http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator#Operational_history Development
At Paris Air Show 2007
A Predator flies on a simulated Navy aerial reconnaissance flight off the coast of southern California on December 5, 1995.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon began experimenting with reconnaissance drones in the early 1980s. The CIA preferred small, lightweight, unobtrusive drones, in contrast to the United States Air Force (USAF).
In the early 1990s, the CIA became interested in the "Amber", a drone developed by Leading Systems, Inc.[7] The company's owner, Abraham Karem, was the former chief designer for the Israeli Air Force, and had immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s. Karem's company had since gone bankrupt and been bought up by a U.S. defense contractor, from whom the CIA secretly bought five drones (now called the "GNAT"). Karem agreed to produce a quiet engine for the Our updated Terms of Use will become effective on May 25, 2012. Find out more.
Karem Aircraft
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_KaremKarem Aircraft, Inc. is an American aerospace company with offices in Lake Forest, California and Fort Worth, Texas, founded by Abraham Karem as a rapid development firm specializing in advanced tiltrotor transport aircraft. Karem was the former chief designer for the Israeli Air Force and migrated to the United States in the late 1970s.
Under his previous company, Leading Systems Inc. (LSI), Karem led teams that developed the Amber and GNAT 750 (predecessors of the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems, as well as the A160 Hummingbird Optimum-Speed Rotor UAV, now a Boeing product.[1]
Karem's company, Leading Systems, had since gone bankrupt and been bought up by US defense contractor General Atomics. The CIA secretly bought five drones (now called the "GNAT") from them. Karem agreed to produce a quiet engine, which until then sounded like "a lawnmower in the sky". The new development became rechristened the "Predator".[2]
The Hummingbird was developed by Frontier Aircraft. In May 2004, the company was acquired by Boeing[3] and integrated into Boeing Phantom Works and then into the Advanced Systems group of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
In early 2008, Karem Aircraft teamed with Lockheed Martin in offering Karem's Optimum Speed Tilt-Rotor (OSTR) design for the US Department of Defense's Joint Heavy Lift program.[1][4]
Products
Frontier Aircraft
Amber
GNAT 750
Boeing A160 Hummingbird
References
^ a b "Lockheed Martin and Karem Aircraft Team to Support Department of Defense Joint Heavy Lift Program", Lockheed Martin, February 29, 2008.
^ Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (Penguin, 2005 edition), pp. 527-8 and 658 note 5.
^ Boeing Frontiers Online
^ Warwick, Graham. "Lockheed joins Karem in OSTR programme", Flightglobal.com, 11 March 2008.
External links
Karem Aircraft home page
VERTIFLITE Rotorcraft forecast 2006-2015
Optimum Speed Tilt Rotor OSTR on globalsecurity.org
Joint Heavy Lift (JHL) on globalsecurity.org
Topic: Even U.S. Drones were invented by an Israeli (Read 2958 times)