Is pricey Border Patrol drone program worth the cost?

SIERRA VISTA — The drone's radar spots the men first — four red dots moving on Ajo Mountain, a half mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The radar operator sits more than an hour's flight away, with the rest of the drone's flight crew, in a trailer at the edge of the Fort Huachuca military base in southern Arizona. He taps at his keyboard. A powerful video camera mounted on a ball beneath the Customs and Border Protection Predator B zooms in.

The image clearly shows four men, one in a white shirt, hiking calmly through the rugged desert, unaware they're being tracked from nearly nine miles away and 19,000 feet up.

The drone's crew alerts the Border Patrol. In less than a minute, a helicopter heads there from one direction, agents in a truck from another. After a few minutes, the four men, apparently hearing the chopper, break into a run, sprinting for the border fence.

Impressive technology. But federal auditors and aerial-surveillance competitors repeatedly have questioned whether CBP's drone program is cost effective — and whether other alternatives might do more for less money.

On this June 11 sighting, the men scrambled over the border fence into Mexico before the agents arrived.

Timothy Sutherland, a pilot and the acting director of air operations at CBP's Sierra Vista center, called this incident a success, a "turn-back."

But it won't show up in Border Patrol statistics. Were the men smugglers? Undocumented migrants? It's impossible to say. And therein lies a dilemma for CBP and its nine, soon to be 10, Predator B drones.

Over the past two fiscal years, CBP's drones helped nab less than 3 percent of the drugs seized by agents in the few sectors where they were used, according to CBP's own figures.

By comparison, since this fiscal year began on Oct. 1, manned aircraft have accounted for more than 99 percent of weapons, cash and meth seizures, 95 percent of cocaine seizures, and 89 percent of marijuana seizures in which aerial assets were involved, according to CBP data.

To CBP, drug seizures "are not an appropriate performance measure," spokesman Carlos Lazo said, noting that the drones "detect illegal cross-border activity ... on a daily basis."

Almost daily. For budget reasons, the drones don't fly every day.

In theory, CBP's $600 million-and-counting drone program is intended to help close the gaps through which smugglers move people and drugs across the border.

"The problem," Sutherland said, "is that we can't usually say we apprehended or stopped a group. All we can say is we detected them."

But the cost-effectiveness of the drones repeatedly has come under fire from by government auditors. Most recently, in January, a critique by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General said — not for the first time— that the drones cost too much and catch too little. Inspectors recommended that, rather than buy any more drones, CBP look for better alternatives.

An Arizona Republic analysis suggests that manned aircraft or other, less expensive drones could provide broader coverage than the Predator Bs have delivered, at a significantly lower cost.

Several other U.S. government agencies, including the Forest Service, contract with aerial-surveillance companies for manned aircraft that carry surveillance equipment similar to much of that used on the Predator B drones. Those agencies typically pay $1,500 to $2,000 per flight hour for such services — or from an eighth to a fifth of the $12,255-an-hour the Inspector General said it costs CBP to fly its Predator B drones.

The FBI uses Cessna 182T Skylanes for aerial surveillance. That aircraft retails for less than $500,000, not including surveillance gear.

Aerial-surveillance providers tend to call the Predator B such things as the Rolls-Royce or the Lamborghini of drones.

Tim Sheehy, chief executive of Bridger Enterprises, a Montana-based company that conducts aerial surveillance for the Forest Service and Department of Interior, offered this analogy:

A border sheriff in Texas could spend $3 million to buy two top-of-the-line Ferraris — or 90 Chevrolet Caprices.

"The Caprices aren't as fast, they aren't as sexy, but they're a hell of a lot cheaper. And with that many you could cover the whole county," he said.

The "unmanned" Predator B requires a large crew and support team.

One pilot specializes in take-offs and landings, handing off to another pilot once a drone reaches altitude. Each drone typically has a flight crew of four, plus a mission supervisor, for short missions. Longer missions require relief shifts.

The drones take off from and land on runways, like manned aircraft. The Predator B uses a single turboprop engine and is controlled remotely either by line-of-sight or satellite transmissions.

The mission in Sierra Vista on June 11 included five other support crew, plus other ground crew and contract personnel who help with surveillance equipment, such as Northrop Grumman's VADER radar systems, that the drones use to track people and vehicles on the ground.

CBP also said the drones require an hour of maintenance for each hour of flight time.

CBP leaders insist that the Predator B drones have been a good investment and a useful tool.

"We disagree strongly with the OIG," said Mark Borkowski, CBP's assistant commissioner in charge of acquisitions, in response to a question from The Republic at a border-security expo in Phoenix recently. "There are a zillion things" the drones can do, he said.

Randolph Alles, the assistant commissioner who directs CBP's Office of Air and Marine, argues that the value of drug seizures involving the drones have outweighed the cost of the Predator B program.

CBP said its Office of Air and Marine, in the first eight months of the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, has contributed to the seizure of 122,000 pounds of cocaine, 473,000 pounds of marijuana, 2,400 pounds of methamphetamine, and 985 pounds of other drugs. But most of that total came from manned aircraft.

One CBP "Guardian" drone, a marine variant, helped the Coast Guard and the Guatemalan Navy seize 2,400 pounds of cocaine in March off the coast of El Salvador. Beyond that, drones this fiscal year, through May, contributed to the seizure of about 56,000 pounds of marijuana, about 3,100 more pounds of cocaine, and four pounds of methamphetamines — about 10 percent of the total, according to CBP.

Borkowski, Alles and other CBP leaders have not answered the key question raised by the Inspector General's report:

Could the agency get the same performance for less money by using alternatives such as manned aircraft or drones that cost less to own and operate than the $18 million apiece CBP paid for its Predator Bs?

The Inspector General called on CBP to explore such alternatives; but the OIG's report did not offer any cost comparisons.

Borkowski said that CBP is happy to consider all options. "We are looking at a whole series of things that can do some parts of that mission," he said. "We will eventually balance UAS (unmanned aerial systems) against other systems."

CBP spokesman Carlos Lazo, in response to further queries, provided a written statement that the agency's Office of Air and Marine is exploring using its most advanced radar system, known as VADER, on manned platforms as well as the Predator B.

The VADER system is currently mounted on two drones, according to CBP. Two more systems sit in a hangar in Sierra Vista, waiting to be mounted.

But other aerial-surveillance providers uniformly expressed skepticism that CBP would switch willingly to cheaper alternatives.

Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, said his firm, Bridger Enterprises, has given up on seeking CBP contracts after "banging our heads on that door for three years and getting nowhere."

Officers at several other aerial-surveillance firms made similar comments but asked not to be identified, saying they feared it might harm their relations with CBP.

Industry insiders and security analysts say that alternatives to the drones get short shrift because the government's contracting and acquisition system tilts towards large military contractors whose heavy lobbying can define contracts in ways that favor them.

"People with lobbying access can define the requirements that determine the contract," said Brian Whiteside, a pilot who has worked with several aerial-surveillance companies. "It's lead time, networks, connections, access; if you're a small business, you're not going to survive."

The Predator B drone and its marine variant, the Guardian, are made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., of Poway, Calif., an affiliate of General Atomics.

General Atomics and GAAS spent nearly $2.4 million lobbying in 2005, when they won their first CBP contract, according to disclosure forms filed with the government. Since then, the two affiliates have spent more than $23 million more on lobbying, while winning sole-source, non-competitive contracts in 2007 and 2012. Officials at GAAS declined to be interviewed.

CBP currently operates nine drones, three each out of Arizona, Texas and North Dakota.

It bought 11, but in January 2014, a Sierra Vista-based pilot ditched one of the agency's two Guardians off the coast of California after experiencing control problems.

A trainee pilot's error caused a Predator B to crash in a residential area outside of Nogales, Ariz., in April 2006.

Contractually, CBP's Predator B drones are supposed to be able to provide aerial reconnaissance and surveillance for up to 20 hours at a time; CBP touted that "20+ hour endurance" in a 2012 document justifying giving GAAS its most recent $128 million non-competitive contract.

That contract is part of a larger $443 million, sole-source contract CBP proposed in November 2012 to buy 14 more drones from GAAS. Those additional drones are on hold, and CBP says it has no plans to expand the drone program "at this time."

In practice, though, the Predator Bs typically fly far fewer hours.

Last fiscal year, each drone flew, on average, fewer than 10 hours a week. Sutherland said that this year, the three drones in Sierra Vista typically have flown a total of 10 missions a week, because they don't have enough crew members to fly daily or to fly the 20-hour missions of which they're capable.

In its critique, the Inspector General said the Predator B has fallen far short of goals outlined in CBP operations documents, which call for four drones to fly 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

Assistant Commissioner Alles said it would be "irresponsible" to fly Predator Bs 16 hours a day because "the aircraft would literally wear out in four or five years."

But the agency issued a statement to The Republic that "with more UAS pilots and additional funding for UAS maintenance, OAM would fly its unmanned aircraft more."

CBP officials repeatedly have claimed in annual reports that the drones cover the entire Southwest border. But, as the Inspector General noted, almost all of the Predator B's operations have focused on a 100-mile stretch of the Arizona border and a 70-mile stretch of the Texas border, both heavy crossing zones.

In a letter disputing the OIG's findings, CBP Assistant Commissioner Eugene Schied argued that the agency "has flown the UAS along every stretch of the Southwest Border from California to the Texas gulf coast."

But CBP's data for last fiscal year show a total of 3.8 hours flown over New Mexico, and just under 45 hours flown over California, in both cases apparently in transit rather than on surveillance missions.

"We believe it is misleading for CBP to report that its unmanned aircraft operate over every stretch of the Southwest border when these flights appear to be simply on the way to another mission," the OIG's office responded.

CBP leaders also argue over how much the drones cost to fly. Alles said the agency uses the same method of calculating costs as the Pentagon, for a figure of $2,468 per flight hour.

But CBP's calculations, the agency admits , don't include the costs for pilots or other crew, training, overhead, or of operating the surveillance and radar gear. The Inspector General said including those costs gives a more realistic figure of $12,255 per flight hour.

All these distinctions matter for comparing the cost and efficiency of the drones to alternatives.

"The Predator B is a very sexy platform," said Adam Isacson, a regional-security analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a D.C. think tank. He said it's understandable why CBP leaders want them. But, he added, given the large ground team involved in operating and maintaining every drone, "it doesn't offer much bang for the bucks."

Whiteside, the pilot, was equally blunt.

"You could take the same sensors and technology and put them on low-cost airplanes and get better coverage," he said.

The VADER radar pods, for example, weigh 250 pounds, the video and infrared cameras even less.

The Pentagon has contracted for aerial surveillance in Afghanistan and elsewhere using the same radar and video systems as on the Predator Bs, mounted on manned aircraft, including the Beechcraft King Air 350 – the same model that CBP's Office of Air and Marine already operates.

CBP paid $19 million apiece for its most well-equipped King Airs, making them even more expensive per aircraft than the Predator Bs; but the same payloads can be mounted on manned and unmanned aircraft that cost much less to own and operate, according to industry experts.

Myles Newlove is chairman and chief executive of Shield Aviation, a San Diego-based company that makes a drone called the Ares. He said there are reasons the Predator, which can fly at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet and carry large payloads, proved attractive to CBP.

"You want to track people crossing or smuggling operations, and do that undetected," he said. "The higher you go to be acoustically undetectable, the better the optics package you require … and the bigger the package, the bigger the unmanned aerial vehicle has to be."

Newlove said of the Ares, "we fly an optics package with similar capabilities to the one the Predator flies." A U.S. Navy contract for the Ares specifies that it fly at up to 18,000 feet for up to 10 hours.

He said that while his company has focused on contracting with the Department of Defense, "our platform absolutely would be an extremely useful product on the border." And, he said the cost of acquiring and operating the Ares "would be significantly less."

Sheehy, of Bridger Aviation, says his company puts its surveillance packages on manned twin-engine Aero Commander airplanes, and has contracts with the Forest Service and the Department of Interior.

"We can operate on contract for $1,500 to $2,000 an hour and provide surveillance video straight to smartphones," he said. Whether from his company or any of several rivals, he said, "The Border Patrol could just buy hours of flight time from a contractor. If a plane isn't flying, they aren't getting paid."

CBP's Lazo, in response to a query, provided a statement saying CBP is bringing on more maintenance contractors to increase flight time, and is working with the FAA to loosen weather restrictions limiting when it can fly its drones.

CBP is "making progress in increasing flight hours and efficiency of operations" for the Predator B, Lazo's statement said.

One way CBP is doing so is by having crews from other regions back each other's missions. On June 11, for example, the Sierra Vista center launched a second drone, handing it off after take-off to a control crew in Corpus Christi, Texas.

"We're trying harder" to combine operations that way, Sutherland said. "If I were dependent on my crew, we could only launch one aircraft today."

Bob Ortega is a senior reporter specializing in coverage of the U.S.-Mexico border.

How to reach him:

bob.ortega@arizonarepublic.com
Phone: 602-444-8926
Twitter: @bob_ortega