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1-star: Manned, unmanned spy planes crucial

Manned and unmanned spy planes can play key roles for the Air Force going forward, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Bob Otto, who is responsible for the service’s entire high-altitude reconnaissance fleet.

Both capabilities are needed for “the full spectrum” of operations from humanitarian work to large-scale conventional missions, Otto said Oct. 19 at the ninth annual C4ISR Journal Integration Conference in Crystal City, Va.

Providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance has been a growth area for the Air Force in recent years. The service has focused on teaching pilots to fly unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk. Meanwhile, the Air Force has stepped up training of U-2 pilots and is spending nearly $1 billion on a new fleet of MC-12W manned spy planes.

Otto, who works with U-2s and Global Hawks as commander of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., said both aspects of the ISR mission have their strong points.

Manned platforms have more “agility and responsiveness” than unmanned systems, Otto said, and can be configured in many different ways. The U-2’s electro-optical/infrared sensor also has “multispectrum capability” that is good for detecting improvised explosive devices, Otto said.

“That is a potent tool we need to keep in the tool box,” Otto said. “Right now it’s not planned for the Global Hawks.”

In the plus column for UAVs is their ability to stay aloft for a longer time — nearly a day for the Global Hawk as opposed to 9.5 hours for a U-2 — and the fact that they keep service members out of harm’s way.

The U-2 “remains the workhorse of our high-altitude fleet,” Otto said. In 2009, U-2s flew more than 600 missions supporting operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom; Global Hawks flew just over 250.

Regardless of whether the military chooses to focus on manned or unmanned systems going forward, Otto said, demand for ISR will continue to increase. The “mission load has increased since 2001 repeatedly and notably,” he said, and the operational tempo has been stepped up to the point where U-2 pilots gain 1,000 hours of training in three years. Before 2001, it took them seven years.

Otto noted that the optical bar camera used on the U-2 is capable of imaging the entire state of California in a single sortie. This capability allows the Air Force to periodically take images of the entirety of Iraq and Afghanistan, meaning that gathering brand-new intelligence may be unnecessary to fill some requests.

One possible roadblock for ISR is inadequate bandwidth for data transmission, Otto said. This shortcoming “could render expansion of [ISR] unfeasible.” Other than the obvious solution — adding more bandwidth — the Air Force could develop on-board data processing to reduce the amount of information transmitted, Otto suggested.

He also emphasized the human element of ISR work. Intelligence is useless if it’s not placed in the hands of people who can use it, Otto said, and ISR analysts need better communication channels with leaders on the ground. That process has improved, he said, but “we’re not anywhere where we need to be.”

“We are shortchanging the processing, exploitation and dissemination area to buy airframes and sensors,” Otto said. “We cannot rest on our laurels here. We must continue to innovate.”