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Disclaimer The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the US Government. 2 The MQ-9 Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft: Humans and Machines in Action by Timothy M. Cullen Submitted to the Engineering Systems Division on August 12, 2011 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering Systems: Technology, Management, and Policy Abstract Remotely piloted aircraft and the people that control them are changing how the US military operates aircraft and those who fly, yet few know what “drone” operators actually do, why they do what they do, or how they shape and reflect remote air warfare and human-machine relationships. What do the remote operators and intelligence personnel know during missions to “protect and avenge” coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and how do they go about knowing what they know? In an ethnographic and historical analysis of the Air Force’s preeminent weapon system for the counterinsurgencies in the two countries, this study describes how social, technical, and cognitive factors mutually constitute remote air operations in war. Armed with perspectives and methods developed in the fields of the history of technology, sociology of technology, and cognitive anthropology, the author, an Air Force fighter pilot, describes how distributed crews represent, transform, and propagate information to find and kill targets and traces the observed human and machine interactions to policy assumptions, professional identities, employment concepts, and technical tools. In doing so, he shows how the people, practices, and machines associated with remotely piloted aircraft have been oriented to and conditioned by trust in automation, experience, skill, and social interactions and how they have influenced and reflected the evolving operational environment, encompassing organizations, and communities of practice. Thesis Supervisor: David A. Mindell Title: Francis and David Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Society 3 This page intentionally left blank 4 Acknowledgements This study could not have been possible without the guidance, support, and insight of numerous people, most importantly my dissertation committee: Prof David Mindell, Prof Sheila Widnall, and Col Michael Kometer, PhD. Professor Mindell’s inspirational work and ideas initiated and sustained the study, and the sage counsel and mentorship of Professor Widnall and Colonel Kometer were instrumental in the focus of the research. Dr. Zara Mirmalek, Col Ray O’Mara, PhD, and other members of the Laboratory for Automation, Robotics, and Society also provided invaluable feedback and moral support and were critical to the timely completion of the work. Lt Col Anthony Tvaryanas of the 711th Human Performance Integration Directorate provided helpful guidance, and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, my professional sponsor, was an intellectual family I leaned on for advice and encouragement, especially Dr. Steve Chiabotti, Dr. John Terino, Dr. James Kiras, Dr. James Tucci, and Col Tim Schultz, PhD. Monetary and administrative support were also vital to the completion of the dissertation, and the attentiveness and patience of my program managers—Maj Penni Winston, Angela Varner, and Luke Whitney of the Air Force Institute of Technology—enabled me to complete fifteen site visits in short succession while attending courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joe Caver and Sylvester Jackson of the Air Force Historical Research Agency and James George and Mike Dugree of the Air Combat Command Historian’s Office were also an enormous help in the navigation of the United States Air Force’s archives. Space and confidentiality prevent me listing all of their names here, but the content of the final product is due principally to the receptiveness of professional men and women who designed, built, employed, and sustained Reaper, Predator, and other remotely piloted aircraft. Their generosity, hospitality, and dedication were inspirational, and I look forward to working with them on professional and academic endeavors for years to come. Finally, all of my endeavors would be meaningless without the patience, love, and blessed support of my wife Suzanne; sons Ian, Kean, Aidan, and Finn; and daughter Zuzu. I dedicate this dissertation to them. 5 This page intentionally left blank. 6 Table of Contents Introduction 17 An Ethnographic and Historical Study of Remote Air Operations Chapter 1 46 Flying the Matrix Chapter 2 117 Becoming the Camera Chapter 3 202 Building the Network Conclusion 270 Bibliography 290 7 This page intentionally left blank 8 List of Illustrations Figures Figure 0.1: Major elements of Predator and Reaper RPA 38 Figure 0.2: Remote split operations 38 Figure 0.3: Weapons and sensors onboard Predator 39 Figure 0.4: Weapons and sensors onboard Reaper 39 Figure 0.5: Reaper “connectivity” 40 Figure 0.6: Total flying hours by year for Predator and Reaper RPA 40 Figure 1.1: Ground control stations, main ramp, and hangar for the 29th Attack Squadron 49 Figure 1.2: Crew’s 9-line card for the supersortie 57 Figure 1.3: Interior of ground control station from the rear door 62 Figure 1.4: General Atomics’ depiction of pilot and sensor operator workstations 64 Figure 1.5: Reaper workstations at the start of the supersortie 65 Figure 1.6: Pilot’s workstation and displays 67 Figure 1.7: Sensor operator’s workstation and displays 68 Figure 1.8: View from nose camera and performance tables for the center tactical display 71 Figure 1.9: Difference between “military-standard” HUD and “air-to-ground” HUD 73 Figure 1.10: The Reaper aircraft’s sensors and emitters 74 Figure 1.11: Mission coordinator working in the operations cell 77 Figure 1.12: Reaper’s status and command displays 79 Figure 1.13: Referencing position of aircraft from traffic with FalconView maps & symbols 84 Figure 1.14: Sensor operator’s configuration of FalconView, chat, and tracker windows 87 Figure 1.15: Sensor operator’s HUD with toolbar and graphics for the sensor ball 93 Figure 1.16: Coordinating multiple representations of the forward operating base 95 Figure 1.17: Line diagram of sensor operator’s console 105 Figure 1.18: Tracker and HUD graphics five seconds prior to a bomb attack 109 Figure 1.19: The “attack card” used to lead the crew through the bomb attack 110 Figure 1.20: Translation of theoretical weapons performance into numbers and symbols 112 Figure 1.21: Tracker and HUD graphics four seconds prior to a missile attack 113 Figure 1.22: Underside of Reaper “FENCED in” and ready for a mission 114 9 Figure 2.1: Video feeds in the combined air operations center 121 Figure 2.2: Using automation to record and coordinate information 136 Figure 2.3: Losing a video track 139 Figure 2.4: Inexplicable behavior of an automated track mode 140 Figure 2.5: Tracking a moving target with a control delay 142 Figure 2.6: Sensor ball’s turret, afocal mirror, and gimbals 145 Figure 2.7: Coordination of print and video imagery of the target area 149 Figure 2.8: Student’s scene from sensor ball in automatic and manual modes 155 Figure 2.9: Instructor’s scene from sensor ball in automatic and manual modes 156 Figure 2.10: Student’s poor view of a target with a gain and level setting of 117 and 131 158 Figure 2.11: “Hey look, there really was something there” 159 Figure 2.12: Making an “ugly” image to facilitate manual image stabilization 161 Figure 2.13: Instructor’s blended images 163 Figure 2.14: Student’s blended images 164 Figure 2.15: Pilot’s HUD during a bomb attack 169 Figure 2.16: Matching numbers on “the gonkulator” to hit a target on time 174 Figure 2.17: Coordinating a strike from the battlefield 183 Figure 2.18: The “unblinking” eye of Predator and Reaper 191 Figure 3.1: Predator’s “Legacy” HUD 224 Figure 3.2: Predator and Reaper’s I-HUD 227 Figure 3.3: “Decluttered” I-HUD 228 Figure 3.4: Predator’s AHUD 231 Figure 3.5: Ground control station and mission planning cell (MPC) in Hungary in 1996 239 Figure 3.6: Succession of sensor balls for Predator 244 Figure 3.7: Concept of operations for deployed Predator 248 Figure 3.8: Remote split operations for Predator and Reaper 250 Figure 3.9: Mission intelligence coordinators (MIC) in a Predator operations cell 251 Figure 3.10: Predator workstations in 1996 before modification by the operators 254 Figure 3.11: Predator workstations in early 2004 with two additional displays 255 Figure 3.12: Predator workstations in late 2004 with three additional displays 255 Figure 3.13: Predator and Reaper workstations after 2005 with six additional displays 256 10 Figure 4.1: General Atomics’ advanced cockpit 281 Figure 4.2: System status screen for General Atomics’ advanced cockpit 282 Figure 4.3: General Atomics’ advanced cockpit with F-16 stick and throttle 285 Tables Table 1: Ethnographic interviews and observations from 2009 to 2010 36 Table 2: Predator and Reaper characteristics 41 11 This page intentionally left blank 12 Acronyms and Abbreviations AAI Aircraft Armaments, Incorporated AC2ISRC Aerospace Command and Control & Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Center ACC Air Combat Command ACIP aviation career incentive pay ACTD advanced concept technology demonstration AFB Air Force Base AFECD Air Force enlisted classification directory AFOCD Air Force officer classification directory AFOTEC Air Force

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