Predator (55 page)

“Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan, 2009–2047” (Air Force study)

Unmanned Air Vehicle Joint Program Office (UAV JPO)

“Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations” (Presidential Policy Guidance)

Uzbekistan

V-1 “buzz bomb”

V-2 missiles

V-22 Osprey tiltrotor transport

Vampire fighter jet

Vietnam War

von Maur, Henry G.

W570 (Tier II Plus design)

Wagner, George

Wald, Charles F. “Chuck”

Wallace, Ginger

Wall Street Journal

Wanda Belle mission

War Department

Warsaw Pact

Wartime Integrated Laser Designator Predator test

Washington Post

Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood (Kabul)

Weaponized UAV Demonstration

Weinberger, Caspar

Welch, Paul

Weldon, Curt

Werner (technoscientist)

Wescam sensor ball

Western Europe

West Germany

Westover Air Force Base

White, Letitia

White House

Afghan Eyes and

Predator video feed

Wildfire team

Atef and

challenge coin

ground troops support and

radio call sign

WILD Predator (Wartime Integrated Laser Designator)

Williams, Robert M.

Will (sensor operator)

Willy, Wilford John

Wizzo (weapon systems officer).
See also
WSO

Wolfowitz, Paul

Woodward, Bob

Woolsey, Jim

World Trade Center attacks.
See
September 11, 2001, attacks

World War I

World War II

Wright, Orville and Wilbur

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

WSO (weapon systems officer).
See also
Wizzo

X-45A drone

Yale Aviation Club

Yale Daily News
Asian Expedition

Yank
magazine

Yemen

Yom Kippur War

Yugoslavia

Zawahiri, Ayman al-

Zuni rocket

As a twenty-six-year-old air force officer, Abe Karem placed tenth in his category while representing Israel at the free-flight model World Championships in Austria. Free-flight modeling inspired Karem and schooled him in designing drones with uncommon flight endurance.

By the time Karem was in his early thirties, he was director of preliminary design for Israel Aircraft Industries—and a determined dreamer.

Designing a decoy to fool Egyptian and Syrian defenses that devastated Israel's air force in the 1973 Yom Kippur War led Karem to an epiphany: a remote-control drone armed with antitank missiles might defeat—or, better yet, deter—another invasion of Israel.

Yale students Neal (left) and Linden Blue learned to fly so they could tour Latin America in search of postcollege business opportunities during the summer of 1956. Their daring journey in the
Blue Bird
led the young entrepreneurs into partnership in a banana and cacao plantation in Nicaragua partly owned by the ruling Somoza family.

In August 1986, the
Wall Street Journal
reported that Denver businessmen Neal and Linden Blue were buying Chevron spinoff GA Technologies, a nuclear power company. Neal (far left) decided their renamed General Atomics should expand into unmanned aircraft.

Inspired by the advent of GPS and his desire to help NATO deter a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, Neal Blue decided General Atomics should develop a kamikaze drone. Displayed at a 1988 air show before the company abandoned it and hired bankrupt Abe Karem, this “poor man's cruise missile” was the first Predator.

When President Bill Clinton complained in 1993 that neither the military nor intelligence agencies could find Serb artillery pounding civilians in Bosnia, CIA Director James Woolsey decided a drone could solve the problem. Woolsey also immediately thought of an aeronautical engineer he considered a genius: Abe Karem.

The chief of the CIA's clandestine branch, Thomas A. Twetten (left), visited the General Atomics hangar at El Mirage, California, in March 1993 to see about buying some of the company's drones for spy missions over Bosnia. Satisfied that General Atomics could deliver what the agency wanted, Twetten posed for a photo with the drone's designer, Abe Karem.

Conservative rules during initial Air Force Predator operations in the Balkans in late 1996 left flight crews at the drone's base in Hungary feeling like characters in the movie
Groundhog Day
. On a later deployment, Major Jon Box (center, in flight suit, between man and woman in camouflage) and his detachment were a lot happier.