Another article that I found on drones (this one is from June 2012) being used by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). I did search SoTT and couldn't locate this article there. What I find interesting is the article blatantly states the drones are ultimately owned by Israel via a Canadian company.
_http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-08/australias-drone-war-in-afghanistan/4058058
This is just so so sad.
_http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-08/australias-drone-war-in-afghanistan/4058058
The kill chain: Australia's drone war
Updated Wed 27 Jun 2012, 8:23am AEST
VIDEO: The ABC's Mark Corcoran discusses Australia's use of Israeli-owned drones in Afghanistan. (ABC News)
"The capability? It’s like crack cocaine, a drug, for our guys involved."
Wing Commander Jonathan McMullan, RAAF Heron drone commander - Afghanistan
A senior Australian Defence Force officer has revealed details of how the Royal Australian Air Force deploys Israeli-owned drones for battlefield surveillance and to target anti-government Islamic fighters in Afghanistan.
Wing Commander Jonathan McMullan says Australia is "just buying hours" on the Heron drones from a Canadian company that in turn "leases them from IAI" (Israel Aerospace Industries), which is wholly owned by the Israeli government.
While enthusiastically endorsing the Heron's capabilities, Wing Commander McMullan was highly critical of the quality of training provided by Israeli and Canadian instructors to Australian drone crews.
The unarmed Israeli Herons first entered RAAF service in Afghanistan in December 2009.
They are the centrepiece of the ADF's rapidly expanding drone warfare capability that has so far cost an estimated $550 million.
Australian Defence Force chief General David Hurley told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra late last month: "I wouldn't discount the fact that we might have armed UAVs thinking through our force structure review into the future."
In this report, Foreign Correspondent's Mark Corcoran goes behind the scenes of Australia's drone war.
'Saving Australian lives'
The Royal Pines Golf Resort on the Gold Coast is a long way from Afghanistan.
But it was there recently, at the Heli and UV Pacific aviation convention, that Australia's top military drone commanders launched an extraordinary public relations offensive.
In one sense they were preaching to the converted; this gathering of aviation industry insiders was fascinated by the technology but displayed no interest in discussing the political or ethical considerations of this rapidly expanding form of warfare. {}
Beyond the gleaming display helicopters parked on manicured lawns, and inside a packed auditorium, Wing Commander Jonathan McMullan took to the stage.
He'd returned just days earlier from deployment to Kandahar in Afghanistan and was exuberant about the drone force he commanded, the Royal Australian Air Force's 5 Flight. This technology, he proclaimed, was saving Australian lives {at the expense of innocent civilians or what the west label as terrorists}and was now enthusiastically embraced by the troops on the ground.
"The capability? It's like crack cocaine, a drug, for our guys involved - just can't get enough of it," Wing Commander McMullan said.{interesting that he draws comparisons to drugs}
So far none of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) employed by Australian forces carry weaponry, unlike the Reaper and Predator hunter-killer drones deployed by the United States.
However, military sources have told Foreign Correspondent that armed US drones have conducted strike missions at the direction of Australian special forces troops.
Australian Defence Force chief General David Hurley told a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra late last month that: "I wouldn't discount the fact that we might have armed UAVs thinking through our force structure review into the future."
Flight of the Heron
VIDEO: Watch Israeli-operated Heron drones in action in this YouTube video
The RAAF Heron drones are based at the sprawling Kandahar military complex in southern Afghanistan. The base's single runway is the busiest in the world, with a take-off or landing every 90 seconds. So when a RAAF Heron slowly rolls out for take-off every morning at 3am, Wing Commander McMullan says it is "a massive pain in everyone's arse".
But once airborne the ungainly Heron, weighing 1.1 tonnes with a 16.6-metre wing span, comes into its own.
The Heron carries no weapons, holding instead a sophisticated payload of sensors and cameras. It can stay airborne for up to 24 hours, soaring to a height of 27,000 feet.
RAAF Herons range far and wide across Afghanistan, supporting not just Australian troops, but all Coalition forces.
Insurgents push out (communicate) from mountain top to mountain top. We exploit that. Our mission is to locate these people so they can be removed.
Wing Commander Jonathan McMullan
"We go from one customer to another until we run out of fuel," Wing Commander McMullan said.
Since first being deployed to Afghanistan in December 2009, RAAF Herons have flown 10,000 hours. Wing Commander McMullan claims the Heron's automatic take-off and landing system makes it much safer than American Predators and Reapers, which he says have notoriously difficult manual controls and suffer a high crash rate.
"The majority of Predators and Reapers are lost on landing. They lost three during my last time there," he revealed.
But the Heron isn't always graceful. Wing Commander McMullan conceded there had been "some crashes". In 2010, Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported that Defence had covered up two Heron accidents.
Military aviators never use the "drone" word. The RAAF prefers remotely piloted aircraft system, or RPA.
"People want to hear the word 'pilot' in there," Wing Commander McMullan insisted. {blatant public perception management}
No military UAV presentation is complete without a sample of what's nicknamed "Kill TV" by the Australians, or "Predator porn" by Americans.
Conference delegates watched a brief video clip of what appeared to be an Afghan villager riding a bike down a dirt road - and falling off. Laughter in auditorium. Video ends.
This was the PG version. There were no excerpts of the lightning-fast missile strikes, the dramatic bursts of light, the chaos and carnage that gives "Kill TV" and "Predator porn" its apt names.
Operators spend hundreds of hours watching banks of TV monitors, as drone cameras record ordinary Afghans struggling to get on with their daily lives in appalling circumstances.
"We may spend five or 10 days over a village 24/7 so our war fighters can decide the best time to visit the village. Observing 'pattern of life' is about 50 per cent of our work." Wing Commander McMullan said.
Drones at sea
The Royal Australian Navy is also planning for drone warfare. Lieutenant Commander Bob Ferry, who runs the Navy's UAV development unit, told the Gold Coast conference the Navy will soon start 300 hours of trials with small ex-Army Scan Eagle drones.
In June 2013 the Navy will also test fly a sophisticated Austrian Schiebel helicopter drone.
UAV analyst Peter La Franchi says this is just the start.
"Four Navy frigates have already been converted to support Scan Eagle launch and recovery operations. Eventually all Australian warships will have a UAV capability," he noted.
High on the Heron target list are insurgent spotters, who observe Australian troop movements and coordinate ambushes and the laying of roadside bombs.
"Afghanistan's mobile phone system is crap. I've never had a call longer than one minute before it dropping out. This forces insurgents to use hand-held digital radios," Wing Commander McMullan said.
Telltale digital signals from their radio chatter put the spotters firmly in the crosshairs of prowling Herons.
"Insurgents push out (communicate) from mountain top to mountain top. We exploit that. Our mission is to locate these people so they can be removed," Wing Commander McMullan said.
"The Heron is very good at removing these spotters."
Once located, a decision is taken to "kill or capture". {given the power and the ponerized military, I'm guessing its more often kill rather than capture}Military officers say special forces troops can be sent in to detain the spotter, or the insurgent can be marked with the Heron's laser and seconds later obliterated by a laser-guided bomb lobbed from a distant aircraft, or killed by a precision artillery shell fired from up to 30 kilometres away.
Australia has so far spent $230 million operating Heron drones.
This is just so so sad.
