PRESENTATION ON BAF/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTSAFETY ISSUES BY DIRECTOR OF FLIGHT SAFETY 38TH COMMAND SAFETY CONFERENCE Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, Chief of the Air Staff, Chair of the conference, PSOs, Chairman Civil Av Auth and distinguished guests present, Assalamualaikum, and a shiny, beautiful noon to all of you. On behalf of the Chief of Air Staff, let me extend you all warm and a hearty welcome in session-2 of the Command Safety Conference - 2015. Learned audience ! Neither, I am an expert, nor an academician of the subject I would speak on today, but I thought: let me tickle the inquisitive minds and souls present here, so that they continue thinking what can we do best to address the issue tomorrow. Therefore, my presentation is focused on bundle of information gathered, and I would badly need your kind ears and eyes to look and make it good. Let me begin with a confessional statement. "Advent of air power and its exploitation is a major claimant of spinning the globalization effect, in terms of speed, reach and thoughts, must we all agree upon." Supporting this my mention goes - while we notice the global growth rate as recorded today is slightly above 1%, whereas, alone the global aviation growth rate for last 10 yrs is 6% and above. But this particular domain is technology sensitive. As a result, smart one's always take the lion share from it. At the beginning of last century, developed countries believing might is right -invested heavily on aviation and purposefully kept its focus on military use and took all out advantage from it. While globalization effect pushing behind conflict culture from the social matrix, it is again prominent today that developed world is shifting their attention on its use; and now putting focus on both civil and military area of exploitation of air power to enjoy competitive advantage over others. Unless we note this shift and adjust accordingly, country like ours will remain deprived off from its due share. With this prelude, let me honor the enlighten house for about 30 minutes talk on "Contemporary thoughts and state of 'UAV' and ongoing global debate on its prospect". Let us recapitulate together what UAVs are and a few historical events on it, in brief. Definition An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) , commonly known as a drone and referred to as a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. Its flight is controlled either autonomously by on board computers or by the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle. The typical launch and recovery method of an unmanned aircraft is by the function of an automatic system or an external operator on the ground. Historically, UAVs were simple remotely piloted aircraft, but autonomous control is increasingly being employed today on its use in multidimensional functions. They are usually deployed for military and special operation applications, but also used in a small but growing number of civil applications, such as policing and fire fighting, and non military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. UAVs are often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty or dangerous for manned aircraft". Evolving background of UAVs Ladies and Gentleman, the idea of a pilotless aircraft is not a new concept. The concept of drones dates back to the mid-1800s, when Austrians sent off unmanned, bomb-filled balloons as a way to attack
Venice. The drone we see today started innovation in the early 1900s, and was originally used for target practice to train military personnel. It continued to be developed during World War I, when the Dayton- Wright Airplane Company came up with the pilotless aerial torpedo that would drop and explode at a particular, preset time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/unmanned_aerial_vehicle - cite_note-4 . A number of remote-controlled airplane advanced in post WW-I era. More technology rush occurred during WW-II; they were then used both to train antiaircraft gunners and to fly attack missions. Nazi Germany also produced and used various UAVs during the course of WW-II. Jet engines were applied after World War II. In such types as Fire bee I of 1951, Model 1001 of Beech craft coy supplied UAV for U S Navy in 1955. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle-cite_note-autogenerated1-5Nevertheless, they were all little more than remote-controlled airplanes until the Vietnam Era. Historical events involving UAVs In 1981, the Israeli IAI Scout drone was operated in combat missions by South Africa against Angola during Operation Protea. In 1982, Israeli Air Force operated UAVs during Operation Mole Cricket 19, where both IAI Scout and Tadiran Mastiff were used to identify SAM sites and confuse Syrian radars. In Persian Gulf War, Iraqi Army surrendered to the UAVs of USS Wisconsin. In October 2002, a few days before the U.S. Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by UAVs that could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack US eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations suggested that they had been transported out of Iraq and could be launched against US It was later revealed that Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of only a few outdated Czech training drones. At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to whether CIA's conclusions about Iraqi UAVs were accurate. The USAF, the agency most familiar with UAVs, denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability. The first US targeted UAV killing outside the conventional battlefield took place on 3 November 2002, in the Marib district of Yemen. Six alleged terrorists were killed in their SUV by a UAV-fired missile. The command centre was in Tampa, Florida, USA. In December 2002, the first ever dogfight involving a UAV occurred when an Iraqi MiG-25 and a USRQ-1 Predator fired missiles at each other. The MiG's missile destroyed the Predator. In December 2011, Iran captured a United States' RQ-170 unmanned aerial vehicle that flew over Iran and rejected President Barack Obama's request to return it to the US. Iranian officials claim to have recovered data from the U.S. surveillance aircraft. In December 2013, The US Navy has successfully launched an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) from a submerged submarine, the first step to "providing mission intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to the US Navy's submarine force. The birth of US UAVs (called RPVs at the time) began in 1959 when USAF officers, concerned about losing pilots over hostile territory, began planning for its use. This plan became intensified when the "secret" U-2s were shot down by USSR in 1960. Within days, the highly classified UAV program was launched under the code name of "Red Wagon". In August 1964, clash in the Tonkin Gulf between naval units of US and North Vietnam Navy initiated America's highly classified UAVs into first combat missions. When the "Red Chinese showed photographs of a downed UAV, the official US response was "no comment". Domains of use of UAVs in US There are two prominent UAV programs within the United States: military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The military's UAV program is overt, meaning that the public is aware who is operating
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