“Actually this is pretty straight up program. Works like a flight simulator. If we had decent joystick and a transmitter we could fly her.” Sami said.
“Wait. Try this.” Freaks said handing Sami a cheap plastic gaming joystick.
“I have a better one at the house.” Sami said. “It has full throttle controls and foot pedals.”
“Just see if these will work.” Freaks said.
“Okay. I’ll put it in simulation mode only.” Sami said.
“I’m guessing the simulation mode is used for mission planning?” Caysi asked.
“Yes. You can fly her in manual mode like a pilot or just enter in GPS way-points to a target.”
The Interceptors sat in the dark staring at the screen on Static’s home computer. Just in case, they had drawn all the blinds and curtains lest someone see them exploring a Top Secret military computer program.
Caysi was busy reading pages from the flight manual they had just printed out. It was huge, over 500 pages and took seven ink cartridges and over two hours to print.
Each time they ran out of ink, Static sent Meinrad to the computer store with some of Pepper’s cash.
The cover of the manual bore an ominous looking label: TOP SCERET/ SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED, THE CONTENTS OF THIS FILE IS RESTRICTED TO CLEARED PERSONNEL. ----------------------------------------------------------
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Despite U.S. Special Operations Command's push to replace its decades-old aircraft fleet with new versions of old designs, clandestine operations likely will require a new airframe to perform covert infiltrations in the face of 21st century air defenses.
To this end, top special operations officials are starting to flesh out what such a craft will look like. While the current fleet of special ops airframes is derived from venerable troop transport planes and helicopters designed in the mid- to late 20th century, such as the C-130 Hercules and CH-47 Chinook, a custom-designed aircraft built for delivering troops on clandestine missions may become necessary, said Michael Vickers, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said earlier this year.
The reason, he said, is the rise in advanced air defense systems being developed and sold by Russia and China to nations throughout the world. These systems are capable of defeating all but the latest in stealth technology.
The Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) emphasized expanding the number of special operations ground troops, and the 2010 QDR called for a corresponding buildup in special ops airlifters. However, the 2006 document only focused on replacing the decades-old MC-130E and P fleet of airlifters with the new J-model MC-130 to fly under enemy radar and deliver special operations troops to clandestine location.
While these planes feature terrain-following radar and advanced countermeasures, they have a fundamentally unstealthy design dating to the 1950s. The Pentagon will likely look "pretty hard" at this issue in the 2014 QDR, according to Vickers, who acknowledged that such an aircraft would be expensive.
One expert, however, said the command will have a difficult time securing the massive funding needed to develop a special ops-specific stealth airlifter.
SOCOM "is purchasing smaller aircraft to fly low and stealthy, and unless they get a whole lot of development cash for an all-new airplane, that's probably the way to go," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with Teal Group, Fairfax, Va. "In terms of actually buying some super-secret, penetrating, stealth transport, that's where the budget just runs out."
The command historically has relied on existing technology, both military and civilian, and investing in high-tech modifications to customize it for demanding missions, rather than pouring millions or billions of dollars into developing special ops-specific aircraft.
SOCOM has "never been able to fund their own SOCOM-specific airplane," Aboulafia said. "The idea of starting with something that would be extremely expensive to develop, that's unlikely."
Aboulafia pointed out that in the past few years, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), the U.S. Air Force's contribution to SOCOM, has begun investing heavily in small single- and twin-engine planes, sometimes painted in civilian livery such as the Pilatus PC-12. These aircraft are being purchased to deliver special operations troops around the world without drawing the attention that the four-engine C-130 would garner.
In many cases, these aircraft, some of which are based on old Soviet designs such as the Polish-built M28 Skytruck, can be parked on foreign airport ramps without giving away the U.S. presence, according to AFSOC officials. The command has even contemplated buying twin-engine deHavilland Canada Dash-8 turboprops to haul troops around the world.
The Dash-8 style aircraft could be used to transport special ops troops and gear to a main staging area in far-off regions, while the smaller planes could fly the troops on missions into primitive airstrips or through sensitive airspace under what AFSOC officials have described as a hub-and-spoke system.
Using such small aircraft while developing more advanced tactics to evade radars will likely be the key to overcoming enemy defenses while slipping special operations troops into unfriendly countries.
"In the littoral area, that's why we have SEAL delivery systems; inland, well, you'll just have to find ways to fly below the radar or between gaps in coverage," the analyst said.
One possible alternative would be for the command to partner with the Air Force to develop a new generation of stealthy transport aircraft, similar to the way it did with the V-22 Osprey, used by the U.S. Marine Corps and AFSOC, Aboulafia suggested.
Still, "I'm not so sure why the Air Force would pay for that," he added. ■
Intrigue over Gary Faulkner’s one-man hunt for Osama bin Laden has sparked both outrage and praise on the internet and blogosphere.
Pakistani authorities announced this week that they had picked up the 50-year-old Colorado man near the border with Afghanistan. Armed with a pistol, sword, night-vision equipment and Christian literature, Faulkner told police that he had been hunting bin Laden since the September, 11, 2001 attacks.
Some have dismissed him as mentally unstable, which his brother, a physician, has denied.
But others have lauded his attempt to do what the U.S. government has failed to do for nearly a decade: find the head of al Qaeda, which carried out the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Faulkner’s exploits have inspired a slew of nicknames on Twitter and Facebook, including Rambo, American Ninja and the new Chuck Norris.
He’s even been turned into an animated character on YouTube.
A Twitter post suggested Faulkner should face off against another daunting foe: the BP oil spill.
“Ask #GaryFaulkner to swim to the sea floor and plug the hole with his fist,” @HerbCarmen posted.
Faulkner’s family is taking it all in stride.
“I do like American ninja, that is pretty cool,” Scott Faulkner said
He said he believed his brother’s mission has tapped into an element of American society.
“It’s true Americana. We all fall in love with Chuck Norris, we fall in love with Clint Eastwood, We fall in love with John Wayne,” Scott Faulkner said. “Why? Because they fight for the American way. They find the bad guy, they may get roughed up a little bit, knocked in the dirt but at the end of the day they come out on top.”
But not all of the internet chatter has been favorable. “Looney Christian warrior” pops up a lot. Scott Faulkner admits his brother’s plan is not something he would attempt, but he insists that Gary is perfectly sane.
“Having known Gary for 43 years I can honestly say he’s not a sociopath, he’s not psychotic, he’s not crazy. He hasn’t harmed anyone.” Faulkner said. “He is an American hero.”
He predicts that Gary will enjoy the media attention when he returns to the United States and suggests who should play the lead role if his brother’s his story ever becomes a movie:
“Jackie Chan with a wig,” Faulkner said. “He’s got the sense of humor and the physical ability.”
Post by: CNN All Platform Journalist Jim Spellman Filed under: Pakistan • Terrorism
SEOUL - South Korea aims to have two new, advanced signals-intelligence aircraft flying near North Korea by 2014, procurement and industry sources say.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) will release a request for proposals next month to local and foreign manufacturers, and intends to pick final bidders by year's end.
LIG Nex1 and Samsung Thales, the two rival precision electronics companies in South Korea, will bid to supply communication, electronic and foreign instrumentation signals intelligence systems.
U.S. company Gulfstream Aerospace and Canada's Bombardier will compete to make the airframes.
Korea Aerospace Industries, South Korea's only aircraft maker, and the national flag-carrier Korean Air will bid to perform the systems integration.
"The project is designed to further improve the nation's ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] capability against North Korea," one source said. "The new airplanes will have more advanced signal and communications intelligence equipment than those for existing Baekdu reconnaissance aircraft."
The Republic of Korea Air Force currently flies four Raytheon Hawker 800XP aircraft, code-named Baekdu. The service also operates four Geumgangs, 800XPs that collect imagery with synthetic aperture and moving target indicator radars.
Seoul is beefing up various military capabilities as it prepares to assume wartime operational control from the United States in 2012. It has moved more quickly since March, when a South Korean Navy corvette, the Cheonan, was sunk off the disputed sea border with the North, allegedly by a North Korean midget submarine.
ISR Showcase
The plans for a new aircraft emerged during a June 8-10 demonstration by eight South Korean companies and the state-funded Agency for Defense Development (ADD) of ISR-related systems and concept models, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Intelligence Chiefs Conference here. Among the exhibits:
n ADD displayed a model of the Tactical EO/IR Reconnaissance System, which will be loaded onto KF-16 fighter jets, turning them into RF-16s that will replace RF-4/5 aircraft in coming years.
The ground station and mission control system would allow various functions for imagery interpretation, a three-dimensional display and exploitation, and interface with the Air Force's C4I system.
n LIG Nex1 promoted its Harbor Underwater Surveillance System (HUSS). Developed with ADD, the HUSS includes an underwater moored passive line array to target ships, submarines and semi-submerged vehicles outside the harbor; magnetic/acoustic sensors to spot ships, semi-submersibles and swim-mer delivery vehicles in the approaches, and active sonar to find swimmer delivery vehicles and combat swimmers in the harbor itself.
The South Korean Navy plans to deploy five HUSSes at ports on the Yellow Sea, on the western coast.
n Hanwha showed its Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV). Under development with the ADD, the 26-kilogram reconnaissance vehicle would enter the danger zone of urban terrain, tunnels, sewers and caves, and conduct ISR missions in day or night, said Hwang Hee-chul, general manager and principal research engineer at Hanwha.
The SUGV carries a K-7 9mm submachine gun and travels at up to 9 kilometers per hour.
n Hanwha also displayed the CROW micro UAV. Meant for company- and platoon-level infantry units, the 500-gram aircraft has a wingspan of just 70 centimeters and a length of 50 centimeters. It has a an operational altitude of 100 to 500 meters and a top speed of 90 kilometers per hour.
The aircraft is launched by hand and lands by parachute.
Japanese space probe recovered in Australia By TANALEE SMITH (AP) – 2 hours ago ADELAIDE, Australia — A team of scientists flew to the Australian Outback on Monday and recovered a Japanese space capsule that they hope contains asteroid samples providing clues into the evolution of the solar system.
The Hayabusa explorer returned to Earth overnight after a seven-year, 4-billion mile (6-billion kilometer) journey, burning apart on re-entry in a spectacular fireball just after jettisoning the capsule. It was the first time a spacecraft successfully landed on an asteroid and returned to Earth. Seiichi Sakamoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which launched the explorer in 2003, said they were "delighted" to recover the capsule, particularly after a number of technical problems delayed Hayabusa's arrival for three years. "It was an extremely difficult technological challenge, and we did everything to overcome the troubles one by one," he said. "This is an achievement we could make simply because we never gave up hope."
On Monday, two helicopters took scientists to the capsule's landing site in the Woomera Prohibited Area, a remote military zone 300 miles (485 kilometers) northwest of the South Australian state capital of Adelaide.
The capsule was airlifted late Monday afternoon to the town of Woomera, where it would be prepared over several days for air freighting to Japan, NASA scientist Scott Sandford said by telephone from the scientists' base in Woomera. Sandford said he had not seen the capsule but that photographs indicated it had made a soft desert landing.
The capsule will return to Japan before scientists discover whether it carries any asteroid dust in its sample canister. "It'll be some time before we know if we've got sample, and if so, how much — I don't think we can assume anything," Sandford said. Sandford said it was a relief to watch the re-entry and see the capsule successfully detach and parachute to Earth.
"During a mission critical event like a re-entry, there's a whole series of things you've got to get right to make it work, and they all seemed to have come off without a hitch," said Sandford. "It's a great testament to the design and operation of the spacecraft." Hayabusa reached an asteroid called Itokawa in 2005. After taking photo images from all angles of the 1,640-foot (500-meter) -long asteroid, Hayabusa landed on it twice in late 2005.
The craft was designed to shoot a bullet into the surface of the asteroid that would crush and propel material through a long tube into a sample collection container. There is no certainty the bullet actually fired, scientists say, but they believe the impact of the tube's landing would have forced some material upward and into the collection chamber. "We have perhaps a 50 percent chance" of retrieving samples, Sakamoto said.
The Japanese space agency said the aim of the $200 million project was to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system, as well as paving the way for future sample return missions. Sakamoto said any samples from an asteroid, considered the building blocks of planets, could also shed light on the origins of the Earth.
Scientists hope to study how and when the asteroid was formed, its physical properties, what other bodies it may have been in contact with, and how solar wind and radiation have affected it. Hayabusa was originally due to return to Earth in 2007 but a series of technical glitches — including a deterioration of its ion engines, broken control wheels, and the malfunctioning of electricity-storing batteries — forced it to miss its window to maneuver into the Earth's orbit until this year.
If Hayabusa is indeed carrying asteroid samples, it would be only the fourth space sample return in history — including moon matter collected by the Apollo missions, comet material by Stardust, and solar matter from the Genesis mission.
Preliminary analysis of the samples will be carried out by the team of Japanese, American and Australian scientists in Japan. After one year, scientists around the world can apply for access to the asteroid material for research.
Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.
