Not since October 30, 1938, when Orsen Welles' radio adaptation of H.G. Well's War of the Worlds by the CBS Mercury Theater group was mistaken by the listening audience as an actual Martain invasion has there been as much hype and hysteria as this week's of Drone Hysteria in New Jersey and the New York metro area.
The inept communication response by local, state, and national governments and elected officials only added to the hysteria. As a prime example, New Jersey Republican congressman Jeff Van Drew claimed he had heard from "high sources" that the flying objects were tied to Iran. The Iranian assertion has been proven false, but you would hardly know that in this internet-fueled, conspiracy-driven. Van Drew then went on to say that some of the drones are run by Chinese Intelligence Agencies – again, with no proof. The Chinese have effective spy satellites, so why bother sneaking drones and drone operator teams into the U.S. drones? But I digress …
Let's take a moment and break down some facts about drones, U.S./North American Air Defense, the need for improved interior Air Defense, and finally, the new frontier of under-the-sea drones (UUVs - Unmanned Underwater Vehicles) as if we did not have enough to worry about.
Before we continue - My new book:
How The Hell Did We Get Here?
A Citizens' Guide to The New Cold War and THe Rebuilding of Deterrence
is now available for pre-order. You can find out more HERE. - Now Back to the Blog
Drones Are Filling The Skies Day And Night!
Commercial drones provide a myriad number of functions daily. Cities and Counties used drone overflights of neighborhoods to assess property taxes. Drones are used to inspect buildings, bridges, pipelines, railroad tracks, cell towers, electrical power lines and towers, and other structures. Drones are used extensively in agriculture to inspect crops, locate herd animals, and apply pesticides and other chemicals to improve crop yields. Drones are used to transport and deliver packages and, soon, people. Flying taxis will be everywhere! Just wait! Finally, drones are used for reconnaissance by police, emergency services, armed forces, and weapons or weapons platforms by armed forces.
The FAA ( Federal Aviation Administration) estimates that over 8000 drone flights a day are piloted by an operator with a Part 107 license FAA drone operator license. In all likelihood, it is twice that number. Drones have very specific rules against operation in controlled and restricted air space such as Airports, Military bases, Navy ships, and specific government buildings – your neighborhood is not one of those restricted areasDrones are not planes; they have a maximum flight ceiling of 400 feet. Partly, it is to maintain line-of-sight operations and partially to stay out of FAA's national air traffic control system for commercial, private, and military aircraft tracking and control. Drones operate below air traffic control radar and are not tracked by the air traffic control system. Only military/security anti-drone systems are designed to detect, track, and destroy drones.
Drones have very specific rules against operation in controlled and restricted air space such as Airports, Military bases, Navy ships, and particular government buildings – your neighborhood is not one of those restricted areas. Infrared video over fights of neighborhoods during the winter helps your local property estimate what portion of your property is heated/cooled and other property improvements to adjust your property taxes annually. So you know the government is overflying your home at least once a year and possibly more in the cooler winter months.
As we close 2024, The FAA estimates that 1.8 million recreational drones and nearly one million commercial drones will operate in the U.S.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved night drone flights on April 21, 2021. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that drones flown at night have anti-collision lights that meet the following requirements:
Visibility: The lights must be visible from at least three miles away
Color: The lights must emit either white or red light – it is not clear if other colors are allowed or forbidden
Placement: Red lights should be on the left side of the drone, and white lights on the right
Flash rate: The lights must flash at a rate that reduces the risk of collision
Every picture and video of the Drones in question over New Jersey have their night running lights on - operating legally.
Residents of New Jersey claim that some of the drones they have observed are as big as a small SUV. That could be true. Lets look at some examples.
By example, The Amazon Mk27 drone is large, 5,5 feet in diameter. The Mk27 has a cruising speed of 50 miles per hour and can deliver up to a 5 lb package to a maximum range of 12 km. The Mk27 is a form of tilt-rotor aircraft craft that uses its hexagonal spars as wings to fly like a plane in transit and tilts 90 degrees to hover for take-off, landing, and delivery.
UPS, DHL, Flytrex (teamed with Walmart), and Matternet (healthcare- medical delivery) are examples of companies entering the drone delivery market, adding even more drone traffic to our skies.
As another example, The Griff Aviation 300 is the heaviest lift drone in the commercial market. The 8-propeller design can carry approximately 500 pounds (226 kg) of payload, a flight time of up to 31 minutes, and a cruising speed of 60 Km/hour.
Why The Sudden Worry About Drones?
America has used advanced Predator and Reaper drones for surveillance, target acquisition, and target destruction for decades. The U.S. drones can stay aloft for 24 to 42 hours, roam 1000s of Km, carrying a complement rockest and bombs raining death and destruction from the skies, seemingly at will. In recent years, the Iran-Israel conflict and, more importantly, the Ukraine-Russia conflict have raised awareness in the American public that the U.S. is no longer preeminent in drone technology and deployment. Our potential enemies are catching up. They, too, can rain terror from the sky.
I believe the new newfound Drone Hysteria is subliminal. The Ukraine-Russia war set off a wave of destructive drone warfare innovation by Ukraine to counter Russia's incredible conventional warfare strength with a new, effective asymmetric drone counterforce - David's new sling to kill Goliath. Early in the war, Ukrainian drone teams used a combination of satellite intelligence to find the general location of Russian troop concentrations, followed by recognizance drones to acquire targets locally and feed coordinates to killer suicide drones to target artillery, armored vehicles, and soldiers.
One of the most fearsome drone weapons to enter the war in 2024 is Ukraine's "Dragon Fire" drone. The drone sprays molten thermite ( burning temperature of 2000 C) to burn down, destroy forested areas, and remove the cover from Russian soldiers. You can watch a short video of Dragon Fire HERE. Needless to say, imagine a terrorist with a thermite drone weapon like that ripping up and down the streets of New Your at lunch hour – the casualties would be horrific.
Alternatively, consider a simple drone-based bombing weapon. As discussed earlier, the largest commercial drone, the GRIFF Aviation 300, can lift a 500 lb package. That is the same weight as a U.S. MK-82 500 lb, free-fall bomb. The MK-82 has a 20-meter (65-foot) blast radius. T65 feet is equivalent to the width of the average dense suburban home lot. Put another way, a 500lb bomb would obliterate a single U.S. suburban home and significantly damage all the adjacent homes around the impact point.
The point is people view the devastation of modern drone warfare on the news nightly from events in Ukraine and between Iran and Israel. More likely than not, these scenes are leaving the chilling perception that if devastating drone weapons can be used over there, what's to stop them from happening here? This, of course, helps drive hysteria.
Clearly, a drone terror attack using a bomb or dragon fire thermite weapon would raise alarm and panic. The fact is that it would require 100s, even 1000s of drones, as they are used daily in Ukraine -Russia War to inflict serious damage and casualties. American readers have far more pressing threats from gun violence and lone shooter events wreaking more terror every week than any highly unlikely terror drone scenario.
So what are we to do? As our British Allies would say:
Keep Calm and Carry On
We can summarize a few facts from all the observations in New Jersy:
The drones observed all have operating running lights and are legal flights - if these were malicious or terror drone operations. The drones would be blacked out (no running lights) to add to their stealth.\
The drones must operate within the legal 400-foot FAA flight ceiling, or they would be detected by the FAA's air traffic control system. There are no reports from the FAA of illegal flight ceiling violation detection.
Other than anti-drone systems for military and government locations, no city, county, state, or regional systems detect and track drones. Terrorists can run around in cars and trucks. Do we have a system for detecting the movement of all cars and vehicles at all times? No, we don't – we focus on specific vehicles when used in criminal activity. Shouldn't the same logic apply to drones?
There is not a single shred of evidence that the sitings in New Jersey and the Northeast are any but legally operated drone night flights.
That being said, drones are, in fact, a growing issue for air defense, and clearly, given the muddled government response, there is a need for reform in dealing with drone flights/traffic and for there to be a defined chain of command and responsibility in monitoring activity and taking action against the drones and drone operators as appropriate.
Early Warning and Air Defense - How Are We Protecting Our Skies?
My soon-to-be-release book, How The Hell Did We Get Here? ( find out more HERE) discusses how early warning and situational awareness are a critical component of deterrence. That is, preventing an attack in the first place by inducing fear in the mind of an adversary that if they conduct a first strike, it will be detected in time to face a counter-strike.
It should be no surprise that the U.S. Defense Department's principal national defense objective is deterrence by early warning of an adversary's first nuclear strike and allowing the U.S. to mount a devastating counter-strike. Today, the U.S. deploys an air defense system based on early-warning satellites, sophisticated Cobra Dane long-distance radars, and upgraded early-warning radars to detect an attack by the USSR, China, or Korea. These facilities are located at:
Flyingdales, UK - upgraded early warning radar for Russian land-based or North Atlantic ballistic missile submarine-launched missiles
Thule, Greenland - upgraded early warning radar to detect Russian land or sea-based missile strikes over the North Pole.
Shemya and Clear Alaska – A Cobra Dane and an upgraded early warning radar to detect sea-based missile strikes from the northern Pacific or strikes over the North Pole from China or Eastern Russia.
Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Beal Air Force Base, California – early warning radars cover the western, southern, and eastern approaches from sea-based missile strikes from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Early warning and tracking satellites – Infrared launch plume detectors are used to detect an initial missile launch and optical and radar tracking is used to determine incoming missile trajectory and handoff to other radar sensors, control, and missile defense systems.
These radar systems and satellites provided a 360-degree detection bubble around North America, Greenland, Iceland, Europe, and the U.K., as shown in the following diagram:
In recent years, the breadth of radar warning coverage has extended across Europe, the Middle East, Japan, and the Western Pacific to provide global coverage. As we have seen in the events between Israel and Iran, the Aegis systems on individual U.S. Navy ships can be tied into regional or global commands as needed.
As the diagram illustrates, our air defense systems look outward toward our adversaries, not inward across the CONUS – Continental United States. Other than air Traffic control, no other assets are looking for drones or small aircraft flying below thet air traffic control, except for the U.S. Southern border, where the Department of Homeland Security / Customs and Border Patrol operates TARS- Tethered Aerostat Radar System. TARS is a dirigible balloon lofted on a cable to a height of 10,000 feet containing a downward-looking RADAR covering a 200-mile radius capable of detecting low-flying aircraft.
TARS is deployed at 8 locations across the southern border, Florida, and Puetro Rico and and can track 50,000 aircraft in flight over the U.S., Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. When TARS was first deployed in 1978, illegal flights fell from 8,500 to less than 10 per year.
The TARS radar is sensitive enough to track larger drones with capacities of 20 lbs or more. Could it be replicated across the U.S. and repurposed for drone detection?
POSSIBLY, but the system would not provide detection of medium and smaller drones and would have a considerable price tag to deploy and operate. TARS can be economically justified for interdicting and stopping illegal drug trafficking at the southern border. There is no possible justification for a general drone detection system based on TARS
The advent of hypervelocity missiles by China and Russia has created the need for the U.S. to develop and field a global early warning and detection system. To accomplish this goal, the current ground-based early warnings and border surveillance systems will be replaced by a new space-based system: Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).
The current Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), which detects missile launches, is being augmented with a constellation of low earth orbit satellites, an expanded Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture tracking layer. The U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) is developing tracking layer missile detection satellites that will use SDA's StarShield satellite communications network developed by SpaceX. By the close of 2024, the first tranche of 126 Transport Layer satellites (i.e., communications satellites), 35 Missile Tracking satellites, and 12 tactical demonstration satellites to test design improvements for later satellite tranche deployments.
So, what is the takeaway?
The U.S. DoD has its focus where it needs to be: improving early warning and missile/airspace defense against a major or rogue nuclear attack. The new U.S. Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture provides significant early warning improvements to boost U.S. deterrence. However, our new space-based systems don't address drone detection. As opposed to the hype od a "drone threat," the DoD is focused on the real, persistent nuclear threat threat from Russia, China, and North Korea and, unless we stop them from building nuclear weapons, Iran.
The U.S. does have significant military and security anti-drone detection and defense systems. They are being tested and improved every day in Israel with The IDF Israeli Defense Force and U.S. troop deployment in Syria and Iraq. Could these be deployed across the U.S. to address drones? Yes – but why? So far, other than hype, there is no evidence of any real drone threat.
Since We Are on The Topic of Drones – Let's Close With An Emerging Threat: Submarine Drones
A new arms race is brewing as part of a possible Naval conflict between China and thet U.S. over the Taiwan Straights: autonomous submarine weapons platforms – aka submarine drones.
It all started with Russia's development of the Poseidon—a nuclear-powered underwater drone equipped with nuclear weapons designed to be launched from submarines. Powered by a compact nuclear reactor, it is believed the Poseidon could travel at unprecedented speeds of 100 knots (185 kilometers per hour), have a range of approximately 10,000 kilometers, and operate at depths of up to 1,000 meters. Designed to evade detection by U.S. acoustic tracking devices and other measures. Poseidon could be used to attack strategic ports and aircraft carrier battle groups.
As it turns out, the U.S. already has 5 ELUUV Extra-Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicles, code-named ORCA, in service. ORCA has a range of 6,500 nautical miles and can carry a variety of weapons and payloads, including:
Torpedoes: Mk. 46 lightweight torpedoes and Mk. 48 heavyweight torpedoes
Sonar: Raytheon PROSAS PS60-6000 synthetic aperture sonar for ocean floor mapping
Mines: The Navy plans to use the Orca to dispense mines
Cruise missiles: Land attack cruise missiles
The platform allows deep interdiction operations in hostile naval warfare environments where thet U.S. would rather not risk a crewed nuclear submarine. The ORCA platform should give thet Chaines pause should they consider an amphibious attack or blockade of Taiwan or an operation against the Russian Black Sea Fleet to assist Ukraine should that war escalate.
We'll keep an eye on submarine drones, aka. UUV- Unmanned Underwater Vehicles, and provide updates when there is significant news to offer.
I'm looking forward to hearing about the first sightings of submarine drones off the Jersey Shore to complement all the drone sightings, said the author in jest!
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