Gates Wants $240M More For ISR

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Air Force Times
May 26, 2008
Pg. 21
By Michael Hoffman
Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved a request for $240 million in additional funding to get more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors and aircraft over troops’ heads in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The funding would be part of the 2008 supplemental war funding bill if Congress approves the idea, spawned May 6 at Gates’ first meeting with the ISR Task Force he launched last month.
Task Force officials proposed adding more “ISR sensors and leases of contracted ISR aircraft and services” to go along with the MQ-1 Predators, MQ-9 Reapers and Predator ground stations already requested in the supplemental, said Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman.
Ryder could not be specific on the types of sensors and aircraft because the information is classified, he said. But, he said in an e-mail to Air Force Times, the sensors, aircraft and services “would significantly increase available airborne ISR combat air patrol dwell time and associated full motion video capability.”
Increasing UAV dwell time — or time spent over a target — could require more UAV orbits. The Air Force just increased the number of Predator orbits over the Middle East from 23 to 24, and plans to add another by June.
An orbit entails 24-hour coverage — continually having UAVs replace one another in the air. A longer dwell time would mean fewer UAVs needed to supply the orbit, said retired Air Force Col. Tom Ehrhard, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
More orbits would lead to more work for pilots, sensor ball operators and imagery analysts already stretched thin, working long shifts at odd hours around the clock at bases such as Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.; Beale Air Force Base, Calif.; Langley Air Force Base, Va.; and Hurlburt Field, Fla.; along with their deployed brethren.
Gates ordered the ISR Task Force to think “outside the box” about how to fast track more unmanned aerial vehicles and other ISR assets into the field. He also deliberately set short deadlines for updates on the task force’s progress. Members have until August to finish their task.
Since being formed April 18, task force members have discussed ways to bolster the capabilities of ISR assets already deployed. Among their ideas, Ryder said, are plans to alter how some assets are utilized and to buy additional equipment to make certain UAVs more effective over the next three months. “An example of that would be sending the imagery collected by fighters’ targeting pods and sending that to the guys on the ground,” he said.
The task force, headed by Brad Berkson, Defense Department director of program analysis and evaluation, is composed of representatives of all four services, the Joint Staff, the Defense Department and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The task force is supposed to meet once a week to go over new plans to get more ISR assets airborne.
At the May 6 meeting, the task force outlined four major areas of focus over the next three months:
*Extending the operational limits of UAVs and other ISR platforms.
*Improving the efficiencies of training and test elements of ISR programs such as Predator pilot training.
*Ensuring the necessary bandwidth is provided to operate unmanned drones and other ISR assets.
*Finding nontraditional capabilities of conventional aircraft like the targeting pods of F-16 Fighting Falcons to fill gaps in ISR coverage.
The next meeting between Gates and the task force is scheduled for early June.
 
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