I don’t understand the continued reaper buy for CBP. We can’t afford what we have now. The current head of CBP Air, who was in charge of the shuttle program for the last accident, loves these things. I think it makes him, a retired AF general think he is still in the big leagues. CBP would help themselves by selling their reapers and buying cheaper manned aircraft which would cost less for fuel than the satellite time for the reapers.
The air fleet is older than dirt. Look at the average age of some of our aircraft. Some are pushing 50+ years of servive.
The drones are supposed to fill that gap, they are cheaper and you can buy loads of them. Our aviation assets are like those of a third world country.