May 2011 Archives

India may be working on a third stealth fighter project.

We know the Ministry of Defense has already pledged to co-develop the FGFA variant of the Russian Sukhoi PAK-FA stealth fighter, and it's Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is already working on designing the twin-engined advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA). That means the Indian Air Force has both heavy and medium stealth fighter projects -- similar, perhaps, in concept to the high-F-22/medium-F-35 split by the US Air Force.

Now the Indian aerospace and defence press reports Indian Air Marshall PV Naik is in talks with Russia about a lightweight stealth fighter.

It's not clear if Naik is simply discussing a stealth fighter lighter than FGFA; if so, it is perhaps an invitation for Russia to join India's ongoing AMCA project.

If Naik is really discussing a light stealth fighter with the Russians, then it could mean India is considering a stealthy replacement for the long-awaited Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA). That would give India an all-stealth fleet divided into light, medium and heavy categories.

The concept of a light stealth fighter is a tough engineering challenge. To achieve radar stealth, all fuel and munitions must be carried internally. That's possible to do in a 60,000lb-class fighter, such as the Lockheed Martin F-22, or even a 40,000lb-class fighter, such as the F-35. But it's an even bigger challenge for a manned, 20,000lb-class fighter.

Boeing's internal designation for the US Air Force (USAF) KC-46 tanker is the 767-2C, with the 'C' presumably meaning 'combination' or 'convertible'. Along with 787-style large displays, Boeing is introducing into the 767-2C a central maintenance computer, a technology normally associated with the more advanced Boeing 777. This new version of the 767 is so advanced that Boeing is required to stand-up a systems integration laboratory -- the SIL Line 0.

You never know what you'll get when you ask the USAF to mail you a compact disc loaded with information about the KC-X tanker programme, as, ahem, EADS North America and Boeing discovered during the competition. But this time the USAF got its shipments straight, responding to this blog's Freedom of Information Act request with the full text of the KC-X contract awarded to Boeing on 24 February.

By requesting this document  -- which, according to page 1, is valued at $4,419,130,178.00 -- your blogger was hoping to discover the precise configuration of the 767 in Boeing's proposal. The manufacturer has chosen to withhold this information from the public, which of course is their right.

But these hopes were dashed.

After a quick review with Flightblogger editor Jon Ostrower of all 203 surprisingly unredacted pages, I still know almost nothing about the 767-2C airframe. (It turns out the 767-2C designation has been Google-able since August, thanks to LinkedIn.) My colleague Ostrower believes the requirement for a dedicated SIL could be significant, suggesting the internal system changes from the baseline 767 are far more advanced than previously believed. A dedicated SIL is an expensive investment.

Uber-aviation historian Walter Boyne happened to release a book called "How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare" about the same time that Osama bin Laden was exposed rather harshly to the reality of the book's title.

That the US special forces involved in the 1 May raid of bin Laden's compound left behind unimpeachable evidence of a secret stealth helicopter programme -- which has been reported here as a bolt-on modification kit for Sikorsky MH-60Ks -- seemed like sensational gravy, prompting a geyser of commercial spin-offs like a 1:144-scale model show above.

The retail version of the 'bin Laden bump' no doubt didn't hurt Boyne's book sales either, but that doesn't mean he's happy about all of the attention. If anything, the 83-year-old founder of Air & Space magazine and author of dozens of aviation books said in an interview on 25 March that the revelation of the stealth helicopter programme just gave everyone the wrong idea about the state of the helicopter industry.

"I think it gave [the public] a sense of pride and self-sufficiency," Boyne said. "For me to think that the United States of America with 4.9% of [gross domestic product] devoted to defence can at best field four modified stealth helicopters when engaged in three wars is shameful."

In Boyne's view, the knowledge that US special operations still rely on bolt-on stealth kits reveals the US vertical lift aircraft industry is still mired in the aerodynamic and signature limitations of the Vietnam-era. The fact that one helicopter crashed during the operation allegedly due to power settling -- ironically, revealing the programme's existence -- should come as no surprise, Boyne said.

The Black Hawk "is still a 30-year old design," Boyne said. "When you put on aftermarket stealth it degrades your performance."

Boyne cites the the experirence of the Lockheed Cheyenne high-speed helicopter. It was canceled nearly 40 years ago after suffering delays and cost overruns. But Boyne thinks the army should have stuck with it like the air force tolerated similar setbacks with each new generation of fighters and bombers. Boyne once received a letter from Willis Hawkins, Lockheed's designer of the C-130 and the Cheyenne, who complained that if the army had only persisted it could have fielded 2,900 Cheyennes within the same time period that Boeing designed and built the significantly slower AH-64 Apache.

Instead, the US military's rotorcraft industry has fallen into a three-decade-long rut of non-innovation, Boyne said. New helicopter programmes are launched, such as the RAH-66 Comanche, only to be canceled after requirements change and the engineering falters, with residual funds plowed back into upgrades for existing platforms.

The army is trying to break out of that paradigm now, setting an "aimpoint" in 2030 to deliver an all-new vertical lift aircraft unconstrained by the 168kt speed limit imposed by the aerodynamic law of retreating blade stall on conventional helicopters.

Boyne, however, is worried the programme is likely to follow the experience of the Comanche rather than the Apache, which actually fielded a new combat helicopter for the last time in army aviation history.

During a breakfast press conference on 24 July in Arlington, Virginia, Lockheed Martin chief executive officer Bob Stevens responded to questions about affordability and development challenges, saying the F-35's advanced capabilities are "worth it". Lockheed officials also are emphasizing that the development programme appears to have finally stabilized, with the company adhering to the latest manufacturing schedule for the last eight or nine months. At the same time, programme officials also acknowledge the need to maintain that performance over the remaining five years of the development phase.

Two videos on YouTube that you don't see every day:

1. Plane spotters capture the J-20 reportedly making its 8th landing today, with the Chinese stealth fighter emerging from the thick Chengdu haze directly overhead. It's quite a picture.



2. A Beechcraft B-200 pilot captures an F-35B in hover out the window, which is evidently shot at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.

Northrop Grumman's advanced development team has been busy lately. The last two years has yielded the revelations of MUVR, Wild Thing, MQ-X and, most recently, Firebird. Now, another secret concept may have leaked outside Northrop's version of Skunk Works. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Northrop has applied to register the rights to this logo:


The trademark application, which was published for opposition on 19 April, is described in Northrop's application as a "jet trainer airplanes and structural parts thereof", the USPTO database states.

It does not require a speculative leap to deduce that Super Talon refers to Northrop's secret candidate for the T-X contract, which will replace the US Air Force's T-38 Talon advanced jet trainers after 2017 if schedules hold.

The question is what exactly the Super Talon represents? Could it be a rebuilt T-38, with 9g manoeuvring, embedded training and digital cockpit wrapped inside a traditional Talon's shell? Or is it perhaps merely based on the Talon, but offers far greater performance and power than an aircraft that actually first flew in 1961? Or is it perhaps in the mould of Northrop's latest experiments with unmanned and optionally manned aircraft, with Scaled Composites as the rapid prototyping designer? Scaled has some experience in this area. Who remembers Burt Rutan's ARES concept?

Lt Cdr Eric "Magic" Buus on 20 May recorded the first official F-35 airshow fly-over, banking the Patuxent River-based CF-2 test aircraft slightly toward the crowd at Andrews AFB, Maryland.

It's technically not the first time an F-35 has flown above an airshow crowd. Last year, F-35 flight test aircraft inadvertently made several fly-overs of the Fort Worth air show, which shared the runway with Lockheed's F-35 check-out operations. occurred

By the looks of the fly-over, F-35 programme officials spared few, if any, precious minutes of test time preparing for the aircraft's debut flying display. Considering the programme still has at least seven years of flight test ahead, it's hard to be critical about the absence of any crowd-pleasing manoeuvres.

It was only a month ago this blog speculated the F-35's first appearance at a major show could come at Dubai in November, or perhaps Farnborough next year. It's probably too much to hope for a proper introductory flying display, but here's hoping!

CF-3, shown above in a radar cross section test chamber, is preparing for first flight later this month to fulfill a 4.5-year-long effort to redesign, build and fly 12 weight-optimized Lockheed Martin F-35 flight test aircraft.
It has been harder, more expensive and certainly more frustrating than anyone probably imagined on 6 December 2006, the day AA-1 first flew. That aircraft, designed to meet a discarded specification, has since been retired to live-fire testing.
The next test aircraft to achieve first flight was BF-1, which flew nearly three years ago on 11 June 2008. Another flight test aircraft, CF-4, was added to the test programme last year, but won't join the fleet for at least two years.
For now, these 12 aircraft represent the sum of an estimated $54.3 billion investment by the US Department of Defense (DoD) to complete a 7,500hr development test programme that now will stretch for 10 years, according to the DoD's latest selected acquisition report.

One of the key questions about Russia's PAK-FA fighter program concerns the national industry's capacity to produce the advanced composites required for stealth fighters.

Indeed, the question, "Can Russia's emerging composites industry keep up with production" was nearly topped the list of questions in an exhaustive PAK-FA dossier published last year by David Markov and Andrew Hall -- both experts at a US think-tank called the Institute for Defense Analyses.

A Russian-language news video posted online last week appears designed to re-assure any doubters about the readiness of the PAK-FA's advanced composites supply chain.

Based on a Google translation of a transcript of the report, which is headlined "Black Wings", it's possible to discern the gist of the story, if not the details.  

With shots from inside an advanced composite factory that would certainly be off-limits to the press in the West, Russian officials say the PAK-FA's composites technology has been developed since the 1970s, with experience gained on Russia's Buran space shuttle and more recently the MS-21 regional jet.

This is the key part of the story:

Russian Technologies, have developed a special carbon fiber material. The main technological know-how in the so-called prepregs - semi-finished materials. Their characteristics are directly dependent on how homogeneously alloyed carbon fiber and resin part. "These technologies are in the world is very closed. For example, the technology of getting a good carbon fiber possess 2-3 countries in the world. And buy it impossible. Either you have to develop it himself, or will buy the finished product, there are airplanes, etc., but he already can not do it ", - says General Director of the Moscow Engineering Experimental Plant - Composite Technology Valery Litvinov.

Loren Thompson argues in a blog last week there are two competitors for the US Air Force contract for a light attack armed reconnaissance (LAAR) aircraft: "An American plane made by Hawker Beechcraft designated the AT-6, and a Brazilian plane made by Embraer designated the EMB-314."

This is a bad thing, according to Thompson. "The fact the Air Force is even entertaining a bid from Brazil tells us that this Pentagon is out of touch with economic realities."

I won't argue with his conclusion, but the facts need a little clarity.

The AT-6 may be an "American plane", but Hawker Beechcraft is not truly an American company.

Hawker, of course, is a brand invented in the UK, which migrated across the Atlantic in the early 1980s when British Aerospace sold its business jet division to Beechcraft. That business was later acquired by Raytheon. Two decades later, the brand Hawker Beechcraft was invented when Raytheon sold the business to two investors -- Goldman Sachs and Toronto-based Onex.

In fact, Hawker Beechcraft is at least a half-Canadian company, with half of its product line-up from the United Kingdom.

[UPDATE: I actually forgot the most important point. Thompson writes that the AT-6 is an American aircraft. The AT-6, of course, was not designed by Beechcraft. It was developed on license from the Pilatus PC-9. Last I checked, Pilatus is still based in Stans, Switzerland, which is about 275km from where I'm typing this sentence at the Geneva convention center.]

Meanwhile, Hawker chief executive Bill Boisture is here in Geneva, Switzerland, where I'm covering the EBACE show. He addressed reporters this morning, and noted the company's interest in the LAAR contract.

This defence blog will pause from our normal programming to join Flightglobal's coverage team next week at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exposition (EBACE) in Geneva, Switzerland. In honour of the occasion and for a timely re-immersion in business aviation history, I accepted the assignment of selecting Flightglobal's official list of the 10 most important business aircraft in history. You are getting a sneak-peek. Feel free to share your opinions. 

1. Learjet 23/24 - True game-changer
2. Falcon 50 - Conquered west-bound North Atlantic leg, first super-critical airfoil
3. GIV - First integrated flight deck
4. King Air - Highest-selling turboprop
5. Citation II - Highest-selling jet
6. Eclipse 500 - Admittedly controversial, but revealed market hunger for very light jets
7. Challenger 600 - Spawned regional jet, Global Express
8. HS.125 - Most enduring
9. Starship - First certificated all-composite business aircraft
10. JetStar - First dedicated business jet

Question: Where can a Chinese stealth fighter dump fuel apparently for test purposes?

• a) At high altitude and away from populated areas to ensure the fuel atomizes before it hits the ground
• b) Anywhere it darn well pleases

The correct answer is b. Thank you for playing.

The Federation of American Scientists posted a copy of the latest selected acquisition report on the Lockheed Martin F-35 program, a 53-page gold mine of cost and performance data. Data on pages 10 and 12 are the basis for our breaking news article:

F-35A may need mod's to fix range shortfall

By Stephen Trimble

A new internal report predicts the Lockheed Martin F-35A conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant is falling short on a key performance requirement, forcing programme officials to consider a range of aircraft modifications to fix the problem. Combat radius, the maximum distance of an out-bound leg with a full load of weapons and fuel, has dropped to 1,080.4km (584nm) for the F-35A, according to a leaked copy of the 2010 F-35 selection acquisition report (SAR).

Here is a Microsoft Excel chart showing how each variant is performing on combat radius.Adding more fuel capacity is one of the options the program is considering to make-up the combat radius shortfall on the F-35A. This chart from a 2010 briefing by Lockheed Martin provides a general idea of the layout of the F-35's fuel tanks. The area in blue is fuel storage.

If anyone is wondering why it costs $372 million for Northrop Grumman to "begin developing" a new satellite communications antenna for the B-2 bomber, this graphic might help explain where all that cash is going. This slide came from a Northrop press briefing in September 2008.

The appearance of the Northrop Grumman Firebird, which was spotted on The DEW Line last Tuesday and identified as Firebird by Aviation Week on Thursday, raises many thoughts.

Among them: too bad the Scaled Composites Model 355 didn't exist six years ago, or the army's extended-range multi-purpose [ERMP] competition could have been a lot more interesting.

The Firebird seems built not so much to beat the air force's MQ-1B Predator but the army's MQ-1C Gray Eagle. It also fills what has become a curiously yawning gap between two sub-categories within the class of medium-altitude long endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The chart below shows the Firebird is the first UAS to populate the gap between roughly 1,500kg and 4,500kg for maximum take-off weight. With a 2,200 maximum take-off weight, the Firebird is still at the low-end of that range.

Japanese modeler Hasegawa has released a new product with an interesting spin on the F-22 paint scheme. Perhaps it's useful for spoofing optically-guided surface-to-air missiles? (This comes from the country, mind you, that gave us the Bonzai bomber video.)

The US Air Force has produced a handy guide for tracking the next generation of missile programmes, with a few very interesting surprises apparently tossed in to the mix. Included is a replacement for the AIM-9X Sidewinder ("small advanced capabilities missile"), which is envisioned to intercept both incoming missiles as well as other aircraft. There's also the "next generation missile", which appears to be the new term of choice for the dual-role air dominance missile -- a single weapon for internal carriage in the F-35 and F-22 to replace the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AGM-88 HARM. And, most interestingly, there's a timeline to integrate the first high-energy laser on a fighter, which is somewhere between mid to far term.

UPDATE: Crisis averted! I am reliably informed the T-50 prototype will make an appearance at the MAKS air show in August. The aircraft has been noticed in advertisements for MAKS under the slogan "every time a premier", implying the T-50 will be this year's star attraction.


Huh? US Air Forces Europe apparently can spare an F-15E from raiding Libya to play acrobat over Moscow, but the Russian Air Force can't show off the PAK-FA at the country's biggest air show?

You read that correctly.

So far, the star attraction at the Moscow air show in August is a 15-minute display by a Boeing F-15E. Meanwhile, the most important revelation by Russian aviation -- indeed, perhaps in ALL of aviation -- since 2009 could be sitting in a hangar in Siberia.

That's what Vladimir Yurevich, coordinator of the MAKS 2011 air show, seems to be suggesting in this translated article posted on a Russian web site last week.

I know what you're saying: It's a stealthy military prototype at the beginning of a flight test programme -- perhaps this isn't the time to be flying it over nosy crowds. That explanation would be more credible if the T-50 had not already performed a flying display over the head of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin a year ago. And the Russians have the option of parking the one of the two T-50 prototypes on the flying display.

F-22 manufacturer Lockheed Martin confirms the company has sent five engineers to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, to help investigate the source of the fleet-wide F-22 safety stand-down revealed on The DEW Line yesterday.

"We deployed a five-person engineering team to Elmendorf AFB to provide technical expertise and information to our USAF partner," Lockheed said.

Air Combat Command describes the source of the stand-down as potential problems with the Honeywell onboard oxygen generation system (OBOGS), with pilots reporting decompression sickness and hypoxia.

It's interesting the OBOGS investigation is focused on the only F-22 base that still has a fatal crash under investigation. The air force lost an F-22 and a pilot during a night-time training mission at Elemendorf on 16 November.

An Anchorage-based aviation safety blogger, meanwhile, has reported today that air force officials have linked the Elemdorf crash to the OBOGS.

We contacted the Paris Air Show organizers after seeing this tweet from @ReutersAero this morning:

ReutersAero 

Anyone else hearing #Sukhoi Su-30 (NATO: Flanker) pulling out of Paris air show? Russian comeback was to be a theme this year // #PAS11

And the verdict is: It's true. The Su-30 has been pulled from the flying display and the static line.

According to a show spokesman, Sukhoi had confirmed the Su-30's appearance about one month ago. But the organizers received a follow-up message a few days ago from state-owned Russian Technologies, which canceled the Su-30's trip to Paris. The Russians gave no explanation for the about-face.

Flightglobal's resident artist Gareth Burgess has truly out-done himself with a 3-D rendering (take that, Polar Express!) of the stealthy tail rotor discovered on that unfortunate MH-60 in Abbottabad earlier this week. And, yes, it is really just an MH-60 with stealth features bolted on by the army's gadget wizards at Fort Campbell. Read my full story here.

Got a tip today that all F-22s have been parked. Air Combat Command confirmed a few minutes ago, and our news article is posted here and is excerpted below.

Oxygen system concerns prompt F-22 stand-down

By Stephen Trimble

The US Air Force has stopped flying all Lockheed Martin F-22s for an indefinite period over concerns about a possible glitch in the onboard oxygen generation system.

The stand-down order issued on 3 May by Air Combat Command (ACC) chief Gen Will Fraser comes about six weeks after the F-22s were restricted to flying below 25,000ft due to the same problem. [Read more...]

Dave Majumder at Defense News broke the story about the F-22 OBOGS concerns back in March. Read his article here.

Stay tuned. Air Combat Command should be releasing more information shortly.

UPDATE: ACC has just sent me written answers to my questions about the stand-down order. Read them on the jump.

Video of J-20 completing fourth flight:



It's been an incredible week to be an aviation journalist. We've seen black helicopters, new surveillance aircraft, first flight of the Su-35S, first flight of the Phantom Ray, the F-35 and F-22 in formation and, now, the third and fourth flights of the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter.

To top it off, tonight is the Collier Trophy award dinner, where the Sikorsky X2 high-speed demonstrator will be honored with the top prize of the US aerospace industry. Your blogger will be there, and so will Sikorsky's people. Let's hope we'll all be in a talking mood about stealth kits for MH-60s. (Ha!)

Back to the point of this blog entry, the Chinese are still content to let the local spotters in Chengdu have their way with J-20 pictures. The J-20 closed its landing gear doors after take-off for the first time during the third or fourth flight today, so we know the flight envelope is expanding. A new picture also offers a good peek at the dimensions of the center-line weapons bay.

Sukhoi today confirms a 90min flight by test pilot Sergey Bogdan in the first series-production version of the Su-35S, which has 48 orders from the Russian air force. As the latest improvement of the Su-27/30MKI Flanker series, the Su-35S integrates the higher-thrust and -trust vector control authority of the NPO Saturn 117S engine, full fly-by-wire control system and increased service-life titanium structure. Gone are the canards and air brake of the Su-30MKI.

You've got to love The Onion -- even if they don't know the difference between a Predator and a Heron TP (see last few seconds of this mock news report).


Predator Drone Court-Martialed For Afghani Civilian Deaths

UPDATE: Well done, @Lightndattic. It looks like we found our answer. The aircraft appears to be the Scaled Composites Model 355, which is surprisingly a manned aircraft, according to the photo above, which was posted two weeks ago on Flickr. The FAA's registration database says the experimental aircraft was built in 2010 and its serial number is 001. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Model 355 is not just manned, but is probably optionally unmanned, too. And those antennas on the bottom of the fuselage are clearly not intended for civilian purposes. That is a signals intelligence payload, my friends.

[To read original post from last night, see below.]


An aircraft with an unmistakably Burt Rutan-ish design has been spotted in the airspace about 35mi south of Beale AFB, Calif, according to pictures posted late on 1 May at Militaryphotos.net.

To my eyes, it's looks like the Scaled Composites Proteus and the the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) Heron TP decided to have a baby.

There are plenty of possible owners of such an aircraft. Maybe it's a Scaled (which is owned by Northrop Grumman)/IAI collaboration? Or perhaps it's something else.

But this mysterious aircraft's existence raises some interesting questions. It's clearly in the medium-altitude, long-endurance class of unmanned air vehicles. Of course, the US Air Force and Army already have a family of MALE UAVs, and nothing is planned to replace the MQ-1B Predator/MQ-1C Gray Eagle/MQ-9 Reaper fleet for several years. The air force's MQ-X concept still seems on indefinite hold, and the army is pleased to continue buying more Gray Eagles through the end of the decade.

Boeing has released some very cool photos of the first flight of the Phantom Ray today, but none cooler than this one. A Lockheed Martin F-35A lurks in the background on the ramp at Edwards AFB, Calif.. The air force's present (manned fighters) meets perhaps its future (unmanned combat air vehicles).

[P.S.: All photo caption ideas welcome!]

It seemed fair game yesterday to report that the tail rotor of the crashed helicopter leaning against the wall of the unregrettably late-Osama bin Laden's compound belonged to a former MH-60, as we (ahem, blush) did.

But new photos of the aircraft's remains have appeared in this morning's Daily Mail, and it clearly shows this helicopter is no standard MH-60. It may not even be a member of the Black Hawk family at all.

Therein lies the mystery. No helicopter I can think of looks like this. It's a tail rotor that sort of resembles the main rotor of the Sikorsky X2.  It may be a heavily modified MH-60 for the 160th special operations aviation regiment, or perhaps a helicopter we've never seen before.

Clearly, there are times when discussions about aircraft crashes should be limited to only the facts as we know them and nothing else -- and this is most definitely NOT one of those times. No, indeed, this is time to start wildly speculating. Who knows? You might get lucky.

There are already some great discussions underway at militaryphotos and Secret Projects. Check those out, and tell me what you think.

I could be wrong (and you'll no doubt feel free to correct me!), but I believe this is the first time that both stealth fighters have been photographed and filmed in formation.

Lockheed Martin's in-house CodeOne magazine posted the photo online on 30 April with this caption: "F-35A AF-2 on Flight 119 with Maj. Scott McLaren at the controls flies in loose formation with F-22 Raptor on tanker over Isabella Mountains in California on 22 April 2011."

Until this morning, I've never seen a photo of an F-22 and F-35 together in flight -- truly, a picture worth at least 1,000 words and roughly $400 million in federal outlays.

I must say, they look good together in flight, as if they were designed to 'go' like a snappy tie and pocket square.

 

The killing of Osama bin Laden reportedly included a starring role for the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel -- the stealth unmanned aircraft system (UAS) acknowledged to exist by the US Air Force on 16 months ago.

The National Journal's Marc Ambinder got the scoop about 1am this morning, when he tweeted: "US Joint Special Operations Command SMU -- from DEVGRU (Navy SEALs), did the shooting. RQ-170 drone overhead. JSOC spotters on ground."

In confirmed, this would be the first operation directly linked to the secretive RQ-170. Although the USAF has acknowledged its existence, it has never released an official photo. The UAS has been glimpsed only through a series of photos released by spotters around the US airfield at Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Ambinder's tweet also may shed light on the RQ-170's mission, which has never been clarified. It is clearly used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, but its role in the Abbottabad raid suggests it can transmit full motion video in real-time. It also may be the source of the hyper-spectral sensor cited in Ambinder's other reporting.