Rise of the Reaper: Predator on Steroids (Hunter-Killer UAV)

Air Force Magazine ^ | Feb 2008 | John A. Tirpak

[Travis McGee]

I'll bet the Dept of Homeland Security can't wait to get some of these babies.

With a 66-foot wingspan, the Reaper is roughly the size of the A-10 attack airplane, and can carry 3,000 pounds of weapons—more than 10 times the capacity of the Predator. It can fly at up to 288 miles per hour, allowing it to transit from an operating base to a patrol area almost twice as fast as the Predator. The typical on-station time is 15 hours. It can cruise at 50,000 feet “clean”—that is, without weapons—but typically flies at about 30,000 feet, fully loaded.

“People call it ‘Predator on steroids,’ but it’s really more than that,” Greene asserted.

The Predator is described as a “killer scout”—dedicated chiefly to ISR but with a limited ability to shoot at targets of opportunity. However, the Reaper is defined as a “hunter killer,” meaning that it is dedicated to strike and yet still has sizeable ISR capabilities, including electro-optical, infrared, low-light TV, and synthetic aperture radar.

Air Combat Command compares the Reaper less to a Predator than to an F-16 fighter, which is meant to attack ground targets but which can use targeting pods to collect and transmit full-motion video to air operations centers and troops on the ground.

Guiding the Reaper The typical Reaper weapons load includes two GBU-12 laser guided bombs and four AGM-114 Hellfire laser guided missiles, but it can carry up to four LGBs. It eventually will carry both 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions and 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs. These GPS guided weapons will allow Reaper to precisely attack targets through bad weather.

[Travis McGee]

[Travis McGee]

Robot Air Attack Squadron Bound for Iraq

The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

The arrival of these outsized U.S. "hunter-killer" drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.

That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected "soon," says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? "We're still working that," Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview.

The Reaper's first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.

"With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home," North said.

The Associated Press has learned that the Air Force is building a 400,000-square-foot expansion of the concrete ramp area now used for Predator drones here at Balad, the biggest U.S. air base in Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad. That new staging area could be turned over to Reapers.

It's another sign that the Air Force is planning for an extended stay in Iraq, supporting Iraqi government forces in any continuing conflict, even if U.S. ground troops are drawn down in the coming years.

The estimated two dozen or more unmanned MQ-1 Predators now doing surveillance over Iraq, as the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, have become mainstays of the U.S. war effort, offering round-the-clock airborne "eyes" watching over road convoys, tracking nighttime insurgent movements via infrared sensors, and occasionally unleashing one of their two Hellfire missiles on a target.

From about 36,000 flying hours in 2005, the Predators are expected to log 66,000 hours this year over Iraq and Afghanistan.

The MQ-9 Reaper, when compared with the 1995-vintage Predator, represents a major evolution of the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV.

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 as the Predator. Most significantly, it carries many more weapons.

While the Predator is armed with two Hellfire missiles, the Reaper can carry 14 of the air-to-ground weapons — or four Hellfires and two 500-pound bombs.

"It's not a recon squadron," Col. Joe Guasella, operations chief for the Central Command's air component, said of the Reapers. "It's an attack squadron, with a lot more kinetic ability."

"Kinetic" — Pentagon argot for destructive power — is what the Air Force had in mind when it christened its newest robot plane with a name associated with death.

"The name Reaper captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system," Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, said in announcing the name last September.

General Atomics of San Diego has built at least nine of the MQ-9s thus far, 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 on May 1, is to eventually fly 60 Reapers and 160 Predators. The numbers to be assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan will be classified.

The Reaper is expected to be flown as the Predator is — by a two-member team of pilot and sensor operator who work at computer control stations and video screens that display what the UAV "sees." Teams at Balad, housed in a hangar beside the runways, perform the takeoffs and landings, and similar teams at Nevada's Creech Air Force Base, linked to the aircraft via satellite, take over for the long hours of overflying the Iraqi landscape.

American ground troops, equipped with laptops that can download real-time video from UAVs overhead, "want more and more of it," said Maj. Chris Snodgrass, the Predator squadron commander here.

The Reaper's speed will help. "Our problem is speed," Snodgrass said of the 140-mph Predator. "If there are troops in contact, we may not get there fast enough. The Reaper will be faster and fly farther."

The new robot plane is expected to be able to stay aloft for 14 hours fully armed, watching an area and waiting for targets to emerge.

"It's going to bring us flexibility, range, speed and persistence," said regional commander North, "such that I will be able to work lots of areas for a long, long time."

The British also are impressed with the Reaper, and are buying three for deployment in Afghanistan later this year. The Royal Air Force version will stick to the "recon" mission, however — no weapons on board.

source: 15jul2007

[Armando Guerra]

The U.S. military is coming out of the Afghanistan/Iraq wars with not only the next generation of weapons, but invaluable experience for fighting the next generation of war against insurgents. I think part of the problem the U.S. has had in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the weapons systems and tactics were still based on the cold war. As long as the democrats don't cut and run and end up eviscerating the defense department, our military will come out of this stronger than ever.

[Travis McGee]

Size comparison of Reaper and Predator.

[Travis McGee]

Yep, it’s getting tougher and tougher to be a guerrilla. The days of G’s hiding out like Robin Hood and his Merry Men are OVER when the govt/occupiers have this kind of overmatch.

[kms61]

the obvious achilles heel of these things is the command and control network. No doubt potential adversaries like China have plans for cyberattacks in the event of conflict.

[Joe Brower]

As citizens, we need to continually do all we can to ensure that these gadgets stay pointed in the right direction.

[Travis McGee]

Yes, major nations can counter them. But it’s pretty tough if you’re trying to survive as an old school guerrilla without links to major state sponsors.

[Travis McGee]

Amen. These would be a tyrant’s best tool.

[live+let_live]

“potential adversaries like China”

This is a great weapon to fight inferior forces. Fighting a more conventional foe, like China, it won’t help much. I would expect China to shoot down all our satellites in the first few minutes of a conflict.

[cinives]

yep, that’s the downside.

[woollyone]

“And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men.”

[sam_paine]

In less than a year, the Air Force has brought into combat service its newest and most lethal unmanned aerial vehicle, the MQ-9 Reaper. A special squadron is simultaneously developing tactics, training flight crews, and operating the UAV in battle.

Another example of the side-effect of being in "the wrong war."

In peacetime, Generals' pet projects (Crusader artillery, etc) are funded. During a war, when troops are being "worn out" we're getting experience that can't be simulated and real-world battle-testing of weapons for the current and next war.

The russkies are flying 50 year old propaganda missions with empty bombers. Americans are flying 21st 'terminator' drones with hot weapons.

[CodeToad]

Just recently people were asking about PRVs and the next generation attack aircraft. Some people thought an armed UAV was silly and wouldn’t be mainstream. The fact is that they cost millions less and can be made to do far more than a manned aircraft. In fact, with computer controlled flight systems the “pilot” doesn’t need to be a trained pilot at all. They just tell the aircraft what they want to do and the computer decides how to do it; airspeed, rudder, controls, etc. They are far more dangerous to the enemy because no one knows after they depart where they are going because they can loiter for what seems to be forever.

[hoagy62]

Okay....so I’ve read the responses so far.

What’s the general opinion? I mean, are these things good or bad?

As far as I’m concerned...if they are used to kill terrorists or people trying to kill our troops...rock on, dude!

On the other hand...do you think these will be used against US, here in the United States? To what purpose?

Educate me, please!

[wildbill]

I predicted the end of the Soviet missile threat as soon as our anti-missile systems caught up with our human weapon systems.

We’ve had several generations of kids growing up to fight interstellar aliens or whatnot using joysticks and push-button weapons. My guess is they’d be bored by having a twenty-minute window to shoot down a missile.

The new UAV weapons are perfect for these kids. They’re pre-trained in many ways.

[ASA Vet]

Joint MI & SOCOM Ping.

Thanks Travis

[Travis McGee]

These killer drones are terrific for fighting non-technological primitives.

They won’t be nearly as useful fighting a first world adversary.

As long as we are only facing insurgents and guerrillas, fine.