One extraordinary thing about the U.S. Air Force’s unmanned aircraft revolution was that it almost didn’t happen. The RQ-1 Predator changed the battlefield in Afghanistan, and later Iraq and elsewhere. And as GA-ASI workers were proving out and perfecting the Predator’s capabilities, they also developed ...
An RQ-4 Global Hawk crashed several miles away from Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., on Aug. 6, the Air Force announced. The unmanned aircraft went down in a rural field near Gilby, N.D., and no injuries were reported. The cause of the crash or ...
An MQ-9 on Sept. 10 doubled its missile capacity, carrying eight AGM-114 Hellfires for the first time, thanks to a new software upgrade. The 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron flew the Reaper at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., demonstrating the new capability, which is part ...
A General Atomics official said the company is surprised by the Air Force’s plan to stop buying new MQ-9 Reapers in fiscal 2020, after expecting to gradually wind down the production line. Chris Pehrson, General Atomics' vice president of strategic development, told Air Force Magazine ...
An MQ-9 Reaper’s engine design led the drone to crash about 20 minutes after takeoff while deployed overseas in September 2018, a recently released Air Force accident investigation concluded. “Engineering analysis of the data logs, engine components, and propeller governor, as well as reports from ...