Unmanned aircraft crush worldwide enemies – from
Nevada
The first unmanned attack squadron in aviation history
will arrive in Iraq today looking to deliver 500-pound
bombs and Hellfire missiles to the enemy - all from
the comfort of a US Air Force base in Nevada.
The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper can be controlled via
satellite link thousands of miles away from
operational areas. The planes are launched locally, in
this case Iraq and Afghanistan, but can be controlled
by a pilot and sensor operator sitting at computer
consoles in a ground station, or they can be "handed
off" via satellite signals to pilots and sensor
operators in Nevada's Creech Air Force Base or
elsewhere.
The MQ-9 Reaper is the Air Force's first hunter-killer
unmanned aircraft. It is the big brother to the highly
successful and sometimes controversial Predator
aircraft, which General Atomics said this week had
flown over 300,000 flight hours, with over 80% of that
time spent in combat.
The company said Predator series aircraft have flown
an average of 8,200 hours per month over the past six
months while maintaining the highest operational
readiness rates in the U.S. military aircraft
inventory. The MQ-9 Reaper is twice as fast as the
Predator - it has a 900-horsepower turbo-prop engine,
compared to the 119-horsepower Predator engine - and
can carry far more ordnance - 14 Hellfire missiles as
opposed to two.
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 - 25,000ft
compared to 50,000ft - as the Predator.
According to the Air Force, the MQ-9 Reaper will
employ sensors to find, fix, track and target critical
emerging time sensitive targets. The Air Force is
developing the ability to operate multiple aircraft
from a single ground station, in effect, multiplying
the overall combat effectiveness over the battlefield.
General Atomics has built at least nine of the MQ-9s
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 May 1, is to eventually
fly 60 Reapers and 160 Predators. The numbers to be
assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan will be classified,
the Associated Press says.
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