UAV roundupMontana inaugurates new anti-illegal immigration air facility
Predator B UAVs to join the Grand Falls Air Branch soon; development a triumph for embattled senator Conrad Burns; two other branches to open next year
It is looking like the end of the road for Montana senator Conrad Burns’s political career — polls show him lagging John Tester by double digits — but he has until January to wrap up unfinished business. One such task was to open the Grand Falls Air Branch, one of three new aviation facilities built to control the northern border. Burns, as one may easily imagine, played a critical role in securing funding for the project, including $7.6 million in fiscal 2007 alone. The two other air branches, both scheduled to open in 2008, will be located in Grand Forks, North Dakota and Detroit, Michigan.
For now, the outpost will be manned by fifty-two personnel charged with operating a fleet consisting of two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, two Cessna 550 Citation II interdiction aircraft, and one Pilatus PC-12 surveillance aircraft. UAVs are not currently on site, but they will be shortly. As described above, DHS has received funding for two new Predator Bs, and one of them will be deployed to the northern border.
-read more in Chris Strohm’s National Journal’s Technology Daily report
