[Robotgroup] ARTICLE: First Robotic Drone Squadron Deployed

[Paul Atkinson]

A little more info:
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=6405

On 7/17/07, Vern Graner <vern at txis.com> wrote:
>
> From:
>
> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/17560
>
> comes this story:
>
> ------------------------------- CLIP ------------------------------
> 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.
> -------------------------------/CLIP ------------------------------
>
> Vern
>
> --
> Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
> Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
> Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
> http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
> Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" (c)VLG
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