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Plus 15 or 20-G turns in air combat or to evade a SAM are a lot easier when the pilot isn't there to complain that his neck just snapped.

Not with this one, you'd snap the wings off.

And it's slow, meat for anyone with real fighter planes, and not real maneuverable like the A-10 is. No Gun either. The Syrians and Iranians have real fighters for instance.

Still this is "just" a modified surveillance drone. The next generation will be able to do those things.

The next generation will be able to do those things.

I would even say that the human pilot was a weak spot in the last generation of fighters. I think the F-16 had limits in its computerized flight controls to protect the pilot instead of protecting the airframe. I don't know about the F-22, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has the same problem.

And it's slow, meat for anyone with real fighter planes, and not real maneuverable like the A-10 is. No Gun either. The Syrians and Iranians have real fighters for instance.

The is most likely a testbed platform. Yes it will need friends around to keep enemy aircraft away, but the Reaper has the ability to make life unpleasant for the enemy:

Capable of carrying maximum internal payload of 800 lbs, it will carry more advanced sensors at weight almost twice as the MQ-1. Furthermore, The Reaper can carry much more external stores, up to 3,000 pounds total – 1,500 on each of its two inboard weapons stations, or 500-600 lb. on the two middle stations and 150-200 lbs. on the outboard stations. In total, the aircraft can carry up to 14 Hellfire missiles, compared with two carried on the Predator. The Reaper can stay airborne for up to 14 hours fully loaded.

Sounds like a nice piece of equipment to use to maintain continuous Combat Air Patrol around Fleet elements in case the Iranians try a swarm attack with a horde of small, missile-equipped boats

I wonder how many of these little Reapers a carrier can hold in one of their storage closets...

And it's slow

That's because it's a propeller-driven plane

There's a jet-powered Predator C in the works, rollout sometime next year, that will probably satisfy your need for speed

I like how the development is happening here. Rather than taking 20 years to design it, they're making incremental improvements on a short development cycle.

They took the Predator A, originally developed purely as a recon drone, and put a couple of missiles on it. That worked out well, so they took the lessons learned and made the Predator B with better sensors and more weapons capacity. They will take the lessons learned from Predator B over the next year, and install the sensor and targeting systems into a faster chassis, the Predator C