How Do You Train A UAV Crew? Here's The Answer We don't have to tell you all the ways that the government doesn't work or the many many ways in which our treasured tax bucks go astray -- but here's one story that seems to be a far more positive one... and it involves the US military. For many military operations around the world, the only way to get solid info and valuable data is to get airborne -- which requires an extensive support network, no little expense and the risk of a flight crew... unless you factor in the Shadow UAV. Today's Shadow is used to locate, recognize and identify targets up to 125km from a brigade tactical operations center. The Shadow 200 has a wingspan of about 13 feet and an overall weight of 350 pounds. It can fly as high as 14000 feet at 70 knots for as long as four hours at a time. The system recognizes tactical vehicles by day and night from an altitude of 8000' and at a slant range of 3.5km. Imagery and telemetry data is transmitted in near-real time from the Shadow ground control station to joint stars common ground station, all-sources analysis system and to the army field artillery targeting and direction system. Shadow is in operational service in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The Shadow TUAS had achieved 350000 total flight hours as of October 2008. The vast majority of the systems&rsquo; flight hours have been in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan. The system has proven to be valuable that the <b>...</b>

How Do You Train A UAV Crew? Here's The Answer We don't have to tell you all the ways that the government doesn't work or the many many ways in which our treasured tax bucks go astray -- but here's one story that seems to be a far more positive one... and it involves the US military. For many military operations around the world, the only way to get solid info and valuable data is to get airborne -- which requires an extensive support network, no little expense and the risk of a flight crew... unless you factor in the Shadow UAV. Today's Shadow is used to locate, recognize and identify targets up to 125km from a brigade tactical operations center. The Shadow 200 has a wingspan of about 13 feet and an overall weight of 350 pounds. It can fly as high as 14000 feet at 70 knots for as long as four hours at a time. The system recognizes tactical vehicles by day and night from an altitude of 8000' and at a slant range of 3.5km. Imagery and telemetry data is transmitted in near-real time from the Shadow ground control station to joint stars common ground station, all-sources analysis system and to the army field artillery targeting and direction system. Shadow is in operational service in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The Shadow TUAS had achieved 350000 total flight hours as of October 2008. The vast majority of the systems&rsquo; flight hours have been in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan. The system has proven to be valuable that the <b>...</b>