Abe Karem

Extracted Attributes

• Title

  Founding Father of UAV Technology

• Awards

  Spirit of St. Louis Medal (2011), Phillip J. Klass Lifetime Achievement Award (2011), Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson Award (2009), Alexander Klemin Award (2008)

• Education

  Aeronautical Engineering degree from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

• Full Name

  Abraham E. Karem

• Birth Date

  1937-06-27

• Birth Place

  Baghdad, Iraq

• Citizenship

  United States

• Key Inventions

  Predator UAV (MQ-1), A160 Hummingbird (variable speed rotor system), Albatross UAV, Amber UAV, Gnat 750

Timeline

• Born in Baghdad, Iraq to an Assyrian Jewish family. (Source: Assyrian Cultural Foundation / Wikipedia)

  1937-06-27

• Emigrated from Iraq to Israel. (Source: Assyrian Cultural Foundation)

  1951-01-01

• Developed and deployed a glide decoy UAV for the Israeli Air Force during the Yom Kippur War. (Source: Air & Space Forces Magazine)

  1973-10-01

• Immigrated to the United States. (Source: Air & Space Forces Magazine)

  1977-01-01

• Founded Leading Systems Inc. in his home garage to develop UAV technology. (Source: Assyrian Cultural Foundation)

  1980-01-01

• Leading Systems assets were acquired by General Atomics after the company faced financial difficulties. (Source: First Breakfast)

  1990-01-01

• The MQ-1 Predator, based on Karem's Gnat 750 and Amber designs, entered service with the US military. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1995-01-01

• Awarded the National Engineering Council’s Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson Award. (Source: AIAA PDF)

  2009-01-01

• Received the ASME Spirit of St. Louis Medal and the Aviation Week Phillip J. Klass Lifetime Achievement Award. (Source: AIAA PDF)

  2011-01-01

Abraham Karem

Abraham Karem (Hebrew: אברהם כרם, Arabic: أبراهام كريم; born 1937) is an engineer and designer of fixed and rotary-wing unmanned aircraft. He is regarded as the founding father of UAV (drone) technology.

Web Search Results

• [PDF] Abraham E. Karem - AIAA

  Abraham E. Karem President and Founder Karem Aircraft, Inc. Lake Forest, California For a lifetime of innovative fixed and rotary wing unmanned vehicle designs. Karem’s 50-plus year career in aerospace has consistently demonstrated his innovative mindset, technical acuity, perseverance, and leadership. Among his two greatest technical accomplishments are the development of the Predator UAV, the first reliable and successful long-endurance unmanned vehicle; and the development of the A160 Hummingbird, the first helicopter to use a variable speed rotor system successfully, which greatly improved rotor efficiency and performance in all types of operating environments. Among Karem’s other accomplishments were his development of the Albatross UAV system, the Amber UAV system, the Gnat 750 UAV, [...] Award; and the American Helicopter Society’s 2008 Alexander Klemin [...] UAV system, the Amber UAV system, the Gnat 750 UAV, and the Prowler UAV system. Karem’s current work is in the field of Optimum Speed Tilt-rotors (OSTR) in an effort to create a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) machine with the payload and range capabilities of commercial transports. Additionally, Karem has shown great ability to develop and nurture successful engineering teams, many of whom have gone on to become leaders in their respective fields of endeavor. Karem’s previous honors include the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ 2011 Spirit of St. Louis medal; the 2011 Phillip J. Klass Lifetime Achievement Award from Aviation Week’s Laureate Awards; the National Engineering Council’s 2009 Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson Award; and the American Helicopter Society’s 2008 Alexander

• Abraham Karem, The Man Who Made the Robots Fly

  Karem was born in Iraq and emigrated to Israel as a young boy to escape escalating violence against Jews. A tinkerer and engineer from an early age, he graduated from Technion, Israel’s elite engineering school, and served ably in the Israeli Air Force. Then he made a name for himself as an aeronautical engineer, climbing the ladder at Israel Aerospace Industries to become the state-owned firm’s director of preliminary design. [...] Karem’s inventions were rescued from oblivion by two other inventors, Neal and Linden Blue of General Atomics, who had been working in parallel on a drone they dubbed “the poor man’s cruise missile.” Their drone was primitive, so when they heard a more capable craft was on the market, they bought it on the cheap. And so Amber was reborn, with a new owner and a more intimidating name: Predator. It had taken a decade, a failed business, and a move halfway around the world, but Abe Karem had built his drone. The Predator proved his point on countless distant battlefields over the next 30 years. [...] Earlier this month we shared the story of Alec Bierbauer, the CIA operative who put Hellfire missiles on the Predator and ushered in the modern era of drone warfare. Today we travel further back in time to share the story of Abraham Karem, the man who invented Predator in the first place. Karem saw the value in “remotely piloted vehicles” (RPVs), as they were then called, at a time when most viewed them as little more than novelties or expensive model airplanes. He left his homeland and risked his career to prove that drones were the future—and that they could be built reliably and effectively in his own day.

• Assyrian Cultural Foundation

  # Abraham Karem Sep. 27 Abraham “Abe” Karem was born on June 27, 1937 in Baghdad, Iraq to an Assyrian couple. His family moved to Israel in 1951, where he spent most of his life. From an early age, Abe knew that he was going to be a mechanical engineer: ‘“I am a toy man,”’ he explains. ‘“What motivates me from the time I was a kid—call it technology, call it whatever—it was play. By the age of eight, I knew I’m going to be a mechanical engineer. And oh my God, by the age of 13 or 14, I fell in love with aeronautics”’. He eventually went to Isreal’s renowned Technion Institute of Technology where he earned an aeronautical engineering degree. [...] He founded Leading Systems Inc. in his home garage where he started to really create history. Working with Abe in the garage were two other believers in UAVs: Jack Hertenstein, a brainy, bashful engineer and radio control modeler Karem had met at Developmental Sciences, and Jim Machin, a pre-med student who’d impressed Abe at a free-flight modeling meet. Together they created the first unmanned aerial vehicle that they called Albatross. The UAV was 200 pounds and carried a camera in its nose. [...] Written by: Nino Aishou Bibliography Magazine, S. (2013, April 1). The man who invented the predator. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved August 25, 2022, from Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, May 16). Abraham Karem. Wikipedia. Retrieved August 25, 2022, from

• Abraham Karem - Wikipedia

  | Abraham Karem | | אברהם כרם | | Born | June 27, 1937 (1937-06-27) (age 88) Baghdad, Iraq | | Citizenship | United States | | Alma mater | Technion – Israel Institute of Technology | | Occupation | Engineer | | Known for | Predator (Drone), Overair Butterfly eVTOL | | Title | Founder of Karem Aircraft, Founder of Overair | Abraham Karem (Hebrew: אברהם כרם, Arabic: أبراهام كريم; born 1937) is an engineer and designer of fixed and rotary-wing unmanned aircraft. He is regarded as the founding father of UAV (drone) technology. ## Biography [edit] [...] little success, on their own UAV, which they dubbed "the poor man's cruise missile". Together, they built the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, which entered service in 1995 and was retired in 2018. [...] ## Biography [edit] Abraham Karem was born in Baghdad, Iraq, to a Jewish couple. His family moved to Israel in 1951, where he grew up. From an early age, he had an innate passion for aeronautics, and at the age of 14, he started building model aircraft. Karem is regarded as the founding father of UAV (drone) technology. He graduated as an aeronautical engineer from the Technion. He built his first drone, a glide decoy, during the Yom Kippur War for the Israeli Air Force. In the 1970s, he immigrated to the United States. ## Engineering career [edit]

• As the Predator Retires, Its Inventor Remembers Its Birth | Air & Space Forces Magazine

  Abraham Karem, born in Baghdad and raised in Israel, came to the United States in 1977. Within four years he had successfully demonstrated the unmanned aerial systems technology that would transform the way the US military gathers data and strikes targets around the world. His Albatross and Amber drones were the direct forerunners of the Predator system. And the story of their birth also has relevance for the problem of innovation within defense acquisition. Karem gained early experience “developing fighters and fighter systems in Israel,” he told Air Force Magazine. The first UAV he developed was a “glide decoy,” which he and a team of engineers built “within a month” and deployed during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. “It was very successful,” Karem said. [...] But the Predator legacy, and the journey of discovery that led Karem to building it, also carries a lesson for defense acquisition, where Karem thinks innovation is noticeably lacking. “In the last few years,” he said, “DOD was asking ‘how can we copy the success of Silicon Valley and work with their best innovators?’” But Karem points back to a time in the 1930s when “defense aero was a very competitive, very fast-?reacting, Silicon Valley-like operation.” He remembers a time when “you did not need to learn from Silicon Valley. You taught Silicon Valley.” [...] Karem said he developed his first UAVs for ISR because that’s what the moment demanded. In the Cold War, NATO allies faced a highly-developed adversary that required preparation through heavy airpower. “We had tons of shooters, we did not need shooters. What we needed was surveillance and targeting and laser designation.” Still, he has no regrets about the eventual arming of the Predator. “Wars are destructive,” Karem said, and the goal is “to win with the minimum casualties to the other side, both us and them. And I think armed UAVs being able to…look at the targets for a long time and throw a small missile, can do that better than an F-16 coming with a 2,000-pound bomb.”