FLYING DRONE: INTELLIGENCE WORKHORSE?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100110046-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: December 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100110046-2
ATM!!! APPEARED
ON PAGE E ? ,
WASHINGTON POST
5 December 1986
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATTA
Flying Drone: Intelligence Workhorse?
The Pentagon and the CIA are developing and
deploying nearly $3 billion worth of
sophisticated flying drones (known as
Remotely Piloted Vehicles, or RPVs).
This flying transmitter may become the
workhorse of the intelligence business. Already,
some are operating as spy planes over El Salvador
and Nicaragua.
The Israelis demonstrated the usefulness of
RPVs in Lebanon, where they provided "live"
television coverage of Syrian and other forces,
tricked antiaircraft missile batteries into turning on
their radars (thus giving away their locations), and
served other battlefield purposes.
It was the Americans' use of drones in Vietnam
that led to Israel's interest. Jet-powered target
drones launched from transport planes flew more
than 3,000 reconnaissance missions in Vietnam,
and it was an American engineer, Alvin Ellis, who
sold the Israeli military on RPVs in the early
1970s. -
The advantages of RPVs over manned aircraft
are many and obvious: They cost a relative pittance
compared with the price of fighters and
reconnaissance planes. Needing none of the
equipment that keeps pilots alive, drones burn a
fraction of the fuel used by manned planes and can
also be maneuvered at speeds that no pilot could
withstand. Their ground controllers are far cheaper
to train than pilots?and of course when a drone is
shot down, no one is killed or captured. The RPV is
extremely hard to knock down because of its tiny
radar "signature"?derived from its size of no more
than about 14 feet?and from its minimal heat
output, which thwarts infra-red trackers and
heat-seeking missiles.
The Air Force plans to buy about 250 mid-range
RPVs for a supplementary reconnaissance role, but
is generally not enthusiastic about the little planes.
The General Accounting Office, which favors wide
use of the low-cost drones, attributes the Air
Force's lack of interest to a longstanding "pro-pilot
bias" and a "perception of RPVs as too drab and
unexciting to generate much enthusiasm." A GAO
report adds:
"Therefore, while RPVs are accepted during
wartime for very high-risk missions of mundane
jobs such as chaff dispensing and leaflet dropping,
during peacetime they are not regarded with as
much favor as the high-technology manned
aircraft."
The Army. Navy and CIA are more enthusiastic
about the RPV, and the Marines are experimenting
with a remote-control helicopter.
Correction: On Nov. 24, we reported that two for-
mer high-level government officials had been
involved in the secret arms/hostages negotiations
with Iran. One of them, ex-CIA official Thomas
Clines, we reported, had been indicted in an arms
scandal in 1984, had pleaded guilty to filing false
invoices with the Defense Department, and had
been fined $10,000.
That is not correct. According to his attorney,
John Ellsworth Stein of Washington, D.C, Thomas
Clines has never been indicted for anything.
Systems Services International Inc., a company in
which he held stock, was indicted in the arms
matter, however, and did pay a $10,000 fine.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100110046-2