Last month we reported that the Army had chalked up its first kill with an aerial drone in Iraq. Now the Air Force is jumping into the fray with its MQ-9 Reaper in Afghanistan.
According to the service, the Reaper was first officially deployed to Afghanistan on Sept. 25 and has flown a dozen missions since then. The Reaper has nine times the range of the armed MQ-1 Predator and flies at twice the altitude.
Click HERE to watch an Air Force video of the Reaper in action.
But it looks like the Air Force has some catching up to do with its new robot killer: so far the service is reporting zero kills. Hmmm, the Armys one up on their Air Force brethren when it comes to drone kills? At least publicly, that is…
(Gouge: NC)
– Christian
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d be curious to know why, with all its sophisticated sensors, the Reaper doesn’t have a simple microphone.
The “pilot” notes how he only has visual data during landing … $20 for Radio Shack would fix that problem real nice :)
Vstress,
I thought I made this clear in my first post. The “reasoning behind my argument” was the Air Force pilot’s comment where he says,
“Basically, you’re flying off your eyes only; you don’t have any sound to let you know what you’re engines are actually doing or anything like that.”
… and, thus, I remain curious as to why, with all its sophisticated sensors, the Reaper doesn’t have a simple microphone.
edit: typo, “… what YOUR engines are actually doing …”
Actually, the Predator UAV flown by the Air Force has had several “kills” in the AOR since it too carries the Hellfire missile and has since 2002 when the AF realized that when they have “eyes on a target” it would be nice to be able to go ahead a blow it up rather than wait for another aircraft to come in to do it. That particular Hunter kill was the first “for the Army” — 5 years after the Air Force has been doing it.