[Defense Secretary] Gates wants the services to think “beyond Predator and Reaper” and consider quick and dirty ideas like putting “sensors on a Cessna.”
- Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell
This is in response to the growing brouhaha over the SECDEF's recent comments about the Air Forces role in war.
Here's the rest of today's post from the AFA...
What’s Not In?: A task force looking for ways to get more ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] assets into the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan will be looking at “the inventory of what we have and can we get it over there,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a Pentagon press conference April 23. Gates said he wants all the services to see if there are different ways of doing ISR training, so “maybe we can squeeze a little bit more” of them into the battle zone. He wants the task force—to be headed by Brad Berkson, the Pentagon’s Program Analysis and Evaluation chief—to look at manned aircraft as well as unmanned and to “see what we have in the other commands here in the United States.” After taking inventory, the task force will go to the theater and see if the users “are making maximum possible use of the assets they have.” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell later told the Daily Report Gates wants more unconventional ideas and a willingness to shrug off habits that could be slowing the addition of ISR assets to the war zones. Specifically, Morrell said Gates is unconvinced that UAVs must be operated by pilots, which USAF says is necessary to operate safely in busy airspace. Other services don’t agree, he said. It takes a year to train a pilot, and USAF has a limited supply of them. Gates said that “in too many instances, there is a tendency to look out a year or two years or three years in terms of programs and … processes as usual and not enough willingness to think out of the box and how do we get more help to the theater now.” Morrell said Gates wants the services to think “beyond Predator and Reaper” and consider quick and dirty ideas like putting “sensors on a Cessna.” Gates wants the new task force to make an initial report in just a week and to develop a plan within 90 days. Gates said. “I’ve found that perhaps the most effective way to get things done around here is to put pretty short deadlines on things.”
Air Force Magazine: Daily Report
:: NOTE TO THE FOLKS DOWN @ MAXWELL - Please get on the stick here and get CAP back in the fight... this is your chance. No kidding.
Would I go?
If I was asked. Yes I would.
Would it be for everyone?
No, it would not.
extremis malis extrema remedia
[extreme times call for extreme measures]
No Air Force unit could help spin up an idea like this faster than CAP.
Of course, the idea makes too much sense for the JAGs not to screw it up.
...but a Presidential order, or action by Congress, could get the boots on the ground more resources...
...and maybe, just maybe...
...the Auxies over here could be what the mission needs over there.
extremis malis extrema remedia 
500 cessnas,each flying 200 hours/year, with belly mounted rad detection dumping w/time and GPS to a disk drive, paid for in part by EPA/NRC. Legitimate public health and safety plain-view monitoring, with the POC for each A/C doing a data dump monthly, unless there is a 'special'-EVERY routine (or non-routine)flight dual tasked for rad source survey, a legit civil regulatory task. It's MERE COINCIDENCE that guys at some less civil alphabet agencies want the same stuff. CAP wouldn't even read the data, just gather & transmit.
Posted by: Tribal Elder | April 25, 2008 at 15:34