[Robotgroup] ARTICLE: First Robotic Drone Squadron Deployed

[Vern Graner]

From:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/17560

comes this story:

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Unmanned aircraft crush worldwide enemies – from Nevada

Submitted by Layer 8 on Mon, 07/16/2007 - 12:49pm.

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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Vern

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