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American Morning

Target: Terrorism - U.S. Spy Planes

Aired October 03, 2001 - 09:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The first move before any military strike is to collect information about the enemy. That's where reconnaissance missions comes in, with covert teams and spy planes working behind enemy lines.

CNN's Kyra Phillips in Atlanta with a look at some spy planes. Time for a little chalk talk. Hello, Kyra.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: There you go, I know you and I can relate to this, Miles.

Well, in effort to increase the pursuit of Osama bin Laden, the Pentagon has increased spending on all surveillance equipment, specifically accelerating the purchase of reconnaissance planes and drones for intelligence gathering operations.

There are a number of both manned and unmanned surveillance planes. We've selected a few key aircraft to give you an idea of what these planes are capable of.

Let's start with two examples the manned aircraft, the Prowler and E-3 Sentry. The Prowler is a carrier based surveillance aircraft, found onboard carriers such as the USS Kitty Hawk, Carl Vinson, Enterprise and Roosevelt. These carriers are already located in the Middle East region and its borders.

The Prowler protects the strike aircraft and the ground troops. And it's capable of jamming their radars to not only protect U.S. aircraft from being detected, but it also jams enemy electronic communications.

The E-3 Sentry serves as a surveillance tool, and command and control for air battles. It can patrol areas for up to 8 hours without refueling, and it's built with a 707 commercial airframe, with a rotating radar dome.

Now, let's switch gears and take a closer look at what the unmanned surveillance planes, or unmanned aerial vehicles as they're called, can do. There are two main drones, the Predator and the Global Hawk.

Let's show you video of the Predator here, and tell you a little bit more about it. The Predator UAV has real time surveillance capabilities; so if it's happening now, the military folks can see it live, and can monitor things in real time.

The drone can operate up to 26,000 feet, has a 400 nautical mile range, and can stay in the air for 24 hours. The Predator flies at low altitudes, which makes it easier target for anti aircraft attacks. The Predator costs about $3.2 million.

Then there's the Global Hawk. It also can do real time surveillance, but the difference between the Predator and Global Hawk is that the Global Hawk can fly higher altitudes of up to 65,000 feet, and still zoom in and lock in on a tighter picture. It has a longer nautical mile range, it's 1,200 miles; and like the Predator, also can stay up for 24 hours.

So, putting more dollars into these aircraft is considered a major move when you look at the money being used in emergency spending. $1.3 billion of the first $4.2 billion has been solely devoted to improving the intelligence gathering.

Paula, Miles?

O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much Kyra Phillips, in Atlanta. We appreciate the background on all of that.

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