Hunter UAV kills two enemy fighters during historic flight [Bip!]

Multi-National Corps – Iraq ^ | 9/8/2007 | Public Affairs Office

[Tennessean4Bush]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE No. 20070908-01
September 8, 2007

Hunter UAV kills two enemy fighters during historic flight
Multi-National Division – North PAO

TIKRIT, Iraq – A Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle engaged and killed two suspected improvised explosive device emplacers overwatching a major thoroughfare for Coalition Forces during a historic flight near Qayyarah, Iraq, in Nineveh province Sept. 1.

A scout weapons team from 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, observed the two unknown enemy fighters in a tactical overwatch near the roadside. The SWT requested support from the Hunter UAV.

The pilots guided the Hunter operator to the scene where it set up for a strike mission and dropped its precision munition, killing both unknown enemies and marking a first in Army Aviation history.

“It’s very humbling to know that we have set an Army historical mark in having the first successful launch in combat from an Army weaponized UAV,” said Capt. Raymond Fields, commander, Unmanned Aerial Surveillance Company. “This would not be possible without my Soldiers and civilians working hard day in and day out in Iraq to accomplish this feat.”

Fields continued, “I think that this success will set the tone for Army Aviation in years to come. We will see more weaponized Army unmanned vehicles being used instead of manned platforms to save not only our aviator brethren but our Army ground brethren from enemy contact.”

“This accomplishment adds a precise and discriminate means for our Army to successfully engage the enemy in counterinsurgency warfare,” said Col. A.T. Ball, commander, 25th CAB.

[Tennessean4Bush]

Bip!

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Duncan Hunter ping. :)

[ovrtaxt]

Future fighter pilots of America?

[Tennessean4Bush]

They need to pay for advertising this complete with video and play it 1000 times a week on Iraqi media. The bad guys will think twice about planting these bombs if the eye in the sky is watching.

[ARE SOLE]

[Darkwolf377]

Big metal bird drop poop go BANG! send to 72 virgins with not all parts intact! =(

[Tennessean4Bush]

Ping-a-ling.

Noticed on another thread you said that some of the jihadi websites you monitor are indicating that the terrorists are pooling near Mosul. Maybe the Hunter UAV needs to deploy there, eh?

[geezerwheezer]

I’ll bet the bad guys are now really worried about doing their little “night jobs” on the roads there.

[freema]

ping

[endthematrix]

Check underneath the wings...

[Dave Elias]

What’s with open mouths and computer games...all gamers do it!

[Solitar]

The Last Starfighter is no longer fiction.

[hermgem]

Good job, but...no “friendly” fire killings.

[Clioman]

Get some!

[tdscpa]

Tell osama to say AHHHHH.

[19th LA Inf]

I think that this success will set the tone for Army Aviation in years to come

Meanwhile, back at the Pentagon, I'm sure the Air Force has a team busy preparing presentations to Congress to take this fixed-wing weapon away from the Army and give it to them.

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

WAR News at Home and Abroad You'll Hear Nowhere Else!

All the News the MSM refuses to use!

Or if they do report it, without the anti-War Agenda Spin!

Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.

[Chode]

looks like a redesigned O2/SkyMaster-UAV

[ARE SOLE]

looks like a redesigned O2/SkyMaster-UAV

Yeah it does. A push me / pull you.

Regards

[Eye of Unk]

Something I heard about back in February.

[Ben Chad]

The pay scale for IED installers just went up.

[tlj18]

Very nice... A heavily armed UAV. It is the wave of the future. Eventually, robots will be fighting in the streets below, too.

[CholeraJoe]

They were just misguided teenagers having a little mischievous fun. Perhaps, if we could have just gotten them into counseling or an after-school program at the Boys and Girls Club, they wouldn’t have died senselessly. /Ron Paul

[wny]

"fighters"???? "improvised explosive device emplacers"??????

how 'bout "terrorists"??? "murderers"??? animals? cowards?

why must the media come up with such pretty names for these dirtbags?

sooner or later, they'll be calling them "activists"

[Ready4Freddy]

Hell, my first impression was that the UAV had downed 2 enemy planes. lol

"fighters"????

[RDTF]

keep it up boys!

[SW6906]

Unfortunately, this isn’t the media, this is our armed forces reporting that way........

[BerryDingle]

I have no idea why the drive-bys want to call them IED’s. It may help EOD to know whether it’s a factory fabricated mine or a homemade job, but it makes no difference to the voter and most military whether its cell phone activated, time activated or remote activated, or switch actuated. A mine is planted, and that saves a lot of time and paper in the headlines. These asinine government acronyms have gotten way out of hand.

[StAnDeliver]

[RaceBannon]

That is way cool!

[MarineDad]

Absolutely dead on target! Slimeball media pukes and their fawning euphemisms make me sick.

But they did manage to add the one descriptor that covers a multitude of sins: DEAD.

When it comes to jihadis, that's the best possible way to describe them.

[MarineDad]

Jihadi suppositories!

New, improved packaging, and a wonderfully effective delivery method.

Ya gotta love it!

[FDNYRHEROES]

Hell, my first impression was that the UAV had downed 2 enemy planes. lol "fighters"????

"bombers" would have been more accurate...

[FDNYRHEROES]

Meanwhile, back at the Pentagon, I'm sure the Air Force has a team busy preparing presentations to Congress to take this fixed-wing weapon away from the Army and give it to them.

= "Resource Reallocation by PowerPoint"

[spetznaz]

This is the death knell of the Army's use of UCAVs. The fact that they successfully took out Jihadis using their OWN (as in, Army resourced, operated and controlled) UCAV must be ringing across the halls of Airforce HQ. Already the USAF has been saying that UCAVs should be under the control of the airforce, and this will simply make those cries louder. And then there is the whole fixed-wing aircraft ....I'm sure some brainbox is working on some argument that since UCAVs (like the one used here) are fixed-wing they should be under the airforce. Now, there are some rotor-wing UCAVs, but they have no useful load-carrying capacity (i.e. weapons) and are thus simply eyes-in-the-sky, and ofcourse the Marines and Navy would be alright (although recently the USAF has been gunning after the Navy's UCAV program ....the stealthy UCAV version the Navy has been pushing ....thus maybe even the Navy is not totally safe).

Anyways, good work by the Army. And they better make sure that their programs are not snatched from them.

Don't get me wrong flyboys ....the airforce does a GREAT job. However some of the bigshots on the USAF are too stingy with flying assets. For instance the A-10 (which has apparently been given a life extension with the 'C' upgrades) has faced the executioner several times, even though the Army would have been more than willing to take it. The only thing that kept saving the A-10 is that what it does cannot be as easily taken over by (say) F-16s and F-35s. In a war against a serious foe (e.g. say China, and we really haven't faced a 'serious' foe in quite some time) A-10s woudln't have a high survivability, but against 'typical' foes like Afhganistan and Iraq there is nothing that comes close to an A-10 in combat support, and a Warthog flying overhead is a welcome sight to any Marine or Army grunt (and the bane of any Jehadi). However the airforce keeps pushign for sexy high-performance air-Ferraris, thus sooner or later the A-10 (even the C version) will finally be laid to rest.

Anyways, good for the Army. However I hope they get to keep their UCAVs, because it is very easy for the USAF to lay claim to control of un-manned combat aerial vehicles that are fixed wing ....and for now and the coming future most useful UCAVs will be fixed wing.

[BTCM]

Absolutely. The USAF cannot tolerate Army E4 and E5s doing the work that could just as easily be done by Lts. Capts. and Majors that could not make it through flight school.

[devolve]

[Marine_Uncle]

Two more dirt balls hit the dust.

[aculeus]

Army?

Not Air Force?

[potlatch]

[El Gato]

Anyone know just what sort of “precision munition” they use?

[devolve]

[El Gato]

In a war against a serious foe (e.g. say China, and we really haven't faced a 'serious' foe in quite some time) A-10s woudln't have a high survivability,

Better than you might think. They are tough birds. Saddam has a serious military, especially before Gulf War I. The A-10s ate their lunch, with low losses. The Air Force guys liked to call it "Plinking Tanks", but that tends to grate on the Armor types.

[potlatch]

Linus wouldn’t be shivering if he had been at Padre! HOT, HOT, HOT!!

[Royal Wulff]

I wish they would relase the d*mn tape along with these stories. I love watching jihadis die.

[endthematrix]

Viper Strike I presume.

[devolve]

[potlatch]

Ahh, that is pretty devolve! You are getting snazzy with your posts! I could pinpoint both condo’s I’ve stayed in there. Padre is not as ‘huge’ as you might think!

[devolve]

.

If you add a 20-30 pixel or more border before that is done you get more of the original photograph

I’ve been dinking away adding new stuff

[potlatch]

I just saved it. Looked at ‘properties’ and saw the size. I’m amazed at how much you were able to enlarge it!

You do good ‘dinking’!

Ahh, the water looked much more blue-green on the sunny days. Was overcast the first two.