Word: radars
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...carry out the slashes required in the future, the Pentagon will have to steel itself to cancel some of the shiny new weapons systems that it is about to buy. Over the next decade, the services are due to spend $80 billion for 132 radar-invisible Stealth bombers; $37.5 billion for 750 Advanced Tactical Fighters, the new jet that is supposed to replace the Air Force F-15; and an additional $35 billion for a Navy version of a similar aircraft...
...haunt, a stretch of the Atlantic three miles southeast of Fort Lauderdale. When the computer beeps to tell him he is approaching the spot, Poveromo flicks on a bread-box-size electronic instrument, his "fish finder." By sending sound waves into the water, the machine, operating much like a radar device, probes for objects beneath the surface. The findings are recorded by a stylus that moves across a rotating paper drum. At first Poveromo sees only the line that represents the ocean floor. Then a group of gray blotches suddenly appears on the paper. Poveromo hastily baits three hooks with...
...smuggling vessel can be tracked for a day or more, providing ample time for the Navy to reach, stop and inspect it. But some border-hopping Cessnas can fly to their unloading airstrips and slip out of the U.S. again in half an hour. Even if Air Force radar planes such as the AWACS or E-2C surveillance craft spot the intruders, there is not much time to alert lawmen on the ground, get them to the strip and make arrests before the drug traffickers flee. The cost of keeping an AWACS in the air, moreover, is about...
...interception, the only Air Force jets with the right type of radar to detect low-flying planes are supersonic; but if they slow to the 150 m.p.h. of the suspect prop planes, they will be near stalling speed. Even then they could do little but frighten the smugglers. The possibility of downing innocents almost certainly would preclude any shoot-to-kill orders to Air Force pilots...
...fact, the U.S. Customs Service and Coast Guard have more effective aircraft for this job (Black Hawk helicopters and Cessna and Falcon jets) but they need more of them for better coverage. One other practical tactic: the use of tethered balloons with look-down radar (called aerostats). Seven, already authorized by Congress but not yet operational, could cover the border and part of the Bahamas...