The U.S. Air Force may turn increasingly to a new armed drone, the MQ-9 Reaper, to help keep the peace in Iraq once the conflict shrinks in scale and U.S. ground troops go home. The U.S. Air Force in the Middle East said it is examining options for when and where it can replace manned fighter and bomber aircraft with armed drones.

The air force says that the environment today is such that a large presence of manned aircraft is not required. Unmanned aircraft – the Predator, the Reaper, and other assets – can be sent aloft for long endurance periods in what is called 'a persistent stare.' And with the Reaper armed with Hellfire and 500-pound precision weapons, the state will be quite deadly, if needed.

The Reaper was deployed in Iraq for the first time July 17 from Balad Air Base and has been flying in Afghanistan since September.

The Reaper can fly faster, higher, farther and carry more weapons than its predecessor, the MQ-1 Predator. But unlike the Predator, which can carry two laser-guided Hellfire missiles, the Reaper carries four Hellfires and two 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bombers. The Reapers, which are flown by a two-person crew thousands of miles away at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., reportedly can stay aloft up to 24 hours at a time, sending back surveillance and reconnaissance data.

By contrast, a fighter jet can stay overhead for three to six hours and a B-1 bomber, 10 hours.

Keeping the average 90 flights of fighters and bombers over Iraq on a given day means flying another 64 sorties by air refueling aircraft. And in an age of skyrocketing fuel prices, that costs money. But unmanned aerial vehicles can stay overhead for a long time without consuming a huge amount of fuel.

RSS    Save to Del.icio.us  Digg This