Today's excerpt from "The Interceptors Club & the Secret of the Black Manta.

D.I.A. agent Scarlet had driven through the night and arrived at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque just before dawn.

He easily could have ordered a military jet at Holloman to fly him to Kirtland, to do that he would have to reveal who he was on a base where Pepper may have compromised security.

Although he was dead-tired from lack of sleep, Scarlet had little time for even the quickest of catnaps because a host of Pentagon brass was waiting in the base commander’s office to be briefed about the theft of Excalibur.

During the drive to Kirtland, the military machine had been put into motion and a strike team consisting of Special Forces operatives and Federal Agents had been hastily assembled and at that moment were winging their way to the staging area at Cannon Air Force Base located in far eastern New Mexico.

There they would await instructions on how to proceed.

After his meeting with the Pentagon staff, and updating them on where things stood, Scarlet requested an immediate intelligence-gathering mission over the operations area. The Pentagon chiefs agreed and an order went out that Distant Star be dispatched at once.

A mission order was immediately sent to the commanding officer of Detachment 4, based at the super-secret Groom Lake Test Flight Center at Area 51 where a Distant Star UAV was always standing by, ready to fly.

Exactly forty-five minutes later, Distant Star launched and began winging it’s way towards Holloman.

It was ironic that Distant Star was the intelligence platform of choice for it was born in the same secret enclave as Excalibur, the Lockheed Skunkworks.

In fact, Distant Star and Excalibur were directly related to each other. Both extremely stealthy, both unmanned and both first built and test flown out of Area 51.

The two aircraft even shared the same computer systems, composite materials and some avionics, but there were major differences in their missions.

Where Excalibur was conceived as being the ultimate autonomous attack aircraft, Distant Star was designed to never carry a bomb. Distant Star was a sky-spy whereas Excalibur was a warrior.

They also looked quite different. Excalibur was sleek and looked fast even on the ground, but Distant Star could only be described as looking ungainly, an albatross of an aircraft with very long drooping wings connected to a body more reminiscent of a submarine than an aircraft.

But what Distant Star lacked in good looks, it more than made up for in performance.

Distant Star was the ultimate intelligence tool, a flying ELINT gathering sponge, able to intercept even the weakest electronic emission, process it and send the data back via satellite to a command center for analysis.

It was Distant Star that helped locate deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, intercepting a very weak cordless phone call from an aid charged with keeping him safe. Although Distant Star couldn’t pinpoint his exact location, it did know the general area he was hiding in which made it possible to dispatch Task Force 121 close to where the intercepted signal was detected.

Two days after the intercept, and acting on tip from a source code-named “FAT MAN”, Task Force 121 was close at hand and in position when it was revealed that Saddam was hiding inside an orange-picker’s house just outside of ad Dawr located near the Tigris River.

Since Saddam rarely spent more than a few nights in any one hideout, Distant Star’s intercept made it possible to preposition troops in the suspected area, ready at a moments notice to pounce - and pounce they did, finding the once absolute ruler of Iraq hiding in a “spider hole.”

Distant Star flew higher than most aircraft, above 100,000 feet and could loiter for days over an area of interest, unnoticed even by Holloman’s air traffic controllers because it was so invisible on radar.

Computer networks, cellular and satellite telephone systems and even encrypted radio communications were all vulnerable to interception by Distant Star.

On board artificially brilliant cryptanalysis computers could crack even the most sophisticated ciphers and expose their secrets.

But Distant Star was not just a passive intelligence gathering aircraft. Using powerful transmitters and an advanced Artificial Intelligence suite, it could invade and compromise computer networks, especially those attached to wireless networks.

By planting logic bombs, viruses and smart programs the computers used by the enemy could be rendered useless or come under the direct control of Distant Star or its controllers.

It was then quite ironic that a flying electronic eavesdropping aircraft would be deployed to keep tabs on the Interceptors.


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Six die in Pakistan drone strike

Six people have died in a US missile strike targeting militants in Pakistan's tribal district on the Afghan border, security officials say.

The raid took place in Dande Darpakhel village, 5km (3 miles) north-west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.

Officials said all the dead were with the Haqqani network, a branch of the Afghan Taliban operating in Pakistan.

It is the fourth suspected US drone attack in the region this month.

Witnesses told the BBC three aircraft were involved in the raid.

One of the unmanned planes fired two missiles at the compound, they said.

Last Friday, eight people died in two drone strikes in this tribal region.

US troops called in as Iraqi army base attacked

BBC NEWS:

US troops have been called in to help Iraqi forces battle insurgents who attacked an army base in Baghdad, killing 12 people, officials say.

It marks the first such use of US troops since the end of US combat operations five days ago.

US forces remaining in Iraq can now only participate in operations at the request of Iraqi authorities.

A US military spokesman said US forces had provided fired as Iraqis located two of the assailants inside the base.

The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says reports from the scene are still confused, but piecing together events from different sources, the attack seems to have involved at least five bombers.

He says one of the bombers detonated his explosives at an outer checkpoint leading to the Rusafa military command headquarters, blowing up a mini-van.

Then, four men - some wearing suicide vests - ran towards the base. Two were reportedly shot dead before they could pass a second checkpoint.

An Iraqi officer at the scene told the BBC that two further bombers got into the base, taking refuge inside the building, and attacking security forces with hand grenades.

The same officer said that US forces were called in to help, and exchanged gunfire with the attackers before Iraqi security forces stormed the building, killing the bombers.

US military spokesman Lt Col Eric Bloom said the Iraqi military had also requested help from helicopters, drones and explosives experts.

More than 20 people were wounded in the incident.

The attack is the deadliest in Baghdad since the US formally ended combat operations last month.

The same compound was attacked by al-Qaeda in Iraq three weeks ago, when more than 50 recruits were killed.

Reaper crashes during test flight

An MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft crashed Tuesday about one mile north of El Mirage Airfield, Calif., the service said Wednesday.

The 36-foot-long plane came down in a “sparsely populated” area and no one was injured on the ground, an Air Force release said. A board of officers is investigating what led the accident.

The Reaper had been flying a test mission after taking off from Gray Butte Airfield, about five miles east of El Mirage. Both airfields are about 15 miles south of Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The aircraft was assigned to the Aeronautical Systems Center headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Since the service began flying MQ-9s in 2004, at least eight of the planes have crashed, according to the Air Force Safety Center. The planes, equipped with sensors, cost about $13 million each. Most of the 50 Reapers not required for stateside training or testing are deployed to fly missions over Afghanistan and Iraq.

You say you want an evolution ...

Pentagon Bomber Evolution Underway


Sep 2, 2010
By Bill Sweetman
Washington

The latest analysis of future long-range strike needs by the Pentagon will be submitted in time for its recommendations to be reflected in the Fiscal 2012 budget.

Few people, least of all advocates of an active, nonvintage bomber fleet, expect exciting news. Service-centric politics, a joint-service construct under which ground forces heavily influence the study and pressure on procurement budgets (from overruns in the Joint Strike Fighter program) will result in modest recommendations.

The most likely include the endorsement of a long-range, nonnuclear ballistic missile capability, although the time scale and budget remain uncertain. The conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) concept is a favorite of Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Expect some backing but little money for two other concepts: a joint-service, long-range cruise missile, launched from Virginia-class submarines and B-52s, and the Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV-N), which may be termed a means of extending the range of a carrier air group. Both systems may be linked to another joint-service study defining a future “air-sea battle” and focused on matching China’s growing power in the Western Pacific.

As for a future USAF bomber, conventional wisdom—i.e., views acceptable to Cartwright and Defense Secretary Robert Gates—is that the idea merits study, over and above several dozen studies carried out in the past decade. In June, Lt. Gen. Philip Breedlove, Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements, was quoted as saying the word “bomber” can no longer be spoken in the Pentagon and requirements “trickling down from the highest levels” call for a much smaller aircraft. Some sources believe Cartwright is pushing the idea of a USAF variant of UCAV-N.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and Secretary Michael Donley have not taken up the cause of a new bomber. The only four-star to support the bomber has been Strategic Command leader Gen. Kevin Chilton.

With little high-level support, bomber advocates are doing what they have done before: changing the name to “reconnaissance-strike.” Lt. Gen. David Deptula, in his last press briefing before retirement, reiterated his view that intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and attack missions are no longer separate. A penetrating ISR platform that cannot be armed makes little sense.

Industry and service studies of a new ISR and strike platform appear to be converging, driven by technological developments, likely operational requirements and fiscal realism.

Technologically, one factor that has arisen in the past few years is the successful demonstration of extremely low-observable (ELO) technology, with wideband, all-aspect signature reductions of -40 to -50 dB. or more, under one or more covert test programs. One step in this process may have been Boeing’s Bird of Prey demonstrator, with a radar cross section (RCS) so small that visual signatures became dominant. A consultant on that project was stealth pioneer Denys Overholser, who has been involved with projects envisioning RCS levels to -70 dB.—the size of a mosquito.

ELO mandates an all-wing or blended-wing body and tailless, subsonic configuration with buried engines. Advances in the computational analysis of the complicated airflows over such shapes improve aerodynamic efficiency and permit simpler inlet and exhaust systems, putting unrefueled ranges of 5,000 nm. within reach for a “demi-B-2”-sized aircraft.

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