[Special-K]

Story



USAF Splashes One Reaper
Posted by Robert Wall at 9/14/2009 9:57 AM CDT

Is it a blue-on-blue incident if it is deliberate?

Regardless, a U.S. Air Force fighter downed a MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft over Afghanistan on Sunday.

Operators lost control over the unmanned aircraft during its operation. With the UAV headed in a direction where it was about to depart Afghanistan's air space, a U.S. Air Force aircraft brought down the Reaper in what the Air Force says was a remote part of Afghanistan. The type of aircraft or method used to take out the Reaper was not specified.

The Air Force says merely that “the Reaper impacted the side of a mountain and there were no reports of civilian injuries or damage to civilian property at the site.”

The incident is now under investigation. Investigators also will be busy looking into the crash of an MQ-1 Predator at Creech AFB, Nev. That took place on Sept. 11. That General Atomics UAV was being used in a training mission.




Interesting story - I don't remember hearing of one like it before.

Either way, I think it highlights some of the potential pitfalls of relying too much on unmanned aircraft.




-K

[Colin]

Maybe it decided to become a conscientious objector to the “illegal Bush war” and was withdrawing from the conflict, shouldn’t some rights group be arguing the case for this poor machine which was just trying to do the right thing? Likely it would have ended up in Northern Canada trying to grow dope.

[Rod]

Is it possible for an opponent to "take over" the commands of the Reaper via radio, jamming or uplinking a computer virus whereby control of the UAV is passed to a new entity?

[aevans]

Rod, on Wed 16 Sep 2009 2023, said:

Is it possible for an opponent to "take over" the commands of the Reaper via radio, jamming or uplinking a computer virus whereby control of the UAV is passed to a new entity?

Does this new entity know the encryption fills, changed daily?

[Rod]

A good hacker with a strong computer network backing him possibly could. Not something that Achmed in a cave can do out of his MacBook but maybe something with government resources (e.g: Pakistan, China or Russia) could.

aevans, on Wed 16 Sep 2009 1625, said:

Does this new entity know the encryption fills, changed daily?

[wallaby bob]

Rod, on Wed 16 Sep 2009 2123, said:

A good hacker with a strong computer network backing him possibly could. Not something that Achmed in a cave can do out of his MacBook but maybe something with government resources (e.g: Pakistan, China or Russia) could.

ROD. Just a thought from someone who has been a long time "out of the loop" Any encryption system only has to survive an electronic attack for as long as the information/control remains viable. Of course for certain informarion this may stretch out over a number of years. This is hardly the case in the control of an "offensive" UAV. The routine changing of codes/fills will present the attacker with an entirely new problem. WB

[Jeff]

Skynet testing its powers.

[shep854]

Colin, on Wed 16 Sep 2009 1402, said:

Maybe it decided to become a conscientious objector to the “illegal Bush war” and was withdrawing from the conflict, shouldn’t some rights group be arguing the case for this poor machine which was just trying to do the right thing? Likely it would have ended up in Northern Canada trying to grow dope.

Summary execution for "desertion in the face of the enemy".

[TomasCTT]

Jeff, on Thu 17 Sep 2009 0816, said:

Skynet testing its powers.

More like http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382992/

Apologies in advance for posting that link to a silly crappy film (and the lobotomies it may induce). :P

This post has been edited by TomasCTT: 16 September 2009 - 2141 PM

[pikachu]

IIRC loss of control is a pretty common occurrence, at least in A'stan. Probably has to do with the mountainous terrain and the way radio signals, even from space, bounce off. I remember reading the 2004 or 2005 LM magazine where one of the F-16 pilots claimed to have been ordered to locate a missing UAV that was still flying around on its own. The way I understand it, usually when the ground controller loses contact or fails to get the UAV to respond to commands, the UAV's own failsafe triggers after a few minutes and the plane tries to fly itself back to a pre-set location, from which contact/control can be reestablished. If this fails, it then starts to loiter over the spot until someone else can locate it and come up with a solution (or it runs out of fuel and drops from the sky). I suppose in this case either the failsafe didn't trigger or the trigger event was not yet reached by the time it reached the airspace boundary.

[Luke Y]

pikachu, on Thu 17 Sep 2009 1555, said:

and the plane tries to fly itself back to a pre-set location, from which contact/control can be reestablished. If this fails, it then starts to loiter over the spot until someone else can locate it and come up with a solution (or it runs out of fuel and drops from the sky). I suppose in this case either the failsafe didn't trigger or the trigger event was not yet reached by the time it reached the airspace boundary.

Didn't an Irish UAV try and fly from somewhere in the ME back to Dublin a few years back after it lost contact?
Tenacious little buggers... :P

[Stuart Galbraith]

Perhaps it suddenly decided to go and look for Sarah Connor.....

[swerve]

Luke Y, on Thu 17 Sep 2009 0811, said:

Didn't an Irish UAV try and fly from somewhere in the ME back to Dublin a few years back after it lost contact?
Tenacious little buggers... :P

It was programmed to return to a default base (not a local position set by the operators) if it detected a fault in itself. This facility was, apparently, not described in the user documentation.

It was deployed to Chad. While there, it suffered internal damage while being transported overland. First time it was used, the self-test system didn't show any fault, so it was launched - and detected the damage, & headed off to the Curragh. :lol:

The manufacturers have replaced it under warranty, with a model with revised software. I presume the self-test system will now show any damage known to the UAV, & the default base location can be overridden by the operators.

One of these.

This post has been edited by swerve: 17 September 2009 - 0656 AM

[JamesG123]

US SUAVs try to go to California when they flip out...

[shep854]

Regarding the title question, I don't think "own goals" count as kills. An enemy UAV, though--yes, since it's a combat situation. After all, the vast majority of traditional kills didn't know it until it was too late, and "noncombatant" a/c were counted.

What will really wind the Fighter Pilot Mafia's undies in a wad will be when the ground-bound UAV operators start claiming kills. :P

[Arminius]

Stuart Galbraith, on Thu 17 Sep 2009 0833, said:

Perhaps it suddenly decided to go and look for Sarah Connor.....

Hahahaha ...

[Sikkiyn]

JamesG123, on Mon 21 Sep 2009 0558, said:

US SUAVs try to go to California when they flip out...

Isn't that were mos people who are flipped out at? Makes since it would want to be with like kind. :D