Authors: Richard Whittle
Predator (55 page)
“Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan, 2009â2047” (Air Force study)
Unmanned Air Vehicle Joint Program Office (UAV JPO)
“Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations” (Presidential Policy Guidance)
Uzbekistan
V-1 “buzz bomb”
V-2 missiles
V-22 Osprey tiltrotor transport
Vampire fighter jet
Vietnam War
von Maur, Henry G.
W570 (Tier II Plus design)
Wagner, George
Wald, Charles F. “Chuck”
Wallace, Ginger
Wall Street Journal
Wanda Belle mission
War Department
Warsaw Pact
Wartime Integrated Laser Designator Predator test
Washington Post
Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood (Kabul)
Weaponized UAV Demonstration
Weinberger, Caspar
Welch, Paul
Weldon, Curt
Werner (technoscientist)
Wescam sensor ball
Western Europe
West Germany
Westover Air Force Base
White, Letitia
White House
Afghan Eyes and
Predator video feed
Wildfire team
Atef and
challenge coin
ground troops support and
radio call sign
WILD Predator (Wartime Integrated Laser Designator)
Williams, Robert M.
Will (sensor operator)
Willy, Wilford John
Wizzo (weapon systems officer).
See also
WSO
Wolfowitz, Paul
Woodward, Bob
Woolsey, Jim
World Trade Center attacks.
See
September 11, 2001, attacks
World War I
World War II
Wright, Orville and Wilbur
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
WSO (weapon systems officer).
See also
Wizzo
X-45A drone
Yale Aviation Club
Yale Daily News
Asian Expedition
Yank
magazine
Yemen
Yom Kippur War
Yugoslavia
Zawahiri, Ayman al-
Zuni rocket
As a twenty-six-year-old air force officer, Abe Karem placed tenth in his category while representing Israel at the free-flight model World Championships in Austria. Free-flight modeling inspired Karem and schooled him in designing drones with uncommon flight endurance.
By the time Karem was in his early thirties, he was director of preliminary design for Israel Aircraft Industriesâand a determined dreamer.
Designing a decoy to fool Egyptian and Syrian defenses that devastated Israel's air force in the 1973 Yom Kippur War led Karem to an epiphany: a remote-control drone armed with antitank missiles might defeatâor, better yet, deterâanother invasion of Israel.
Yale students Neal (left) and Linden Blue learned to fly so they could tour Latin America in search of postcollege business opportunities during the summer of 1956. Their daring journey in the
Blue Bird
led the young entrepreneurs into partnership in a banana and cacao plantation in Nicaragua partly owned by the ruling Somoza family.
In August 1986, the
Wall Street Journal
reported that Denver businessmen Neal and Linden Blue were buying Chevron spinoff GA Technologies, a nuclear power company. Neal (far left) decided their renamed General Atomics should expand into unmanned aircraft.
Inspired by the advent of GPS and his desire to help NATO deter a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, Neal Blue decided General Atomics should develop a kamikaze drone. Displayed at a 1988 air show before the company abandoned it and hired bankrupt Abe Karem, this “poor man's cruise missile” was the first Predator.
When President Bill Clinton complained in 1993 that neither the military nor intelligence agencies could find Serb artillery pounding civilians in Bosnia, CIA Director James Woolsey decided a drone could solve the problem. Woolsey also immediately thought of an aeronautical engineer he considered a genius: Abe Karem.
The chief of the CIA's clandestine branch, Thomas A. Twetten (left), visited the General Atomics hangar at El Mirage, California, in March 1993 to see about buying some of the company's drones for spy missions over Bosnia. Satisfied that General Atomics could deliver what the agency wanted, Twetten posed for a photo with the drone's designer, Abe Karem.
Conservative rules during initial Air Force Predator operations in the Balkans in late 1996 left flight crews at the drone's base in Hungary feeling like characters in the movie
Groundhog Day
. On a later deployment, Major Jon Box (center, in flight suit, between man and woman in camouflage) and his detachment were a lot happier.
