“I get paid by the Army to fly remote-controlled planes,” says Sgt. Nathan Wyatt from 3–29 Field Artillery. From his post at LSA Anaconda, he operates the three foot-long Raven unmanned aerial vehicle. Almost every day, he hand-launches one of his three Kevlar and Styrofoam birds into the skies over north-central Iraq. Wyatt controls the Raven with a handheld console while, ideally, an assistant monitors flight parameters on a separate console. Each operator has a screen showing what the Raven sees. With a range of up to 15 miles and both day and night sensors, that amounts to quite a lot. The imagery is beamed straight to a display in the tactical operations center.
At nearby Camp Paliwoda, 1st Lt. Peter Postma from 1–8 Infantry describes how his battalion decided to give a three-bird Raven set to each of its companies as well as to its scout section. That way company commanders can send Ravens to support individual patrols instead of having to ask battalion. “It’s working well for us,” Postma says.
“It’s all GPS-driven,” Wyatt says, singing the Raven’s praises. All he has to do is punch coordinates into his console and the Raven goes there.
But the Raven hates bad weather. A few days ago, one of the year’s worst winter storms downed power lines and left Anaconda and Paliwod ankle-deep in mud. As the storm was brewing, one of Wyatt’s Ravens crashed onto the roof of an Iraqi house. A patrol promptly retrieved it, and Wyatt come into the S-1 shop cradling his busted-up bird in his arms. The Raven is designed to pop apart on impact, making repairs pretty straightforward. And lucky for Wyatt, Anaconda hosts the only Raven repair shop in all of Iraq. You just trade in your broken bird and sign out a new one.
Raven also hates Warlock, the radio jammer used to thwart remotely-detonated IEDs. If a Raven flies over a patrol with a Warlock, it might get jammed. If that happens, the Raven tries to fly home, but computers being computers, sometimes it just crashes instead.
– David Axe
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The Amazing, All-Purpose, Styrofoam DroneLeave a Reply |
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I wonder how UAV control works: is it point-to-point or waypoint based?
HAVE NO FEAR! RAVEN DRONE IS HERE.
Is this a joke?
The military work’s in squads right? Wouldnt it be better to just give each squad there own firescout heli or something that is at least as big? I mean if you can afford humvees for them all, then why cant you give them a UAV at least the size of a small car. It’ll be able to fly higher then this toy. It won’t be as sensitive to weather. And can carry weapons. I’m thinking a humvee launched heli like the firescout. Or at least something big but not too big with VTOL.
I think if a soldier is in the position he needs to launch his stryofoam spy drone, he is probably already screwed and has no clue what’s going on around him and is probably going ot get mortared or indirect or direct RPG fire or something equivalant.
I can’t wait to see the super mini UAV’s. You know the kind you power up by twirling the spring propeller to give it tension. MAX RANGE 15 FEET, Flight time 3 seconds. 3 pixel Black and white camera. Good for seeing around a corner or over a wall for .5 seconds. What a joke.
I seen videos posted of US patrols being ambushed by RPG and machine gun teams on the sides of the road.
Makes me wonder what kind of competance we have in tactic. Makes sense you would have loitering air surveilance for ANY vehicle patrol you have. Do we just send out patrols and hope they see something in their direct line of sight? Or do they get a little help in surveillance and recon?
And it makes me scratch my head when we have no defense against simple buried explosives why we do vehicle patrols unless they are dug up by robot bulldozers and labeled as “secure routes”. And then to keep those secure routes isolated from the Iraqi population and monitored 24/7. I know easier said then done but I think we are throwing bodies at the problem instead of a little extra effort and patience.
Charles, if memory serves, the Raven flies a series of waypoints entered on a laptop. Or rather, it was three years ago– no telling how many upgrades have come out since then.
All of you seem to be a little misinformed. I flew them “over there” and would be happy to answer direct questions if the info is not restricted or classified
Give each squad a Fire Scout? Umm, no.
Ravens cost around $25,000 each and can be carried in a backpack.
Fire Scouts cost around $7 million each and require separate airlift sorties to bring into theater.
Plus Fire Scout probably takes a ground crew of similar size to the squad it’s supposedly supporting, not to mention far more support infrastructure than a Raven.
what difference does it make ? tell it to fly anyway you want to. Why cant you ask it to change course during flight ? you could fly it remote and fly it any which way you would want to point by point or shortest distance… over the curved surface of earth… 3 dimensional geometry.
I have a Question? Who makes these Raven drones ?.…Is it General dy…or boeing …does any one know? Please e-mail me @khbovino@yahoo.com thank you & God bless!