The Drone Zone
Penned By MARK MAZZETTI
Holloman Air Force Base, at the eastern edge of New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, 200 miles south of Albuquerque, was once famous for the daredevil maneuvers of those who trained there. In 1954, Col. John Paul Stapp rode a rocket-propelled sled across the desert, reaching 632 miles per hour, in an attempt to figure out the maximum speed at which jet pilots could safely eject. He slammed on the brakes and was thrust forward with such force that he had to be hauled away on a stretcher, his eyes bleeding from burst capillaries. Six years later, Capt. Joseph Kittinger Jr., testing the height at which pilots could safely bail out, rode a helium-powered balloon up to 102,800 feet. He muttered, “Lord, take care of me now,” dropped for 13 minutes 45 seconds and broke the record for the highest parachute jump.
Today many of the pilots at Holloman never get off the ground. The base has been converted into the U.S. Air Force’s primary training center for droneoperators, where pilots spend their days in sand-colored trailers near a runway from which their planes take off without them. Inside each trailer, a pilot flies his plane from a padded chair, using a joystick and throttle, as his partner, the “sensor operator,” focuses on the grainy images moving across a video screen, directing missiles to their targets with a laser.
Holloman sits on almost 60,000 acres of desert badlands, near jagged hills that are frosted with snow for several months of the year — a perfect training ground for pilots who will fly Predators and Reapers over the similarly hostile terrain of Afghanistan. When I visited the base earlier this year with a small group of reporters, we were taken into a command post where a large flat-screen television was broadcasting a video feed from a drone flying overhead. It took a few seconds to figure out exactly what we were looking at. A white S.U.V. traveling along a highway adjacent to the base came into the cross hairs in the center of the screen and was tracked as it headed south along the desert road. When the S.U.V. drove out of the picture, the drone began following another car.
“Wait, you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?” a reporter asked. One Air Force officer responded that this was only a training mission, and then the group was quickly hustled out of the room.
Though the Pentagon is increasing its fleet of drones by 30 percent and military leaders estimate that, within a year or so, the number of Air Force pilots flying unmanned planes could be higher than the number who actually leave the ground, much about how and where the U.S. government operates drones remains a secret. Even the pilots we interviewed wore black tape over their nametags. The Air Force, citing concerns for the pilots’ safety, forbids them to reveal their last names.
It is widely known that the United States has three different drone programs. The first is the publicly acknowledged program run by the Pentagon that has been operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other two are classified programs run separately by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which maintain separate lists of people targeted for killing.
Over the years, details have trickled out about lethal drone operations in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and elsewhere. But the drone war has been even more extensive. According to three current and former intelligence officials I spoke to, in 2006, a barrage of Hellfire missiles from a Predator hit a suspected militant camp in the jungles of the Philippines, in an attempt to kill the Indonesian terrorist Umar Patek. The strike, which was reported at the time as a “Philippine military operation,” missed Patek but killed others at the camp.
The increased use of drones in warfare has led the Air Force to re-engineer its training program for drone pilots. Trainees are now sent to Holloman just months after they join the military, instead of first undergoing traditional pilot training as they did in the past. The Air Force can now produce certified Predator and Reaper pilots in less than two years.
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Replies
We moved to right near Tinker Air Force Base in 1996. They had a huge sign on the interstate that said
the AWACS planes, flying over head, had their "eye" on any of us driving on the interstate.
So beside drones we have had many military and probably civilian groups, "watching" over us.
I am sorry we do not have the many pilots and crews we use to have but as we move along in
this so called progressive world more things are invented and are and will be used that take away our privacy daily.
Jo D.
The primary pain, loss of privacy America experiences today is the impact butchering ragheads have inflicted on us, and the absolute cowardly responses American leaders have offered. All it would take is making a mirror of one Islamic country...we could return to boarding airplanes directly from the ticket counter to the planes, enter our court houses without being scanned, visit the United States Capitol without embarrassing security....in short return to some semblance of freedom.
Make "a mirror of one Islamic country". Amen, Harry, Amen!
You mean like TURN IT INTO GLASS????? YES!!!!! And then put Big Brother to bed with them!
I am beginning to agree with a post I read that said we need a divorce on this continent, due to irreconcilable differences. There's a North Korea and a South Korea why not a separate and conservative country following the founding documents and our founding fathers. Then a limited and separate central gov. could be instituted for those who follow the Constitution. I recognize that this is a fantasy but I am nonetheless considering the possibilities.
I determined that this was probably the best solution some years ago. The number of "real Americans" and the number of "progressives" are about equal. Split the country at the Mississippi River and let everyone choose which side to be on; check back in a hundred years and see who is doing better.
Their is a hand picked Div of troops around Ohio that only reports to Obama, They gave their oath to him, this was in the news right after obama took over the white house. When obama calls for martial law this will be the armed troops that will attack the American people. Also drones have been flown over the US since the military started using them to learn how to fly them and use the drones before sending them to war zones..
I would like to see what the source for this information is, Pat. Where were these troops picked from, if you claim they are active duty Military I don't believe you. I will not believe our troops would ever fire on American civilians. Though I have seen some groups in action on the big city streets that should prove the exception to that.
I see no reason to get our panties in a wad about the drone pilots practicing on passing autos and such. Where would we expect them to practice and what harm does it do? For pete's sake, during the cold war our bomber fleet practiced dropping bombs on American cities every day. I flew a tanker to support B52 and B47 strikes on "Bomb Plots" all over the country. I can't count the times we obliterated Holbrook, Arizona. And the targets weren't the cities, they were the corner of a building , or a phone booth on main street.
We don't need to be worrying about how our Military gets ready for war, only about how well they learn to do their jobs to keep our sorry, ungrateful asses safe on our patios while some of us are wringing our hands and finding something to complain about.
JIm Bertram, USAF Ret.
I agree with you Jim.........One reporter making an ignorant observation means our forces are practicing to bomb civilian American cars.........war games training has been going on forever...too often emotion becomes reality.
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