Drones Patrol Canada Border

[Auxpilot]

This is a mission that we are both willing and able to do. I would bet at a lower cost as well.

Drone lands in ND in preparation for border patrol   

Dec 7 08:45 PM US/Eastern
By DAVE KOLPACK
Associated Press Writer   
                        


       FARGO, N.D. (AP) - After two failed tries, an unmanned aircraft expected to be the first to patrol the northern U.S. border completed a flight from Arizona to North Dakota.
U.S Customs and Border Protection officials said the Predator B drone touched down Saturday at the Grand Forks Air Force Base after a six-hour flight from Libby Army Airfield in Sierra Vista, Ariz.
"The aviators all brag about the perfect landing," said Michael Corcoran, deputy director for air operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine office in Grand Forks. "I guess we'll brag about this one, as well," he said.
The drone is scheduled to begin patrolling the northern U.S. border in January. Its flights will originate from the Grand Forks base.
Officials were waiting for clearance on air space before deciding on a schedule, Corcoran said.
An earlier flight on Thursday was canceled because of maintenance problems, and a flight Friday was aborted because of poor weather.
The Predator weighs 5 tons, has a 66-foot wingspan and can fly undetected as high as 50,000 feet. It can fly for 28 hours at a time and will be equipped with sensors and radar.
The drone has been in use along the southern border with Mexico since 2005.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said the state's congressional delegation had been working for four years to get the unmanned aircraft to North Dakota.
"It is vital to America's security that we protect our borders, particularly the northern border," Conrad said. "The Grand Forks Air Branch plays an essential role in helping shut the door on terrorists who want to sneak across remote border points to strike on U.S. soil."

[lordmonar]

I don't think so.

a 24 hour patrol of the boarder requires 4 Reapers and about 50 people or so (depending on the intel support staff).

CAP would have to have 10 times the personnel to maintain a 24/7 presence....add TDY costs and increased maintence costs and we quickly increase our bill.

[Auxpilot]

I don't think so.

a 24 hour patrol of the boarder requires 4 Reapers and about 50 people or so (depending on the intel support staff).

CAP would have to have 10 times the personnel to maintain a 24/7 presence....add TDY costs and increased maintence costs and we quickly increase our bill.

I'm not saying that we take the whole thing off their hands but there is no way that this program will have a 24/7 presence over the entire border. CAP crews on both the northern and souther border would be able to do a lot of secondary recon flights to support this program.

There would be minimal TDY costs involved - assign CAP a block of sorties each week to augment the drone program. Fly the sortie, report what you see and go home. Could be done with CAP only crews or along with Border Patrol agents.

Not sure what you mean by the increased maintenance costs running up the bill. Our maintenance costs per hour are already built into the cost of the planes and the more you fly tends to move that cost per hour downward. Planes like to be flown.

At $10 mill per Reaper, along with the 50 folks that you mentioned, someone is going to have to give back their bailout money to pay for this - or we could just print some more $$$.

Not the end all for all circumstances but it places a lot more eyes on the border at a minimal cost per eyeball.

[Flying Pig]

We already do it on the US/Mexico border.

[heliodoc]

It would seem CAP would have to lose its "Inc" status and really start boning up on ALLLLL that DHS stuff before it can really say it itself is capable of 24/7 status

We will get a "portion" of that pie sometime.  But to say we can do this is cheaper... it may be

But this program is already funded and set up by paid professionals and what everyone else is saying about costs and support is true.  CAP may be cheaper, but getting aircraft maintained at your local FBO when a C182 rolls in.... well other paying customers are getting their acft fixed and MAYBE CAP can get it acft ahead of others.  We are a voluntary outfit and until folks realize we are not First Responders and most likely due to our "INC" and how CAP lawyers are risk averse, CAP will just have to maintain the "back seat" until mission tasking orders change at PAPA 1 AF or DHS and when MOU's are reaaaaaallly spelled out will we get that additional mission.  CAP should just plan on what it does best until Congress or somebody rewrites our charter to do more 24/7 "stuff"

Do not hold your breath, we may have to call a Volunteer FD to rescuitate (sp) our dreams

[sparks]

CAP needs a contract to do the border patrol work, just like Blackwater performs security duties or KBR provides logistics support. Of course the obvious big difference is they have actual employees under contract whereas CAP doesn't, HQ staff excluded. Relying on the volunteer member base to perform on schedule would be a big risk.

[Auxpilot]

CAP needs a contract to do the border patrol work, just like Blackwater performs security duties or KBR provides logistics support. Of course the obvious big difference is they have actual employees under contract whereas CAP doesn't, HQ staff excluded. Relying on the volunteer member base to perform on schedule would be a big risk.

Missions of this nature that would involve CAP would not be as a result of actionable intelligence requiring us to perform on schedule. Our role would be to put more eyes on the borders on an unscheduled basis.

Just like the ground patrols today that stumble on drugs coming over the border in non-border crossing areas, random patrols see things that lead to bad guys getting caught.

The question is not can non-paid CAP members do as good of a job as paid professionals, we know that we can't simply because we are not always available on demand. The question is how do we get the decision makers to realize that we can be of benefit to the country at a very very reasonable price. That benefit becomes much more attractive when the cost per patrol is objectively examined.

The problem is that in government, and I know this from first had knowledge, nobody wants to give up budget dollars to any other agency. They will spend 10x more to get the job done as long as they get the fancy taxpayer financed toys to do it.

This type of mission was done in NY for several years patrolling the NYC water supply system, which covers a huge geographic area with pretty good success. Then the DEP got their own air force and CAP went away. I'll bet the cost per patrol is waaaaayyyy higher than when CAP was doing it but we could not always provide a plane when they needed it so we went from doing it all to doing nothing. My feeling is that we should be doing something, along with the paid guys which would put more eyes on things at a lower overall cost to the taxpayer. A Win-Win situation for all concerned.

If you think about it, it is not any different than the paid vs. volunteer fire department discussion that takes place anywhere they overlap. The volunteers obviously do it cheaper but the paid guys are there all of the time so in theory they do it better (response time etc.) Someone that has to pay for it all makes an educated decision to blend the two together to get the job done at the right cost.

We already have the taxpayers paying for 550 airplanes. Just the sticker price of one Drone would fund about 60,000 hours of CAP flights.

[Flying Pig]

CAP needs a contract to do the border patrol work, just like Blackwater performs security duties or KBR provides logistics support. Of course the obvious big difference is they have actual employees under contract whereas CAP doesn't, HQ staff excluded. Relying on the volunteer member base to perform on schedule would be a big risk.

Missions of this nature that would involve CAP would not be as a result of actionable intelligence requiring us to perform on schedule. Our role would be to put more eyes on the borders on an unscheduled basis.

Just like the ground patrols today that stumble on drugs coming over the border in non-border crossing areas, random patrols see things that lead to bad guys getting caught.

The question is not can non-paid CAP members do as good of a job as paid professionals, we know that we can't simply because we are not always available on demand. The question is how do we get the decision makers to realize that we can be of benefit to the country at a very very reasonable price. That benefit becomes much more attractive when the cost per patrol is objectively examined.

The problem is that in government, and I know this from first had knowledge, nobody wants to give up budget dollars to any other agency. They will spend 10x more to get the job done as long as they get the fancy taxpayer financed toys to do it.

This type of mission was done in NY for several years patrolling the NYC water supply system, which covers a huge geographic area with pretty good success. Then the DEP got their own air force and CAP went away. I'll bet the cost per patrol is waaaaayyyy higher than when CAP was doing it but we could not always provide a plane when they needed it so we went from doing it all to doing nothing. My feeling is that we should be doing something, along with the paid guys which would put more eyes on things at a lower overall cost to the taxpayer. A Win-Win situation for all concerned.

If you think about it, it is not any different than the paid vs. volunteer fire department discussion that takes place anywhere they overlap. The volunteers obviously do it cheaper but the paid guys are there all of the time so in theory they do it better (response time etc.) Someone that has to pay for it all makes an educated decision to blend the two together to get the job done at the right cost.

We already have the taxpayers paying for 550 airplanes. Just the sticker price of one Drone would fund about 60,000 hours of CAP flights.

Yeah...but its not like they are buying drones JUST to patrol the border.  Those drones will be used throughout ICE.  Fortunately or Unfortunately, UAV's are going to be the wave of border security.  And, the technology carried on those UAV's far perform the eyeball.

I think there could be a job for us up there. But realistically, I think a UAV could do it better.

[CAPSGT]

Heh, I just got an e-mail about this from a guy I was a cadet with, and who was also my squadron commander for a bit.  He was one of the pilots for CBP out in Grand Forks and is now going to be flying the MQ-9s from the ground.  It seems these are becoming more and more the way of the future.

[blackrain]

I think I remember some chatter about FLIR (or similar remote sensing equipment)being researched for installation on some CAP aircraft. Has anyone heard if anything has come of that? Definitely would improve our usefulness. Admittedly at some cost.

[Flying Pig]

1 FLIR system costs about $200,000, the FLIR Ultra 8000 for example.  I think the chatter you heard was on CAPtalk.  Nothing serious. 
It also requires about $20,000-25,000 worth of installation fees and requires modification to the aircraft for the arm that the FLIR sits on.    Then you need the infamous "cable" which is $11,000 and also a monitor.  You going to look at about $6,000 for the monitor.  Remember when you look at purchasing a FLIR, Gyro-Cam, Axsys Technologies, they cost much more than what the price book says.  You want the completely installed price.  Youll find its usually 10's of thousands more than the mere purchase of the FLIR.  Then......Lord help You if you need to start sending them back for maintenance at $3-4,000 a pop. 

The aircraft I fly at work have both FLIRs and Gyro-Cams.  I always enjoy looking at the invoice when we get them back.

[wingnut55]

Robert

I remember the days when we did not have Choppers for police and fire work. What is the cost to operate and maintain one helicopter per year?

would I be guessing if I said $ 1,000,000 per year.

not including the cost of the helicopter

[Flying Pig]

And there was a time when officers rode horses and had to report in by telephone every 30 minutes because radios hadn't been invented yet.

Im not sure what agency you are talking about with a $1million dollar maintenance budget, but it would be a big unit.

We operate 2 MD500E's, and fly 7 days per week, 6 hours per day and fly one Turbo Stationair that flies about 15 hours per week and we have a UNIT budget of less than $600k per year.

So Im not sure what your post has to do with using FLIR's in CAP.  We have an hourly Direct Operating Cost  of about $135 per hour for our helicopters.

[wingnut55]

Thanks

Just a general question, but you are right about the improvements.

Thanks for the information, It is interesting how technology can enhance the tools we already have.

[blackrain]

In a perfect world I would like to see something like the sensor suite off of a Shadow TUAV. From a quick open source search, the current version is 15" in diameter and weighs 60lbs. The latest version is about 10" in diameter and weighs about 35 lbs. I would vote to belly mount the system in the back seat or baggage compartment. It would already be compatable with a radio downlink for the imagery. Of course I would hate to imagine the cost. Not to mention I'm sure it would contain classified components and would need some kind of secure storage facility for the whole aircraft.

But we can dream.............

[smj58501]

I wonder how o-rides might work if we ever got UAS in CAP