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| Afghanistan |
| Newest manned spy plane scores points in war effort |
| 2010-06-02 |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #8 Same airframe, different sensor packages. Army flies Guardrail, USAF flies this one. Army prefers Guardrail because they own it. USAF can be unresponsive. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2010-06-02 23:01 |
| #7 It's a basic King Air (C-12) platform. Very, very necessary mission. Sadly, Gates has pulled the USAF into the IED/VBIED fight kicking and screaming. They neither wanted the mission or intend to keep it post-Gates. Not enough money, not sexy enough..... even though this effort and others like it save soldier lives every day. 2008 Firings (YES firings!) which I suspect were directly related to this issue: Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael W. Wynne resigned over the department's concern over two incidents, including the August flight of a B-52 bomber that flew across the country with nuclear weapons. "Focus of the Air Force leadership has drifted" in terms of handling nuclear weapons and equipment, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-06-02 16:13 |
| #6 Basic airframe is the same, mission equipment is different and it has greater capability, both image, and sigent. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2010-06-02 15:49 |
| #5 How does this differ from Guardrail? As far as I can tell, the electronics package is different; guardrail in primarily ELINT, while this one has a broader spectrum upon which to work. The basic airframe is one that the military has had in use for many years. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2010-06-02 14:18 |
| #4 How does this differ from Guardrail? |
| Posted by: No I am The Other Beldar 2010-06-02 11:33 |
| #3 hmmm...isn't this simply an upgrade of the platform and methodology used in Columbia against the cartels and FARC? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-06-02 09:55 |
| #2 Good to see that those in Provisioning have finally learnt that the Perfect (and Expensive and Late) is the enemy of the good enough. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2010-06-02 09:44 |
| #1 This is an L3 program. The aircraft are rather impressive. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2010-06-02 09:43 |