have been directly involved in the targeting process. They may be unmanned aircraft, but each RAAF Heron still requires a team of 10 people to fly it in combat. In the Kandahar control room are a pilot, a pay load operator and an electronic warfare section comprising intelligence officers, technicians and locally hired "cultural advisers" and linguists. Wing Commander McMullan says the last two categories are hard to fill. The linguists from his last deployment had moved to Canada and the United States, and he was urgently seeking replacements. "I can't get enough [electronic warfare] people, so if you are a top secret-cleared, Pashtun-speaking individual, I have a job for you." Wing Commander McMullan says every target on every mission is subjected to a rigorous review process. The priority is saving Australian lives. He revealed that the RAAF has orders that if Australian troops are under attack, Herons are to stay overhead in support at all costs, even if that means running out of fuel and crashing. The Israeli connection The RAAF doesn't actually own the Heron drones it flies to war in Afghanistan. It hires them. Unidentified flying drone It appears the Defence Force is not alone in flying high-performance drones across Australian skies. Lieutenant Commander Bob Ferry says that in November 2011 a civilian Learjet operated by Pelair was engaging in target-towing duties for a naval gunnery exercise in a restricted zone off the southern NSW coast. He said the Learjet encountered an unidentified high-performance drone flying 65