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"Your argument defies logic"
We know this company has always relied on hyped relationships that have always failed to deliver. They did it with Internafta, Raytheon, NASA, VPN etc... Of course there perfect "FAILURE" rate has not stopped this practice, they are doing it now with TAO!
So it is perfectly logical to conclude that if these investors had "anything" to offer that could be hyped, we would have already heard about it from the company. After all, it is once again logical that these investors would want their shares to go up too.... right? If they thought there "relationship" would help the value of "their" investment, they would insist the company announce it...
Of course that's only, "LOGICAL"...
You also say...
"And no..none of it went to old debt inherited."
It's interesting that they do not believe in the company enough to take care of some of these pressing debts(particularily the IRS debt). If these investers were as "important" as you imply, this would be pocket change for them. It looks to me like they are no more than common shareholders desperately hoping additional funds could prevent them from losing everything.
Of course the fact that nothing went to old debt makes me think they may have cut a separate deal for something new... and guess who just might be cut out holding the old debt... you got the "old" shareholders!
Of course, it is only "logical" that a company we have watched devide up assets to insiders and never include shareholders... might just be doing it again!
"Now please tell us all how this company is still operating and why the SEC and the IRS have not shut it down?"
I have already answered this...
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=31708254
Why do those like yourself keep asking the same question over and over... it has already been answered.
"why the SEC and the IRS have not shut it down?"
They may never shut it down... so what, you're stuck with an almost worthless shell, whether they do or not!
"Could it be that some of the employees of Globetel were contract employees and thus responsibile for their own taxes?"
No this is not possible!
If GlobeTel didn't owe the taxes they wouldn't be negotiating with the IRS for their very survival.
"Could it be that both the IRS and the SEC are working with the company to resolve the issues from the past?"
This is another GlobeTel myth!
They aren't "working with them"! They are doing what they always do, and if you had ever been through an IRS audit or an SEC investigation, you would know they are not there to "help" you. One thing for sure... everyone has someone to answer to. Anyone doing a multi year investigation like this is expected to show why the time and money was spent to begin with. That's why there has been no settlement with the company like there has been with some individuals. The SEC wants a piece of this company and they are going to get it.
"Makes me wonder what the new investors know about this company that you and others do not?"
Now that we know these investors were common shareholders we know exactly what happened. They were told you are about to lose everything unless you invest more in this company. It's the oldest trick in the book. Obviously some of them took the chance. Well guess what they're 50% down on this too!
What a scam!
"I was approached with the prospectus."
This is interesting as I think someone, maybe you characterized these investors as being very valuable. I mistakenly took this to mean value in the sense of a new partner that brought something to the table other than emergency funding. While nothing may be more important at this point, I just thought it could be someone with connections, technology etc... that could help the company.
Since they offered it to common share shareholders, I guess this answers the question. To bad they couldn't even raise enough to pay their late payroll taxes.
"Thus, all of the new funders are very long this stock, and remain so, and perhaps tickle every day to support this stock at .05 or so as need be, until the ship is righted."
Yes, the price seems to be artificially supported at this point to me too. Of course these guys have already proven they were willing to throw good money after bad...
"You didn't answer the question"
"Explain with the company where it is now, what possible benefit is there for the ones remaining and why not just close up shop once "the scam" has worked."
I did give an answer, it was...
"When you ask the question, why don't they just shut it down... it's a good question, and the answer is obvious. Lienwand is trying to make the most of his cut, just like the other insiders."
You had asked for logic and that is what I gave. If you want speculation...
Once again, Leinwand has a background in dealing with shell companies. While junk just looks like junk to most, a junk dealer can usually find a way to profit from it. Leinwand may just try to run the same scam again. He might use the shell for something else... we shall see...
"I wasn't asking how those in the past have benefited I'm speaking of the present"
So am I. Leinwand and his shell game are in the present.
"Your argument defies logic"
Here's a little logic for you...
1) Huff, after making all that money at GlobeTel shareholders expense, ends up at Network1, once again doing his thing, selling wireless service.
2) Uli, after whatever he could get from GlobeTel and their shareholders, ends up with HotZone, just what he started with, and what he wanted.
3) Khoury, an investor, also got what he wanted. He made millions off all those shares, which is what investors do.
4) Murch, ends up working on the same or similar technology, with a new company that has a new shot at making it work. He's a tech guy and he is once again doing his thing.
See how so many insiders have ended up with cash, and/or the part of the company that suits them best...
Now for Leinwand. Isn't it interesting that his expertise is "shell companies". And you ask why he doesn't just shut it down.
It's perfectly "logical", that he wants his piece of the pie just like the other insiders!!! And unlike his other shell companies, this one has a built in, loyal, cult-like following. When you ask the question, why don't they just shut it down... it's a good question, and the answer is obvious. Lienwand is trying to make the most of his cut, just like the other insiders. But make no mistake. Your investment is in a shell that has about a 1% chance, the original company had of succeeding, and we know how it turned out the first time around.
It's so much easier to run a scam the first time.
"Why the delay?"
That's the way small scam companies work. They will tell you there were people at their demonstration, but not give you there names. You have to find out about their debt and problems with the IRS in filings over a year late, as the company chooses "not" to keep investors informed. They leak information about a new lease, then you find out they were evicted. They leak info about people staying with the company, then you find out they resigned. They leak information about a settlement meeting with the SEC, but then they refuse to tell you how it went...
That's the way scam companies operate. They hype anything they can pose as good news and hide the bad as long as they can.
Didn't mide post...
that the strat had already been to 65,000 feet?
This is what the company said, "after" his comments...
"GlobeTel Communications Corp. today announced that its lighter than air (LTA) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program is entering a new phase that encompasses a more rigorous series of preparations leading to stratospheric flight of the Stratellite airship models."
"Sanswire-TAO expects to fly the first of several stratosphere-capable vehicles to roughly 60,000 feet above the Earth's surface for several hours before returning to earth."
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/080805/147938.html
"It's based on a combination of several things including fundamental analysis, technical analysis, and forward-looking astrological technical analysis..."
Do you recall approx. what GlobeTel shares were trading at when you started using this method to predict its price movement?
I should have just spelled it out...
instead of posting the dots. I'll try again...
The company wanted us to know about the possibility of "good" news as a result of a settlement meeting with the SEC. The meeting came and went and there was "NO" good news reported. This can only mean the SEC wasn't buying what GlobeTel was trying to sell...
In fact the meeting may gone so poorly...
The company sees no need to file any more financials.
I realize the SEC would not tell them not to file, but their actions may have been such that the company no longer sees any reason to.
"I can assure you that, given a response just received from our CEO, the Company is not in any way holding the financials from being released."
Well if it's not the company it must be the accountants or the SEC... The company was already willing to put out financials, in which the accountants included all the bad news.(At least so it seemed to me.) So that leaves the SEC.
I also noticed that while we were given information about a meeting to settle with the SEC, we received no information about a settlement! Obviously, if the company wanted us to know about the meeting, they would have wanted us to know about a positive outcome.
Connecting those dots does not look good.
Wouldn't you agree that Joe M...
has made a lot more off GlobeTel than you have?
"BTW, it DOES cost money - that's what Warp said."
Well then please tell us how much more it costs to put out a 500 word press release, then say a 300 word press release. My point was they could add the info to another PR. I don't think it would cost much more at all, as I indicated. In fact, are you not aware, that if you have "real" news... there are those who will carry your story for free. Of course those like CNBC have already been burned by GlobeTel, they know what GlobeTel is at this point.
"They CHOOSE to release pertinent and factual information."
Don't you think a plan to handle all the debt is "pertinent" at this point?
Maybe they just don't have one.
Don't you think the status of the Navy experiment is "pertinent" at this point?
Maybe it has already been cancelled.
Don't you think their status with the IRS is "pertinent" at this point.
No news has always meant bad news with this company.
Don't you think information about all those leaving and starting competing companies is "pertinent" at this point.
I know I do, looks to me they don't want to mention it.
They are no more interested in sharing "pertinent" information with shareholders than they ever were. Instead all they put out is the usual hype about more demonstrations and new phases of preperation that never lead to anything important.
GlobeTel still is what it has always been...
Just another small South Florida scam company.
"Press releases do in fact cost money."
Once a press release is going to be made it really doesn't cost much more to include more information. The "important" information shareholders want and need could easily be included along with the usual fluff and hype that the company seems to think is the only thing worthy of a press release.
The company "chooses" to press release meaningless info like this-
"today announced that its lighter than air (LTA) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program is entering a new phase that encompasses a more rigorous series of preparations"
Yet in the same press release they "choose" not to let shareholders know if the Navy experiment is still on schedule, they "choose" not to report if anything came of the last "demonstration", they "choose" not to tell us if the S2A has been overhauled, they "choose" not to mention if anything has been settled with the IRS, they "choose" not to update us on the SEC investigation, they "choose" not to mention the debt and lack of revenues, they "choose" not to tell us why so many have left the company and are starting companies with better technology in the same business GlobeTel would like to be in, etc... etc... etc...
In other words, the new GlobeTel operates just like the old GlobeTel. They use their press releases for meaningless fluff and hype and still "choose" not to level with shareholders and be honest as to what is really going on and the state of the company.
BridgeTech is an unproven company...
Personally I think they will end up just like all the other small start-up high hope HAA companies we've seen over the last 20 years... that is, the insiders will once again make money while the investors lose.
GlobeTel is a "proven" failure at this point. They have had "years" and millions of dollars to bring something to market and they have been a miserable failure every step of the way. So if one wants to invest in this technology, they can once again choose a new unproven start-up, or they can pick a proven failure. A company that is still under SEC investigation, has tremendous debt relative to it's revenue, has failed to make it's IRS payroll deposites, has been evicted from multiple locations etc... etc... etc...
"And I suppose you believe my money goes to the company."
I don't think so.
I think your money goes to guys like Monterosso, Huff, Khoury etc... as they dump their shares.
The "present" company...
Has about five weeks left to make good on their much hyped Navy experiment. You know, the one we were told was more important than Trident '08. Let's see if anything comes of it, or if the "present" company is just like the previous company.
You know...
All hype and no substance!
It is certainly a helpless feeling...
being taken by guys like this and then watching them do it again. At least this day in time, with the internet, the news about these scams can be spread on message boards and by financial writers on their blogs and websites. I realize that early on, in these deals most shareholders believe strongly in their investment and defend it as they should.
It does kind of surprise me however, that when it becomes so obvious on a scam like GlobeTel, so many continue to defend and promote the company.
Obviously it is their right... but it sure makes it easier for scams like this to continue.
"possible he knows something we don't"
Of course he does...
He knows how to quickly make millions while shareholders slowly lose everything.
That's the way this game is played. He has done this before, and it looks like he is going to do it again!
And the "new" company...
Isn't starring down the barrel of fraud charges and embroiled in a years old SEC investigation, not to mention their IRS problems.
It would seem like the "new" company would be an excellent opportunity for a fresh start for those who said they believed in "this" technology for the last few years.
So Uli gets HotZone, Huff gets Network1, Khoury/Murch get the Sanswire technology, Someone else got MagicMoney and the GlobeTel investors get...
Well, we all know what they got!
You don't have to go public...
to shaft investors...
"Using a phased approach to reach the stratosphere (i.e. moving from low/medium to high altitude) should allow AerNavis to generate significant revenues within 12 months and to achieve a return on initial investment within 18 months 1."
I guess as long as there are those who think they can get rich quick by picking the next Microsoft, there will be those to take their money.
"AerNavis believes it can achieve market leadership in a market where competition is not yet established."
LOL...
That's for sure!
We were told, Dec 5, 2007 was the...
NSS "DROP DEAD DATE" for the MMs, and that would make the shareprice go up.
Now the theory is that a 1:1 share swap may take care of the problem and make the shareprice go up.
The shareprice is down over 60% since the Dec. 5, 2007 NSS "DROP DEAD DATE"!
Somehow I don't think the latest theory will turn out any different than the last one. The only theories that have been right about the shareprice for this stock over the last few years have been those about it going down.
This is an interesting post...
As legal council, Leinwand was either advising Huff and Kostro what to do, "or" he knew about it early on at the least.
Why didn't he warn investors at the time?
Many have speculated Leinwand now cares about shareholders.
Why didn't he speak up when all of this was going on?
I think his loyalties are the same as Kostro, Huff and Monterosso... and it has nothing to do with shareholders.
"It does not have any immediate importance to anyone but you."
It's interesting that you feel qualified to speak for everyone, but me. It has been my experience that the vast majority of companies with ongoing SEC investigations and pending trials face immediate and ongoing repercussions from this until they have been concluded. In fact I have seen many post here(not just "me") that have indicated until this is resolved it will be very difficult for the company to do anything significant for their shareholders.
You also say...
"After all, we all know that the number they ask for is already covered by insurance."
Could you please tell us the number that has been agreed to for the disgorgement?
Thanks
I would "suspect" any information...
from Joe Monteross, "AND" GlobeTel. But a funny thing happens when parties are put under oath during a trial with the threat of perjury staring them in the face...
they often tell the truth!
I don't think the SEC will have any problem determining which documents from Joe Monterosso are real, and as a former officer he was in a position to have many. There is no way the SEC will disregard legitimate evidence regardless of who it is from.
Often when the SEC goes after companies at least they can put up a united defense with all the officers pulling together. We all know how Joe Monterosso feels about GlobeTel. To have to face the SEC with a former officer doing everthing he can to bring you down has got to be one of the worse ways to do it. The SEC has kept these actions separate from the very beginning. I think there being combined this far along in the process is not merely to save tax dollars. I think the SEC realizes the value in Monterosso in their case against GlobeTel and that's the main reason the two cases were combined. It's going to be easy for the SEC to pit these sides against each other and watch them tear each other apart.
Should be an interesting trial!
Thanks for the posts regarding this, as important as this developement is, I'm glad it could be discussed more.
So you're "glad" the man...
with the incredible vendetta, the former officer of the company, who has an enormous data bank of incriminating information about the company...
You're "glad" he and his team will be there every step of the way during GlobeTel's trial with the SEC...? OK
I'm glad too! Because when the gloves are taken off during this trial, when the blood bath ensues, I think we will finally get to the truth concerning this investor nightmare. And the ones who will end up being hurt the most will probably be the same ones who always have been... the shareholders. They will lose everything and the insiders will get their slaps on the wrist.
And it is interesting this got so few posts as it is a huge negative development for the company. Of course there have been so many other important topics like patent applications for 15 year old designs etc...
The most significant "new" news...
Seemed to almost slip under the radar screen.
That being that the SEC had combined the companies case with that of Joe Monterosso. After all, there were many who thought the SEC saw GlobeTel as Monterosso's victim. Of course when the SEC filed charges against GlobeTel we knew this wasn't true. We also know the SEC investigation has continued. And just recently the SEC has decided to combine the two cases.
This is just another nail in the coffin.
There isn't room left for many more.
"after nearly 15 years of development and thousands of test flights we have enormous confidence in his revolutionary design."
I've never known anyone that thought they had a "rovolutionary" design, wait 15 years to file their patents...
We have seen the ship for years...
The US Patent office makes it very affordable to file a patent application. Of course if someone is serious about really protecting something, it can be much more expensive. But if all you want to do is put out another press release, the process can be very cheap, taylor made for a company like GlobeTel which has a many year history of scraping up anything they can hype to investors...
and remember...
It's only an "application"!
LOL
Thanks just the same holter, but...
There are plenty of shares available, and very cheaply. They have also gotten cheaper and cheaper over the last few years and I see no reason for that not to continue.
We heard recently that their wireless networks won't work commercially. Many already said that. The only thing left is to get to 65,000 feet, as TAO has already proven there is no demand for the low to mid level blimps they have been pushing for years.
But any new investors better wait for them to prove they can get to 65,000 feet and stay there for a while, as if anyone invests before then...
They'll probably just end up like everyone else who bought on the hype and over promotion and didn't wait for "real" results!
This company has gone from one...
with five divisions and a world changing goal at $5 a share, to one with "maybe" one division and a 5 cent share price. Does anyone really think this failed company will ever get to 65,000 feet? There only hope of survival is a partnership with another company, TAO, which like Sanswire/GlobeTel has also never had a commercial success. So what's the point? Mere survival, to limp along and continue to drift lower, to prove they can, "survive".
This company has been under SEC investigation for well over a year. During that time they have continued to make announcements that never materialized and couldn't even get their own financials up to date. The SEC sees what's going on here and they will not let this continue indefinetly.
This company isn't dead, but it's comatose and on life support. But even if it pulls through, being only a shadow of it's former self, with no future I can see... it's overvalued at a nickel.
serious1, why did you say...
"And then again some of us have been in this stock since it was below a penny. So it all depends at what point you came in!
The all time chart shows it near the all time low!
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GTEM.PK#chart1:symbol=gtem.pk;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
Aren't you aware of the 15-1 reverse split?
Your post could be very misleading to those who are not aware of it.
Why would anyone need "proof" at this point?
This isn't a court of law, it's an "investors" forum. The guilt by association, inferences and suspicion are extremely relevant for any stock. Conservative investors who wait for absolute proof of success before buying a stock usually miss out on a big part of the run-up, but they avoid buying scams. Riskier investors who buy on solid evidence stand the most to gain and limit their risk if their DD was also solid. But those who buy on emotion with no proof or even solid evidence of success, and then wait for absolute proof of failure or criminal activity to sell...
now that's a recipe for "DISASTER"!
You better be ready to pull the plug on the way down before absolute proof, or you won't have a plug to pull...
Of course when one goes from five dollars to five cents most should have already figured that out... but it looks like some still have not.
mide, you say...
"Jp...there is also the strong likelihood that by GTEM deciding to take the SEC to the mat on this in front of a judge on behalf of shareholders (after all we are the company), is prudent. (Not sure, I agree)."
You are saying there was a strong likelihood they had this option, since you say they "decided" to fight the SEC. But you also say you may not agree and you would prefer a quick non-culpable financial settlement.
Wouldn't anyone in their right mind?
Surely these guys don't want a fight with the SEC, and the investigation to continue, if they had the option of closure and a relatively small fine. Logic tells us they were never given this option! What in the world makes you think they were.... "hope"?
"Sure they burn through more of the D and O insurance in doing so to pay the legals..."
Is that how it works? The SEC offers a small settlement amount and the company tells their insurance company they want them to spend at least ten times as much fighting the SEC? I don't think so!!! And I think this pretty much proves they were never given an option, as the Insurance company would have said either you take it or you're on your own. I've never heard of a policy that didn't protect the carrier in this manner.
"Jon and the BOD, what is of them, feel that the shareholders will be better off with a fight than not...and feel strongly that the company, us, will be vindicated."
Those who have "hoped" the company would finally do what was best for shareholders have been wrong for years. Those who have looked at the facts and anlyzed them logically have been correct about the downfall of this company for years. Maybe the "hope" will eventually work out, but I don't see any factual basis for believing this logically.
The "fine" is the least of GlobeTel's problems.
If the SEC had been "working with" GlobeTel, why did they get charged at all. Surely you don't think GlobeTel was offered a $30,000 slap on the wrist like Huff do you? "This" is what GlobeTel is facing...
"The SEC alleges that GlobeTel violated Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act") and Sections 10(b), 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Rules 10b-5, 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-11 and 13a-13 thereunder, and seeks as relief a permanent injunction, civil penalties, and disgorgement with prejudgment interest."
You ask about the relatively insignificant fine when the permanent injunction and disgorgement could be the final blow for this company. This company raised millions of dollars under very suspicious circumstances and when the SEC gets through GlobeTel could owe millions in disgorgements, or they may simply be shut down for not filing!
What difference does the fine make?
On Oct. 5, 2007, the SEC said...
"The Wells Notice provides notification that the staff of the SEC intends to recommend to the Commission that it bring a civil action against the Company for possible violations of the securities laws..."
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/071012/gtem.pk8-k.html
For over 6 months, I have read posts on this board saying that would not happen. I read how the SEC was satisfied that it was someone else's fault and not GTEM. I read how the SEC was "working with" the company and would not bring an action. Others said they thought the SEC would do what they said they were and they were right.
In that same notice the SEC said...
"The staff is also considering recommending that the SEC authorize and institute proceedings to revoke the registration of Company's securities pursuant to Section 12(j) of the Exchange Act."
That section has to do with the timely making of SEC required filings. Now I'm reading...
"And thus...the delay...of which, just a hunch, the SEC is fully in agreement."
It's amazing how many things from the company, and stuff about the company on this board turns out "not" to be true! The SEC has already done exactly what they said they would do, and brought an action against the company. To me this proves, the SEC is "NOT" and was "NOT" working with the company, but is going after them!
I think there is a good chance now the SEC will also do exactly what they have been considering doing!
From Google's Director of Research...
"Google does not use HTML keyword or metatag elements for indexing. The Director of Research at Google, Monika Henziger, was quoted (in 2002) as saying, "Currently we don't trust metadata" [12]. Other search engines developed techniques to penalize web sites considered to be "cheating the system". For example, a web site repeating the same meta keyword several times may have its ranking decreased by a search engine trying to eliminate this practice, though that is unlikely. It is more likely that a search engine will ignore the meta keyword element completely, and most do regardless of how many words used in the element."
Why would companies pay Google to appear on the first page(advertising), if the key to indexing were merely the same techniques every decent web designer has known for almost ten years.
I appreciate the fact that you have "worked with web documents", but somehow I think Google's Director of Research and the thousands of companies that have paid Google over a "BILLION" dollars in advertising are little more up to speed on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tag
For those of you not up to speed on search engines, meta tags etc...
Billion dollar operations like Google, Yahoo etc... are not so simplistic that a few html tags can "fool" them. Meta tags have not been useful in attracting major if not all search engines for many years now...
"In my opinion, the meta keywords tag is dead, dead, dead... good riddance, I say!"
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165061
This is from an article written five years ago!
Anyone putting this stuff at their websites now is wasting their time and anyone who thinks it still works, is at least 5 years behind in the understanding of today's websites. Google etc... would be worthless if all it took was a few meta tags to bring websites to the top of their list!
"deliberately forcing search ROBOTS [aka: bots] to parse ALL content as follows:"
Believe me, not even expensive, major sites can "FORCE" Google, etc... to do anything, those days are long gone.
"As is the case with the Trimax web site, this metadata tactic forces Search engines to rank and catalogue the web site in a manner that is inconsistant with normal, ethical or legal practices in the use and representation of those marks."
No they do not, not anymore, they have not been able to do this for many years now.
I have never heard of an instance where the choice of terms in meta tags was "illegal". Even in the days when they had some usefulness, it was common for companies to put their competitors terms in their meta tags to try and draw their customers to their sites. Most good web designers have always done whatever they could to attract viewers, this was considered good design and "not" a matter of ethics. The fact that "so many" were doing this is why the search engines today are not influenced by it.
miguellara you recently said the Strat was being reassembled at Edwards Air Force base.
Could you please update us!
That is exactly the type news we need to offset the carnage that is happening today.
When will the company put out the press release on this important news?
"As GTEM is pink stock, it is very unusual for one to have an IR contact at all...other than an officer."
I find this very unusual too! Does it really take a full-time IR guy to put out a PR/month? Couldn't the money be better spent by a company that doesn't seem to have much? If you can believe the posts on this board it seems he spends most his time "gossiping" with shareholders. I use the term because whatever he says "through shareholders" has no more weight than "gossip" and lately seems to be true just about as often.
This company certainly seems to have an inordinate concern for public relations, especially for a company this size.
A little meat with the sizzle would sure be a welcome change.
If the "only" advantage the Stratellite will have is cost....
It should already be obsolete from a military standpoint. I say that because our fighting men and women deserve the absolute finest equipment regardless of the cost. Now that the pilotless Reaper can achieve 50,000 feet it can do everything the Stratellite is only "hoped" to do.
But more importantly, it can do so much more!
It's reconnaissance will not be limited to a "station kept" location, but "is" capable of imaging from almost every angle imaginable and even close up, compared to a platform parked at near space. Like the article said, one of the Reaper's main advantages is speed. It can be deployed in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise. But the reason I personally think the military will always prefer something like the Reaper is the capability it has of streamlining operations and saving American lives. After all, with the Reaper, many times you wouldn't have to merely use its reconnaissance capabilities. You could take care of business immediately with it's firepower and the good guys are never put in harms way.
Please tell me you don't want to take these advantages away from out troops for merely a "cost" savings.
Besides, we're comparing the current "real" capabilities of an existing weapon to merely the "possibility" of a product that has never been completed, tested or used.
The Reaper is superior to Sanswire's "hopes" now. Just imagine how far Reaper type technology will be ahead "if" "someday" the Stratellites actually exist.
And the company that manufactures the Reaper really is manufacturing, testing, and improving "real" Reapers, every day.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=21884882
I wonder if the military will even need Sanswire's technology when finished. The competition is already delivering some amazing products...
and they are moving forward every day.
Robot Attack Squadron Bound for Iraq
Associated Press | July 16, 2007
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq - The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles. The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada. The arrival of these outsized U.S. "hunter-killer" drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected "soon," says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? "We're still working that," Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview. The Reaper's first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.
"With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home," North said.
The Associated Press has learned that the Air Force is building a 400,000-square-foot expansion of the concrete ramp area now used for Predator drones here at Balad, the biggest U.S. air base in Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad. That new staging area could be turned over to Reapers. It's another sign that the Air Force is planning for an extended stay in Iraq, supporting Iraqi government forces in any continuing conflict, even if U.S. ground troops are drawn down in the coming years.
The estimated two dozen or more unmanned MQ-1 Predators now doing surveillance over Iraq, as the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, have become mainstays of the U.S. war effort, offering round-the-clock airborne "eyes" watching over road convoys, tracking nighttime insurgent movements via infrared sensors, and occasionally unleashing one of their two Hellfire missiles on a target.
From about 36,000 flying hours in 2005, the Predators are expected to log 66,000 hours this year over Iraq and Afghanistan. The MQ-9 Reaper, when compared with the 1995-vintage Predator, represents a major evolution of the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV. At five tons gross weight, the Reaper is four times heavier than the Predator. Its size - 36 feet long, with a 66-foot wingspan - is comparable to the profile of the Air Force's workhorse A-10 attack plane. It can fly twice as fast and twice as high as the Predator. Most significantly, it carries many more weapons.
While the Predator is armed with two Hellfire missiles, the Reaper can carry 14 of the air-to-ground weapons - or four Hellfires and two 500-pound bombs. "It's not a recon squadron," Col. Joe Guasella, operations chief for the Central Command's air component, said of the Reapers. "It's an attack squadron, with a lot more kinetic ability."
"Kinetic" - Pentagon argot for destructive power - is what the Air Force had in mind when it christened its newest robot plane with a name associated with death.
"The name Reaper captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system," Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, said in announcing the name last September.
General Atomics of San Diego has built at least nine of the MQ-9s thus far, at a cost of $69 million per set of four aircraft, with ground equipment.
The Air Force's 432nd Wing, a UAV unit formally established on May 1, is to eventually fly 60 Reapers and 160 Predators. The numbers to be assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan will be classified.
The Reaper is expected to be flown as the Predator is - by a two-member team of pilot and sensor operator who work at computer control stations and video screens that display what the UAV "sees." Teams at Balad, housed in a hangar beside the runways, perform the takeoffs and landings, and similar teams at Nevada's Creech Air Force Base, linked to the aircraft via satellite, take over for the long hours of overflying the Iraqi landscape.
American ground troops, equipped with laptops that can download real-time video from UAVs overhead, "want more and more of it," said Maj. Chris Snodgrass, the Predator squadron commander here.
The Reaper's speed will help. "Our problem is speed," Snodgrass said of the 140-mph Predator. "If there are troops in contact, we may not get there fast enough. The Reaper will be faster and fly farther."
The new robot plane is expected to be able to stay aloft for 14 hours fully armed, watching an area and waiting for targets to emerge.
"It's going to bring us flexibility, range, speed and persistence," said regional commander North, "such that I will be able to work lots of areas for a long, long time."
The British also are impressed with the Reaper, and are buying three for deployment in Afghanistan later this year. The Royal Air Force version will stick to the "recon" mission, however - no weapons on board.