dispensers and released at speeds of Mach 0.6.

“Collective organism”

William Roper of the Department of Defense’s SCO explained how autonomous the drones are,

PERDIX ARE NOT PRE-PROGRAMMED SYNCHRONIZED INDIVIDUALS, THEY ARE A COLLECTIVE ORGANISM, SHARING ONE DISTRIBUTED BRAIN FOR DECISION-MAKING AND ADAPTING TO EACH OTHER LIKE SWARMS IN NATURE. BECAUSE EVERY PERDIX COMMUNICATES AND COLLABORATES WITH EVERY OTHER PERDIX, THE SWARM HAS NO LEADER AND CAN GRACEFULLY ADAPT TO DRONES ENTERING OR EXITING THE TEAM.

In the video released by the US navy, the drones can be seen navigating to a selected waypoint as a swarm. As Roper explains, this is not a pre-planned mission and the drones have special sensors to mitigate colliding into one another. Perdix will be given a mission and collectively decide the best way of executing it before attempting a soft landing. The Department of Defense has not disclosed the planned use of the drones, but the potential for the aircraft is clear. The drones could be used to jam enemy radar and for surveillance.

Neural net computing and AI is truly coming of age.

Although neural nets can also be used to defeat drone swarms too...

https://radionavlab.ae.utexas.edu/image ... %20process.

Science fiction? This fictional scenario highlights many key points, not least the moral questions, relevant to the swarm.



https://autonomousweapons.org/

[Boac]

"Angel has fallen", 2019 film about a drone swarm attack on a POTUS.

[TheGreenGoblin]

"Angel has fallen", 2019 film about a drone swarm attack on a POTUS.

Do you recommend the film? I was wondering whether it might be worth watching on Netflix tonight.

[Boac]

Kind of 'second rate', but a good visualisation of the threat.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Kind of 'second rate', but a good visualisation of the threat.

You have piqued my interest. I shall watch it. Thank you.

[Undried Plum]

In that vid the slaughterbots originate in Edinburgh.

For the price of a bottla Buckfast there are Neds in Embra who will chib anyone you ask them to.

[Karearea]

Perdix = Partridge.

Do those devices hunt in coveys?

[TheGreenGoblin]

In that vid the slaughterbots originate in Edinburgh.

For the price of a bottla Buckfast there are Neds in Embra who will chib anyone you ask them to.

May the monks of Buckfast Abbey beseech the Good Lord for forgiveness for allowing the warring, blood crazed Scottish clans on the Firth of Forth, to drunkenly slaughter each other, while pished on their sugary tipple!

Returning to the Eye in the Sky, my copy of "The History of Big Safari" by Colonel Bill Grimes has just arrived!




Listen to the sound of that baby... Pratt & Whitney J57's water injected...