Aerial
Aerial intelligence goes back hundreds of years. Long in the past (the American Civil War for example) hot air balloons were used to observe enemy formations far in the distance. In 1888 Amedee Denisse (France) studied the possibility of cameras attached to rockets to obtain photographic evidence over great distances; unfortunately this vision was likely never achieved in full . Shortly after the turn of the century, the introduction of pigeons with small cameras attached to their chests became a short-lived long-distance reconnaissance option, but with obvious flaws and difficulties . On the other hand, the 19th century use of fixed balloons survived into World War I, when it was accompanied by observation from airships (zeppelins) and the newly invented airplane. In WW2 a Joint Imagery Intelligence unit was set up in Danesfield House, Medmenham in Buckinghamshire, UK for British and US Intelligence Officers to exploit imagery gathered on the Germans.
Low- and high-flying planes have been used all through the last century to gather intelligence about the enemy. At the start of the Cold War, foreseeing the need to observe the enemy in peacetime as well as war, the U.S. developed high-flying reconnaissance planes. The first, the Lockheed U-2, is still in service; its successor, the newer, much faster SR-71 Blackbird, was retired in 1998. These planes have the advantage over satellites that they can usually produce more detailed photographs and can be placed over the target more quickly, more often, and more cheaply, but have the disadvantage of possibly being intercepted by aircraft or missiles such as in the 1960 U-2 incident.
A new generation of unmanned reconnaissance planes has been developed for imagery and signals intelligence. Known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, these drones are a force multiplier by giving the battlefield commander an "eye in the sky" without risking a pilot. The US Army is significantly increasing the size of its current UAV force as part of the Future Combat System initiative.
Read more about this topic: Imagery Intelligence
Famous quotes containing the word aerial:
“But with some small portion of real genius and a warm imagination, an author surely may be permitted a little to expand his wings and to wander in the aerial fields of fancy, provided ... that he soar not to such dangerous heights, from whence unplumed he may fall to the ground disgraced, if not disabled from ever rising anymore.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Every year lays more earth upon us, which weighs us down from aerial regions, till we go under the earth at last.”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)