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A United States Reaper drone was forced to make an emergency landing as its GPS signal was jammed while traveling in Polish airspace. The drone landed near the town of Mirosławiec in northwestern Poland on Tuesday, March 19, Knewz.com has learned. Poland’s Command of the Armed Forces announced the emergency landing in a post on X. The agency shared a photo of the MQ-9 Reaper without saying why it made an emergency landing. According to Newsweek, the Pentagon confirmed the emergency landing of the piloted aircraft. The defense agency added that the aircraft was "conducting routine training operations when it...

WASHINGTON -- A Russian Su-27 fighter jet intercepted and struck the propeller of a U.S. military MQ-9 "Reaper" surveillance drone on Tuesday, causing it to crash into the Black Sea, in the first such incident since Russia's invasion of Ukraine over a year ago. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. Army General Christopher Cavoli, briefed NATO allies about the incident, which was roundly condemned by the White House and the Pentagon -- which warned of the risk of escalation. Two Russian Su-27 jets carried out what the U.S. military described as a reckless intercept of the American spy drone before...

A senior Al-Qaeda leader was killed in a US drone strike in Syria, the Pentagon said Friday, according to AFP. The strike came two days after a base in southern Syria, used by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, was assaulted. "A US air strike today in northwest Syria killed senior Al-Qaeda leader Abdul Hamid al-Matar," said Central Command spokesman Army Major John Rigsbee in a statement. There were no other known casualties from the strike, he said, adding it was conducted using an MQ-9 aircraft. ......

A U.S. airstrike in northwest Syria has killed a senior al-Qaeda leader on Friday, the U.S. Central Command announced in a release.U.S. Army Maj. John Rigsbee, a CENTCOM spokesperson, said Abdul Hamid al-Matar was killed in the vicinity of Suluk in northwest Syria.The strike was conducted using an MQ-9 aircraft—an armed, remotely piloted aircraft.There are “no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike.”“Al-Qaeda continues to present a threat to America and our allies. Al-Qaeda uses Syria as a safe haven to rebuild, coordinate with external affiliates, and plan external operations. Al-Qaeda also uses Syria as a base...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — High above Yemen’s rebel-held city of Hodeida, a drone controlled by Emirati forces hovered as an SUV carrying a top Shiite Houthi rebel official turned onto a small street and stopped, waiting for another vehicle in its convoy to catch up. Seconds later, the SUV exploded in flames, killing Saleh al-Samad, a top political figure. The drone that fired that missile in April was not one of the many American aircraft that have been buzzing across the skies of Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. It was Chinese.. Across the Middle East,...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- An MQ-9 Reaper drone has bagged its first air-to-air kill of another small, aerial vehicle in a controlled simulation, an official revealed to Military.com this week. The successful test late last year showed the U.S. Air Force that an unmanned vehicle like the MQ-9 has the ability to conduct air-to-air combat, much like its manned fighter brethren such as an F-15 Eagle or F-22 Raptor, according to Col. Julian Cheater, commander of the 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. "Something that's unclassified but not well known, we recently in November … launched an air-to-air...

Too many missions and too few pilots are threatening the ‘readiness and combat capability’ of America’s unmanned Air Force, according to an internal memo. The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of drones is being strained to the “breaking point,” according to senior military officials and an internal service memo acquired by The Daily Beast. And it’s happening right when the unmanned aircraft are most needed to fight ISIS. The Air Force has enough MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones. It just doesn’t have the manpower to operate those machines. The Air Force’s situation is so dire that Air Combat Command (ACC),...

President Barack Obama's administration appears set to notify the U.S. Congress of plans to arm a fleet of Italian MQ-9 Reaper drones, a step that may spur a wider spread of remotely piloted hunter-killer aircraft. The administration could move ahead within two weeks on the proposal to let Italy join Britain in deploying U.S. drones with weapons such as laser-guided bombs and Hellfire missiles, American officials said. Italy has a fleet of six Reapers. The sale of the technology to arm them, including bomb racks and "weaponization" kits costing up to $17 million, would help the United States redistribute the...

Holloman Air Force Base, which is losing its stealth fighters, will get two new squadrons of F-16 jet fighters, the Pentagon announced Thursday. Officials said Holloman will become a training base for the F-16 aircraft, which is expected to be in use for at least another 20 years. "We look forward to welcoming the incoming squadrons of F-16s to Holloman," said Air Force Col. David Krumm, the 49th Wing commander. "Holloman has outstanding facilities, airspace and people for this new training mission." Holloman is home to two squadrons of F-22s, which will move to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida,...

Air Force leaders are working to build a new pilot culture in the service, creating a career track designed to turn officers without prior flying experience into operators of remotely piloted aircraft such as the MQ-1 Predator. Officially institutionalized in June as Undergraduate RPA Training, the new course evolved from an experiment nearly two years in the making—called a beta test—which indicated that the syllabus will likely need to continue evolving. A handful of officers have already passed the beta test to learn how to fly RPAs, and were awarded special wings recognizing their achievement. Some of those pilots are...

The next-generation surveillance package for the Air Force's MQ-9 Reaper drones, named for Medusa's stony glare, will provide an unprecedentedly broad view of the battlefield spanning time and space The military’s unblinking eye in the sky, which keeps watch over operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, is about to get even beadier. A new multi-camera sensor the U.S. Air Force is adding to its killer spy drones will exponentially broaden the area troops can monitor, and the technology lets a dozen users simultaneously grab different slices of the image. Called the Gorgon Stare, it represents the next big step in...

March 23, 2008: A year ago, the U.S. Army was only getting about a third of its requests for Predator missions filled. The surge campaign was under way, and the new Secretary of Defense got involved with the growing number of complaints from army officers about the Predator shortage. The air force had about a hundred Predators, but only a dozen were in Iraq. Questions were asked. The air force said it did not have enough Predators, and that there was also a shortage of Predator operators. A typical Predator crew consists of an pilot and a sensor operator. Because...

11/8/2007 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- The MQ-9A Reaper demonstrated it's unique precision strike capability as a hunter-killer attack platform by dropping its first precision-guided bomb Nov. 7. "The beauty of the MQ-9 Reaper is that we're able to synchronize and integrate unmanned aerial attack platforms over the skies of Afghanistan, allowing us to persistently and consistently track the enemy and ensure that we place the appropriate ordnance on target when required, and maintain that persistent presence after weapons release," said Lt. Gen. Gary North, U.S. Central Command Air Forces commander. The Reaper, the Air Force's unmanned aerial attack vehicle,...