$356 Million in Drone Failure
I guess we should be grateful the Customs and Border Patrol simply mismanages its fleet of 9–soon to be 10–drones, each costing $18M apiece. (h/t Kevin Gosztola, who tweeted a report of this) After all, the massive drone that went down in a marsh in Maryland yesterday cost $176M, and it’s surely still burning up.
But I couldn’t help but think that that money could have been spent on around 3,500 teachers, for a far greater benefit to this country.
The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General says the problem with CPB’s drone program is mismanagement. But that’s mostly because the drones aren’t used as much as the bean counters think they should be–just 29% of the flight hours planned.
CBP has not achieved its scheduled nor desired levels of flight hours of its unmanned aircraft. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) estimates that, based on the contract performance specifications, seven UASs should support 10,662 flight hours per year to meet the mission availability threshold (minimum capability) and 13,328 flight hours to meet the mission availability objective (desired capability). However, resource shortfalls of qualified staff and equipment coupled with restrictions imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration, weather, host airfields, and others have resulted in CBP scheduling just 7,336 flight hours for its seven unmanned aircraft and limited actual flight hours to 3,909 hours. This usage represents 37 percent of the unmanned aircraft’s mission availability threshold and 29 percent of its mission availability objective. Despite the current underutilization of unmanned aircraft, CBP received two additional aircraft in late 2011 and was awaiting delivery of a tenth aircraft in 2012.
Sadly, DHS IG sees this as a management problem, rather than a budgeting and planning problem on the part of DHS management and Congress. And CPB’s response to the IG–basically saying “we’ve got our plan and we’re going to stick to it”–sure sounds like it intends to take delivery of more drones it has neither the equipment, staff, or operational need to use.
As for the massive 44 feet long, 116-foot wingspan, 25,600 pound RQ-4A Global Hawk that went down in Maryland, the most amusing part of the coverage is the number of outlets that report a line from the Navy statements on it, “Crashes are highly unusual, Navy officials said.” The Navy just lost one-fifth of their fleet of this particular drone. I guess losing 20% of your fleet is usual to the Navy.
Popular Mechanics has a short summary explaining why the Navy is making such lame claims about this thing. Not only is Northrop Grumman scheduled to roll out a new maritime version of this to great fanfare on Thursday. But the Senate and Pentagon have noticed that these drones are not actually cheaper than the manned U2 planes the lobbyists were hoping they’d replace.
While the Global Hawk was slated to replace the aging manned U-2 aircraft by 2015, that timetable has been delayed because of the unmanned aircraft’s rising costs. It turns out that it’s cheaper, at least right now, to continue to operate the U-2. And in an age of fiscal austerity, cost matters. The Global Hawk “priced itself out of the niche,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said earlier this year.
The Pentagon shocked many observers when it decided to scrap plans to replace its U-2 aircraft with a fleet of Global Hawks, effectively sending the unmanned aircraft to an early retirement. The House version of the defense bill tried to keep the program alive, but the Senate last month sided with the Pentagon in its plan to retire the Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft.
Perhaps we’d be better not to compare the cost of the Global Hawk with teachers, as continued funding for it probably threatens Medicare and Social Security more directly.
We can fund the teachers who will teach the next generation of engineers how to avoid such massive cost problems. Or we can hurtle into buying drones that we don’t need and cost more than advertised. One of those plans is already leading to serial failure.
“But the Senate and Pentagon have noticed that these drones are not actually cheaper than the manned U2 planes the lobbyists were hoping they’d replace.”
Thanks EW. I’m gratified to hear that the Senate and the Pentagon decided against having the Global Hawk replace the U2. I had thought that the ubiquitous presence of lobbyists pretty much always overwhelmed the math skills of the political class. Good to know that is not always the case.
Hard to come up with a better example of “if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” So it’s too costly, they don’t have the manpower to run it, it crashes in a swamp, therefore explain: “the issue here is that it isn’t being deployed and used enough.” Oh, and don’t forget it’s one of those “$7,000 for a hammer, $20,000 for a toilet seat” government procurement hammers mentioned by the old guy in Independence Day as they walk through Area 51….
All the checks and balances in our constitution to prevent one Branch from usurping the others have been slowly eroded to nothing and the MIC which has always been a major influence in foreign policy has now taken over foreign policy and is working on domestic policy aided and abetted by the bat shit crazy super rich.
I don’t think the Navy has any U-2’s. They were formerly flown by the CIA, and they’re now — all, I believe — flown by the U.S. Air Force.
Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry on the Global Hawk has only this to say on its operational use by the U.S. Navy:
This is the sole operational use by the Navy of the Global Hawk of which Wikipedia is aware. In contrast, there are several paragraphs about the Air Force’s use of Global Hawks.
Similarly, the article lists several Air Force units that use Global Hawks. For the Navy, all the article says is: “United States Navy”. It doesn’t list any units.
One wonders whether Navy use of the Global Hawk has been classified up to now.
@lysias: I think these are Navy drones but in an AF capacity. So that would make sense, right?
When will Chris Hayes have you on a guest to discuss the drone topic?
Do any of the articles say where the drone was based?
From the small world file – I know a tech who works on the drones that fly out of Beale AFB. Not sure if he works on the Global Hawks or the Lockheed D-21B’s, and his wife is studying to be a pilot
@JohnT: Oh Navy. Just skimmed the post. Nevermind
This, I can verify, per my friend. There’re more support personnel involved in flying and maintaining the drones than in regular aircraft
Could it be that not everyone at CBP thinks we are at war with ourselves and everyone who wants to visit or work here? Is its leadership not uniformly convinced of the use it, grow it to gargantuan proportions, or lose it mentality of the federal “budget” process? Or does it have an insufficient supply of outside “contractors” managing its programs – that is, is it doing its own taxpayer-funded, inherently governmental work?
As for the projection that a new program outsourced to and staffed, managed and self-reviewed by its own contractors, would be cheaper than any other possible government program, I can only imagine that anyone espousing it must buy and sell the Brooklyn Bridge to put themselves to sleep every night.
@lysias:
I think NASA might have a couple of them, or possibly it leases them from the A. Interesting plane, but apparently very difficult to handle at altitude.
U.S. Navy Will Spend $34 Million to Switch Drones to Linux.
I wonder if there’s a connection with this thread’s news.