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A valid question; here's my opinion based on my involvement as an AF O-6 at NSA working airborne programs for the Asst Dep Director for Operations, Military Affairs and post- retirement as a civilian in OSD (DARO, OUSD/ISR, and NIMA/NGA)at the time The answer is that in the very early 90s, Bill Lynn, the Director of DARPA (actually named "ARPA" at that point but returned to its original title of "DARPA" later in the 90s), and Bill Perry, the DepSecDef (not sure if they were in those exact positions in the very beginning, but by mid-90s they were) believed that unmanned aircraft had the potential to revolutionize airborne operations, starting with ISR, by reducing personal exposure to threats, enabling extended ISR (long duration ops) and save money by reducing the manpower costs in the systems. Additionally, they believed that a new acquisition concept called the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) could speed up the introduction of new systems from the current (in the 90s) and painful 15-20 years. The idea was to marry up the contractor side and the government side early in the development cycle to better work out operational issues while designing the vehicles (sounds good...didn't work!). They married the two ideas and DARPA initiated the High Altitude Endurance (HAE) and Medium Altitude Endurance (MAE) programs in 1994. The HAE program envisioned two platforms; a high altitude "U-2-like" vehicle and a smaller low observable, craft for better penetration of highly defended areas, referred to as "tier 2+ and "Tier 3-" in their concept terminology. The MAE program started with an existing much less capable unmanned RPA called the "Gnat", built by General Atomics for another purpose. You'll note here that this effort was a DARPA technology development effort, not an acquisition effort responding to an approved DoD mission need. In fact, the Air Force was not particularly enamored with the idea of unmanned mission aircraft and did not support the effort; there was no AF money or manning in the POM to support it. In fact the HAE program plan itself says there is only one required outcome...and let me quote from the ARPA 6 Oct 1994 ver 1.0 HAE CONOP..."A dominant objective of the HAE UAV program is to obtain the maximum capability possible for a set, non-waiverable Unit Flyaway Price (UFP); accordingly, while there are performance objectives, the only requirement that must be met is the UFP." In other words, it doesn't have to do anything except fly, hold a camera, and cost less that $10 million a copy; no operational needs have to be satisfied. To many in the system, the real effort was for DARPA to develop the new acquisition concept, using the HAE and MAE as exemplars. The AF eventually got the aircraft because the outcome of an ACTD was to be either: 1) a failed program, so cancel it, 2) showed promise, so move on and correct issues, or 3) Provide program residuals to the eventual user (AF in this case) for them to decide to either keep and operate or dump. The ARPA and SECDEF seniors decided it flew, collected something, and (sort of) met the UFP goal (at about $15.5 each), so they chose option 3 and passed it all to the AF (both HAE and MAE, although the DarkStar segment of HAE was cancelled after it crashed on flight 2. Why they kept it was the usual case of political and industrial influence, I guess. Some of us suggested the best course of action was to dump the Global Hawk because it met few operational needs, would cost too much to upgrade (if it could ever be upgraded...too little space, too little power, too little payload), and met few of the original desired capabilities, We felt it would be cheaper to take the money and start with a clean sheet design, using the knowledge gained to drive the new (unmanned) platform (which we referred to as "Global Truck"). The estimated $200-400 million extra was consider too much money by leadership, so we stay on the "cheap" track...which I suspect has cost us an extra $5-8 Billion by now (just my guess). As for the ACTD experiment, it hit a few bumps, too. When the Predator program was turned over to the AF and told to operate it, they found the DARPA program provided no money or manpower in the DoD budget to do so, no tech data was ever developed for the Service (it was all contractor proprietary) so they couldn't fix it, no ground control systems built except the contractor's test stuff so they couldn't deploy or fly it fly, No additional money was provided by DoD or Congress to the AF so the AF started a program called "Predator 911" to find money (to operate and buy support) and manpower, and facilities, "robbing" it from the current and future years budgets, causing major disruptions for years. As for GH, the idea of killing the U-2 and replacing it with the GH didn't float either, because the GH had practically no operational capability as delivered and it took a decade to develop the RQ-4B with more capability and slightly better sensors. So, that's why we have it! BTW, as far as Perry and Lynn were concerned, the success of unmanned systems since then probably indicates their vision was a success, and I can't really argue that they'd be wrong. Its all in your perspective.

Doors that absorb light primarily in the center of the visible spectrum.

I heard since these last couple student classes coming through have been stocked full of "incredible hands of gold" (why else would they all get fighters) that they were going to let FAIPs soak up all the Buffs... Kidding. I love you FAIPs.

In most cases it probably would be better, IF it does what you need and you can afford it. Although I could be accused of being a bit biased after 50 years in the AF recce business (25 with with the U-2 program), I really don't think I am. The GH is a great little aircraft ("little" mostly referring to size, weight, and power) and I think the Teledyne Ryan and Northrop Grumman people did a pretty good designing and building it considering the political constraints they were working under. Can you imagine what a prime would wind up with if a new program started out with "Build us a new fighter-bomber, make it unmanned, and make it cost less than $25 million, and it doesn't have to do anything specific as long as it stays under $25 mil a copy." The problem with the GH as an operational ISR platform is that no one ever went to the operator or user, and asked what they needed, and turned them into system requirements. Virtually every suggested capability in the original ARPA CONOP was left out because the UFP limit precluded adding them to the design (things like effective sensors...no SIGINT at all, no off-track EO/IR (LOROP), no ability to switch sensors to meet mission needs, no self-protection systems, no significant O&M savings (some people talk about lower flying hour costs, but they aren't much lower per hour, and it flies nearly 100 Kts slower than the U-2 so you use up more hours coming and going!), and no ability to deal with high threat areas. Of course, that last one isn't the GH's fault...remember, the HAE CONOPS was supposed to include two vehicles. The DarkStar was cancelled and it was the segment that was supposed to handle the "...economical solution to theater commanders RSTA needs---near-real time reconnaissance capability against high-value, well-defended targets." So, unmanned is good in many cases; unmanned with no capability and no budget to support it isn't!

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Yep, basically my model for incentivizing the two sides has the conservatives at a disadvantage (typically the Hawks protecting DoD) so non-discretionary spending with their own funding vehicles (SS, Medicare, Medicaid) would have to be in there too, requiring statutory changes to the programs stewardships to keep the Dems feet to the fire, the 1% increases in taxes could / should be from the elimination of tax credits, subsidies, etc... rather than raising income tax rates. Gov worker salaries / benefits would have to be on the table, as there are a shit load of millionaires in Congress this has limited effect but their staffs, military, federal employees would have to be hostages in this scenario or Congress would have to pay them at the expense of operations of departments. How shitty when you can't imagine ways other than pain & punishment to get things done.

An excellent answer to continue the deserved praise for the details you provided. I left the GH 8+ years ago and was there when the program was just about to "normalize" and all the old crusty guys there told me very similar but smaller scale anecdotes to why things were the way they were in the program. My line has always been the AF just took the test aircraft and called it good, never developing a real platform. Classic min run but ends up costing a bajillion more than necessary if you did the development & acquisition right in the first place. A good idea, a long endurance unmanned platform to compliment not replace the U-2 and provide a virtual satellite in essence for other missions, BACN being a great example of what it can / should do in addition to doing a certain type ISR. As I didn't actually fly it, the emotional connection is not there but overall my experience was positive and no hate for the RPA. It is definitely not glamorous or particularly exciting usually but important to do well as others may depend or use what you deliver for missions where friendlies are in harm's way. Have pride Global Chicken drivers but don't expect envy or many people to be interested in what you do... ever... not a cutdown, just the truth.

2 I would rather modify the intent and make at least Senators be elected members (previously or currently) members of a state wide legislative body. The people can vote on the candidate but the candidate must be a legislative member of the state government to put the perspective of the states truly into the Federal Government so you don't get the ever growing Borg Cube trying to assimilate every part of our government, economy and society, like we have now. Agree in spirit but as a practical matter we probably have to acknowledge the level of consensus the Federal Government requires to function as it was intended (passing budgets, confirming judges, enforcing the laws and borders, you know those mundane things) , as how it is structured now by the Constitution is probably not possible. We are probably too diverse for the levels of consensus required to function with the majorities the Constitution requires. I like the checks the Constitution puts to keep smaller population states like mine at the grown-ups table via the Senate but I see the problem(s) that these features have. If we go to straight majorities and proportional representation, pretty much our Federal Government will be the Congressional delegations of CA, TX, NY, FL, IL with a few other big population states making all the calls. Not acceptable either. Governing for mutual benefit doesn't seem to work anymore so let's try something different, governing for our interest(s) and tie our political opponents to the same fate also. Decide on a 2 year budget by simple majority, from October to June, 3 quarters of an FY, then vote / horse trade in the 4th quarter, with every day in the last month knocking 1% off the budget and adding 1% in tax revenues. No budget pass, the budget submitted minus 30% plus 30% taxes is your shit sandwich, enjoy. Lots of incentive to focus the minds of Congressmen. Liberals scramble like hell to get it passed fast before losing more money for their government programs and conservatives hustle to keep from sending more money to the Federal government. Everyone has an incentive not to lose, not to win and make the other guy lose, just not to lose. Like it or not, just not losing is the best COA sometimes.

The system was supposed to be gridlocked. I don't like Pres O and thankfully we have a house and senate that can shut hum down, executive orders can and should be shredded by the next president. He had 2 years of control of all houses and could have done anything, but instead rammed the ACA through on Christmas eve. The constitution is the greatest document ever conceived by man, and we should move back toward it.

Right there with you. Speaking of amendments, the 17th is one that I'd like to see removed. But, good luck telling people that they can't elect their senators. You know, having Congress do their job for once would be a good start towards reform.

Ha! And Harrumph!

You may already know this, but FedEx had 2 new hire indoc classes this month with 47 pilots in attendance. They plan to continue to hire at this rate for a while, and are putting lots of new hires in the 777. If you want to work for FedEx, there is no better time than right now. (sorry, this is totally unrelated to PME)

And you also know a lot of E crew go all E Mafia on you without the ability to take any criticism like a good aviator should, ala Kirtland. It may not be a bad thing, it's just a different cultural upbringing.

They should already be using FE's...to make sure the pilots run their checklists!

That works until you're an ACC tenant unit on an AFMC base and the ABW/CC is more concerned with the union than military necessity. If you've ever tried to deploy 260+ folks at one time UDM is truly a full time job.

...And next year's UPT drops (please).

sts