Air Force abandons $3 billion worth of drones

Air Force abandons $3 billion worth of drones

rt.com

It has been quite an expensive week for the US Air Force. Not only did Congress halt funding on a surveillance blimp project that they already invested $140 million in, but now the Pentagon says $3 billion worth of drones could be canned as well.

The United States military has already ordered a dozen unmanned surveillance drones at a combined cost of $3 billion, but realizing that the stealth, high-tech spy crafts aren’t as capable as the antiquated, old-school planes already in their arsenal, the Pentagon is pulling the plug in terms of acquiring any more.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Now is it just me or does anybody else think we can't afford to just waste $3 billion like that? How are you going to buy that much worth of drones and not check into the specs of them and realize the current drones work just as well. Im sure those drones will get put to use anyways, but regardless it seems like the budget deficit doesn't seem to matter at all.

rt.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

That's not the only thing the US is bailing on. I was reading a related article earlier:

www.reuters.com...

A decision by the United States to cancel a $355 million defense aircraft contract with Brazilian planemaker Embraer (EMBR3.SA) has surprised the government of Brazil which had hoped for the development of a bilateral defense program, Brazil's Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Thursday.

Is the well finally running dry?

reply to post by jaden_x


It might be they cancelled a $140 million surveillance blimp project as well, we might start seeing alot more of this.

Probably found out that Iran can take em down.

Or is the new technology about to come out of wraps maybe???
Is it finally time we can get a peek inside the S4 hangars?
Could be the dual track world of coverups collapsing too............Maybe sooner than we expect.....
Big coverups cost big dough...........and really, who cares when you are going for all or nothing broke.....
This could be the biggest roll of the dice for the illumes....Order from Chaos, but you have to plan the chaos part...if it gets away on you anything can happen.....

Originally posted by Brandon88

Air Force abandons $3 billion worth of drones

rt.com

It has been quite an expensive week for the US Air Force. Not only did Congress halt funding on a surveillance blimp project that they already invested $140 million in, but now the Pentagon says $3 billion worth of drones could be canned as well.

The United States military has already ordered a dozen unmanned surveillance drones at a combined cost of $3 billion, but realizing that the stealth, high-tech spy crafts aren’t as capable as the antiquated, old-school planes already in their arsenal, the Pentagon is pulling the plug in terms of acquiring any more.

(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 2-3-2012 by Brandon88 because: (no reason given)

AKA they are scrapping the model that can be hacked & hijacked.

What I'm more interested in is our government spent 140 million on a technology that was obsolete 100 years ago. seriously. they are all daft.

Probably hand them out to local police departments to patrol the friendly skies.

go figure!

reply to post by jaden_x


Actually, this aircraft contract you mention is not about saving money as much as it is about supporting a (more or less) US company rather than a Brazilian builder.

reply to post by Brandon88


But your source also states:

acquiring any more drones and maintaining upgrades and repairs on those and the ones already purchased, the military would practically go bankrupt. Gen. Schwartz says that the new plan will save the Pentagon $2.5 billion, but will also lead the Defense Department to let the $3 billion worth of surveillance drones already under their command to just collect dust from now on.

So in reality, the project is saving the AF $2.5 bil.
The $3 bil already spent has already received the drones, they are just being use much less than before, if at all.

They will probably be repurposed and used in border control here in the US, like many already are. And now there is a $3 bil parts shop sitting in a hangar that will save even more $ because new parts for the existing drones can be scavenged off of the shelved drones.

Win, win here.

I'll have to agree with some of you that the RQ-170 had some flaws and maybe Iran actually did bring it down somehow. But we got to remember that it's been operational for years now and very few people knew it even existed. I personally saw it at Edwards in 2005-2006 (Cant remember the exact date). But i don't think it was flying yet. Just doing taxiing stuff. They have other drones in the works too. We got to do some simulated air refuelings with drones back in the day to see how they operated in the slipstream. needless to say it was pretty cool, but I don't know if the technology is there for air to air yet. If it is, we could have some drones that are much heavier, bigger engines, and that can carry more payloads that the current ones, i.e. a new bomber. If they are capable of A/R, then they could stay aloft for days on end.

On another note, if the RQ-170 is being reversed engineered by Iran or China, then it would make sense to take them out of our arsonnel and use something new. Who knows what kind of technology we have now. Just like the new bomber, I'm sure we have actual flying models already out there being tested, even though they just approved the funding for them...

Feb 29 2012 on RT also - Air Force grounds F-22 fleet yet again.
rt.com...

The United States Air Force temporarily halted operations for its $77.4 billion fleet of F-22 Raptors this week after several of the plane’s pilots reported bizarre symptoms linked with oxygen deprivation.

Drones, surveillance blimps, f-22's

Humans can't be hacked in my opinion.

Originally posted by pirhanna

Originally posted by Brandon88

Air Force abandons $3 billion worth of drones

rt.com

It has been quite an expensive week for the US Air Force. Not only did Congress halt funding on a surveillance blimp project that they already invested $140 million in, but now the Pentagon says $3 billion worth of drones could be canned as well.

The United States military has already ordered a dozen unmanned surveillance drones at a combined cost of $3 billion, but realizing that the stealth, high-tech spy crafts aren’t as capable as the antiquated, old-school planes already in their arsenal, the Pentagon is pulling the plug in terms of acquiring any more.

(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 2-3-2012 by Brandon88 because: (no reason given)

AKA they are scrapping the model that can be hacked & hijacked.

What I'm more interested in is our government spent 140 million on a technology that was obsolete 100 years ago. seriously. they are all daft.

The blimp program had promise because of it's incredible loiter time over the target. The hope was it could stay on station for as long as a week without needing refueling.

reply to post by jam321


I agree, this is how the police departments at state level will be able to own the darn things, then when is not money from state tax payers to keep the darn drones maintenance they will start drooping on peoples homes like death birds.



BTW I am not joking, this drones will be put for auction at local level.

Government involved in a coverup? Wool pulled over their eyes again? Money tossed to the wind? Nah, we have professionals in charge.

reply to post by Brandon88

Gotta love it. What use is a spy system that can be brought down by remote? We're too full of ourselves. And now we (we) pay the price...

It's simple they are broke and have been borrowing hand over foot far more then could ever be paid back. They can't even pay the interest and have borrowing more just to do that for decades and have to cut back as our creditors quite buying our bonds. The Fed can only buy its own bonds for so long.

It is beyond me why people can't understand we are at the end of the fiat credit money from nothing system the credit has run out they are just playing with the last 10 percent as long as they can inflating and deflating in some area. This is going to get worse a whole lot quicker. Towns cities and states are doing the same thing all over the country. The government money tap is getting slowly turned off till it all collapses.

Get ready now these are some of the last warning signs or get caught flat footed with the rest of the clueless. Why do you think they are preparing for civil unrest? They know what is coming...

Department of genocidal invasions -- not defense

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. by William Blum "Far and away the best book on the topic." Noam Chomsky "I enjoyed it immensely." Gore Vidal "I bought several more copies to circulate to friends with the hope of shedding new light and understanding on their political outlooks." Oliver Stone "A very valuable book. The research and organization are extremely impressive." A. J. Langguth, author, former New York Times Bureau Chief "A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope, important." Thomas Powers, author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist "Each chapter I read made me more and more angry." Dr. Helen Caldicott, international leader of the anti-nuclear and environmental movements Table of Contents Introduction 1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid? 2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style 3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state 4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony 5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be? 6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy 7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor 8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism 9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings 10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched 11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1 12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government 13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America 14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography 15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts 16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia 17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing 18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism 19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus 20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism 21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine 22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again 23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another 24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA 25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks 26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba 27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads 28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle 29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy 30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution 31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno … and 500,000 others East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more 32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line 33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie 34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead 35. Greece - 1964-1974: "# your Parliament and your Constitution," said the President of the United States 36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat 37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution" 38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2 39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work 40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust 41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game 42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven 43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum 44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance 45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington 46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty 47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman 48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match 49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion 50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier 51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about 52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust 53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad 54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style 55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest? 56. The American Empire - 1992 to present

Get real people.

They are still going to order them and use them, they just pretend they wont since the bill passed that allowed them to police the USA. Did i say police? i meant looking for terrorists.

They will simply sell these drones to friendly countries like India
Doesn't matter now the current tech is compromised so just as well make a buck selling it on, while the latest toy is brought out to play