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Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum opened the military unmanned aerial vehicles exhibition April 24. The new display features six UAVs, three of which were developed for the Air Force: a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-1L Predator, Boeing X-45A Joint Unmanned Combat Air System, Lockheed Martin/Boeing RQ-3A DarkStar, AeroVironment RQ-14A Dragon Eye (Marine Corps), AAI Corporation RQ-7A Shadow 200 (Army), and Pioneer UAV RQ-2A Pioneer (Navy). “We want to educate our visitors even more on what UAVs have done and what they currently do for us today,” said Dik Daso, the museum’s curator for modern military aircraft. “The UAVs in our display have significant combat histories and important stories to tell.” For example, the Predator in the display was one of the first three MQ-1s over Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is sponsoring the exhibit. (Includes Air Force report by SSgt. J.G. Buzanowski)
The defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.