In the 11 years of America's post-9/11 wars, drones have emerged as a seemingly perfect weapon for fighting elusive enemies. Able to stay aloft for a full 24 hours or more, the unmanned airplanes are favorites for monitoring and sometimes killing insurgents while keeping humans out of harm's way. One analyst, however, is calling into question one of the drones' most-frequently cited advantages: cost. In a series of articles for Time's Battleland blog, Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information has begun investigating the budget impact of building America's drone fleet, which he claims is far more expensive than previous figures have stated. "Various media reports cite a per-unit cost from $4 million to $5 million. They are quite incorrect," Wheeler wrote on Tuesday in the second part of his five-part series. Using the example of the MQ-9 Reaper drone, which entered service in 2007, he estimated the true cost of the aircraft at a stunning $120.8 million dollars. Part of the reason for the gap, according to Wheeler, is that other estimates ignore the support costs required to keep drones flying.

Because the airplanes are piloted remotely from a Nevada Air Force base, they need large amounts of ground equipment to transmit and receive flight data. Wheeler argues that since drones cannot fly without such infrastructure, it must be included in their price tag. The drones also deploy in groups of four, called Combat Air Patrols, which the Air Force considers the basic unit of unmanned aircraft. Wheeler's $120.8 million estimate is based on a CAP of Reaper drones, meaning four aircraft and all of the support required to keep them flying. According to Wheeler, the revised number is well above the yearly cost of the manned airplanes that some defense analysts say should be scrapped in favor of drones. Available figures, he wrote, put the cost of the widely-used F-16 fighter at around $27 million in 2012 dollars, while the A-10 runs only $18.8 million. The A-10, which provides air support for ground units, is a particular favorite among soldiers and Marines. The Air Force announced last month that it would eliminate five of its A-10 squadrons as part of Pentagon budget cuts.

Wheeler also debunked the notion that the drones are cheaper to fly on missions. While the Reaper's per-hour cost is cheaper than manned fighters, their missions are drastically longer, meaning that overall costs stay high. latest firmware for ar droneWheeler estimated that a CAP of drones would cost around $20 million per year to operate, around four times as much as the F-16 or A-10.ar drone quadricopter review Wheeler admitted in the article that many of the figures are incomplete because many military budget numbers are unavailable, but firmly backed the idea that the hidden costs of drones are large and obvious. parrot ar drone without wifi"Reaper is not cheaper to buy than aircraft it is compared to," he concluded. remote control drone nz

"It is multiples more expensive: from two to six times more costly." Wheeler wrote that he would cover other problems with the drone program throughout the rest of the week.Drones patrolling the U.S. border are poorly managed and ineffective at stopping illegal immigration, and the government should abandon a $400-million plan to expand their use, according to an internal watchdog report released Tuesday.The 8-year-old drone program has cost more than expected, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, John Roth. Rather than spend more on drones, the department should "put those funds to better use," Roth recommended. He described the Predator B drones flown along the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as "dubious achievers.""Notwithstanding the significant investment, we see no evidence that the drones contribute to a more secure border, and there is no reason to invest additional taxpayer funds at this time," Roth said in a statement.

The audit concluded that Customs and Border Protection could better use the funds on manned aircraft and ground surveillance technology.The drones were designed to fly over the border to spot smugglers and illegal border crossers. But auditors found that 78% of the time that agents had planned to use the craft, they were grounded because of bad weather, budget constraints or maintenance problems. Even when aloft, auditors found, the drones contributed little. Three drones flying around the Tucson area helped apprehend about 2,200 people illegally crossing the border in 2013, fewer than 2% of the 120,939 apprehended that year in the area.Border Patrol supervisors had planned on using drones to inspect ground-sensor alerts. But a drone was used in that scenario only six times in 2013. Auditors found that officials underestimated the cost of the drones by leaving out operating costs such as pilot salaries, equipment and overhead. Adding such items increased the flying cost nearly fivefold, to $12,255 per hour.

"It really doesn't feel like [Customs and Border Protection] has a good handle on how it is using its drones, how much it costs to operate the drones, where that money is coming from or whether it is meeting any of its performance metrics," said Jennifer Lynch, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based privacy and digital rights group.The report's conclusions will make it harder for officials to justify further investment in the border surveillance drones, especially at a time when Homeland Security's budget is at the center of the battle over President Obama's program to give work permits to millions of immigrants in the country illegally. Each Predator B system costs about $20 million."People think these kinds of surveillance technologies will be a silver bullet," said Jay Stanley, a privacy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Time after time, we see the practical realities of these systems don't live up to the hype."Customs and Border Protection, which is part of Homeland Security, operates the fleet of nine long-range Predator B drones from bases in Arizona, Texas and North Dakota.The agency purchased 11 drones, but one crashed in Arizona in 2006 and another fell into the Pacific Ocean off San Diego after a mechanical failure last year.

Agency officials said in response to the audit that they had no plans to expand the fleet aside from replacing the Predator that crashed last year. The agency is authorized to spend an additional $433 million to buy up to 14 more drones.The drones — unarmed versions of the MQ-9 Reaper drone flown by the Air Force to hunt targets in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere — fly the vast majority of their missions in narrowly defined sections of the Southwest border, the audit found.They spent most of their time along 100 miles of border in Arizona near Tucson and 70 miles of border in Texas.Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) has promoted the use of drones along the border but believes the agency should improve how it measures their effectiveness.Homeland Security "can't prove the program is effective because they don't have the right measures," Cuellar said in an interview. "The technology is good, but how you implement and use it — that is another question."The audit also said that drones had been flown to help the FBI, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.Such missions have long frustrated Border Patrol agents, who complain that drones and other aircraft aren't available when they need them, said Shawn Moran, vice president of the Border Patrol agents' union."