BIG BOOST FOR PREDATOR FLEET

The U.S. Air Force is look­ing to expand its fleet of fly­ing drones, big time. Right now, the ser­vice has three active squadrons of Predator unmanned aer­ial vehi­cles, or UAVs. But that could expand to 15 squadrons of the robotic planes under a $5.7 bil­lion plan just intro­duced by the Air Force.
In recent years, the Air Force and CIA have used the bulbous-​​nosed, propeller-​​driven Predator UAVs to blast insur­gents in Iraq, take out Al Qaeda oper­a­tives in Yemen, and spy on Iran’s nuclear facil­i­ties. The 144-​​drone buy would be the Air Force’s “largest acqui­si­tion of robotic air­craft to date and rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the evo­lu­tion of unmanned aer­ial vehi­cles,” accord­ing to the Los Angeles Times.

Predator squadrons are slated to be acti­vated in Texas and Arizona in 2006 and 2007, then New York in 2009, said Capt. Shelley Lai, an Air Force spokes­woman. The bases for addi­tional squadrons will be decided upon later this year, she added.
The new squadrons could sup­port oper­a­tions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other over­seas hotspots or be deployed domes­ti­cally for home­land secu­rity mis­sions, Lai said.

Last month, the Air Force scooped $160 mil­lion out of its main­te­nance bud­get to buy 15 new Predators — and a load of mis­siles, to arm the drones already in service.

March 21st, 2005 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.