Predator : the secret origins of the drone revolution

Record details

ISBN: 1250074797
ISBN: 9781250074799
ISBN: 9780805099652
ISBN: 0805099646
ISBN: 9780805099645
Physical Description: 353 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
print
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Henry Holt and Company, [2014]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 334-336) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	The genius of the genesis -- The blues -- A straw hat in winter -- Predator reborn -- Predator's progress -- WILD predator -- The summer project -- The next logical step -- Hellfire and hesitation -- Ready or not -- Wildfire -- Cleared to fire -- Never mind-- we'll do it ourselves.
Summary, etc.:	"The creation of the first weapon in history that can stalk and kill an enemy on the other side of the globe was far more than clever engineering. As Richard Whittle shows in Predator, it was the most profound development in military and aerospace technology since the intercontinental ballistic missile. Once considered fragile toys, drones were long thought to be of limited utility. The Predator itself was resisted at nearly every turn by the military establishment, but a few iconoclasts refused to see this new technology smothered at birth. The remarkable cast of characters responsible for developing the Predator includes a former Israeli inventor who turned his Los Angeles garage into a drone laboratory, two billionaire brothers marketing a futuristic weapon that would combat Communism, a pair of fighter pilots willing to buck their white-scarf fraternity, a cunning Pentagon operator nicknamed "Snake," and a secretive Air Force organization known as Big Safari. When an Air Force team unleashed the first lethal drone strikes in 2001 for the CIA, the military's view of drones changed nearly overnight. Based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews, Predator is a groundbreaking, dramatic account of the creation of a revolutionary weapon that forever changed the way we wage war"--