Rise of the Reaper: Predator on Steroids (Hunter-Killer UAV)

Air Force Magazine ^ | Feb 2008 | John A. Tirpak

[Travis McGee]

Some call it “Predator on steroids,” but that doesn’t begin to describe this new aircraft.

Rise of the Reaper

By John A. Tirpak, Executive Editor

In less than a year, the Air Force has brought into combat service its newest and most lethal unmanned aerial vehicle, the MQ-9 Reaper. A special squadron is simultaneously developing tactics, training flight crews, and operating the UAV in battle. This is taking place even though operational testing has barely begun and a full production decision is still a year off.

The Reaper drew first blood on Oct. 27, 2007, when it fired a Hellfire at insurgents attacking US troops in Afghanistan. Eleven days later, a Reaper dropped its first pair of laser guided bombs, silencing Afghan insurgents firing at US forces.

The Reaper’s success is important if, as many believe, it is the first of a new breed of large unmanned combat aircraft. It was in late February 2006 that Gen. Ronald E. Keys, then commander of Air Combat Command, ordered acceleration of Reaper to operational service. Much has happened since then, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Greene, commander of the first MQ-9 unit, the 42nd Attack Squadron. The 42nd is based at Creech AFB, Nev., about 45 miles northwest of Nellis AFB, Nev. Keys’ order responded to demands of commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan for more “persistent” intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft as well as additional strike and close air support assets.

Greene said he and one other officer “started out in a cubicle at Nellis” with a “blank sheet of paper,” assigned the task of inventing the first true unmanned combat aircraft squadron. By March 2006, he had a budget, a building at Creech, one aircraft, and orders to get Reaper into the fight by the fall. On Sept. 27, 2007, the first Reaper to fly a combat mission was launched from a base in Afghanistan.

The Reaper evolved from the MQ-1 Predator, but is a very different machine, with a different mission.

With a 66-foot wingspan, the Reaper is roughly the size of the A-10 attack airplane, and can carry 3,000 pounds of weapons—more than 10 times the capacity of the Predator. It can fly at up to 288 miles per hour, allowing it to transit from an operating base to a patrol area almost twice as fast as the Predator. The typical on-station time is 15 hours. It can cruise at 50,000 feet “clean”—that is, without weapons—but typically flies at about 30,000 feet, fully loaded.

“People call it ‘Predator on steroids,’ but it’s really more than that,” Greene asserted.

The Predator is described as a “killer scout”—dedicated chiefly to ISR but with a limited ability to shoot at targets of opportunity. However, the Reaper is defined as a “hunter killer,” meaning that it is dedicated to strike and yet still has sizeable ISR capabilities, including electro-optical, infrared, low-light TV, and synthetic aperture radar.

Air Combat Command compares the Reaper less to a Predator than to an F-16 fighter, which is meant to attack ground targets but which can use targeting pods to collect and transmit full-motion video to air operations centers and troops on the ground.

Guiding the Reaper The typical Reaper weapons load includes two GBU-12 laser guided bombs and four AGM-114 Hellfire laser guided missiles, but it can carry up to four LGBs. It eventually will carry both 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions and 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs. These GPS guided weapons will allow Reaper to precisely attack targets through bad weather.

The Reaper crew pairs an officer pilot with one enlisted sensor operator. They sit side by side in a trailer that can be set up almost anywhere, but that for now resides at Creech, next to a bank of satellite dish antennas.

The pilot sits on the left of the “cockpit,” facing a main screen and several smaller screens showing him pictures through the aircraft’s nose camera, its sensor turret, and displays of the status of various systems. He has joysticks that simulate throttle and stick, but there’s a keyboard in front of him. Some of the screens are for instant-messaging type chat with various levels of command and control, such as the air operations center for US Central Command Air Forces. He can also communicate by voice or text with troops on the ground, half a world away.

The sensor operator’s station is very much like the pilot’s, but is more geared toward operating the cameras, infrared system, radar, and other sensors onboard.

Except for Greene, none of the Reaper pilots have prior experience with the Predator. They are experienced in F-15E, F-16, A-10, B-1, and B-52 aircraft.

The more senior sensor operators come from the Predator force. “The majority of them are fresh out of tech school, ... imagery analysts by trade,” Greene noted. “But that’s going to change. Our next group will be [enlisted] aircrew.”

Greene said that his sensor operators have done a great job stepping up to the big responsibilities that go with flying the Reaper, but many have been in the Air Force less than a year, and officials decided that more seasoned aircrew will be a good fit.

Coming into the job, enlisted flight personnel “have a little more airmanship. They’ve been on an airplane, they know what it means to be on an aircrew, and they understand checklist procedures and how airplanes work.” The next batch of sensor operators will all be “sensor operators from other airborne platforms.”

After a training course of only a few months, graduates go directly to combat missions and help train new crews in how to fly and fight with the Reaper. In most systems, it usually takes many hours to upgrade to instructor, but Reaper crews do so not long after emerging from the “schoolhouse” themselves.

The trailer housing the flight crew is called a ground control station. It is connected by fiber-optic cable to a satellite uplink in Europe, which then communicates with the aircraft via satellite. That way, all radio communications can be “line-of-sight” in nature.

Real Pilots Despite the speed of transmission, there’s still a two-second delay between a pilot’s input and feedback on his screen. During most of a mission, the delay doesn’t matter. However, for takeoff and landing, a local pilot takes over the aircraft, and there is “no delay” in feedback, Greene reported.

Taking off and landing the Reaper is a challenge, he said, because there’s only one view—through the nose camera—and no peripheral vision, stick pressure, sound, or “seat of the pants” sensations. The aircraft must be flown very precisely to avoid overcontrol, and can be especially tough to land in a crosswind. There’s “almost no flare” in landing.

Greene said that a more sophisticated “cockpit,” with more of these cues, is in the works but has yet to be matured.

The Reaper crew is included in the air tasking order issued by CENTAF. The crew briefs the mission just as it would with a manned aircraft. After the deployed takeoff crew gets the Reaper airborne and calibrates its lasers and other instruments, the Creech crew takes over and flies it to a patrol area. A typical mission features close air support for ground troops, but for an extended time and with the bonus of seeing over hills and around corners. The mission is called X-CAS.

“It can stay over the target area ... for hours,” Greene said, “whereas an F-16 or Strike Eagle will have to go back to the tanker” and leave the ground troops uncovered.

The Reaper pilot can send ground forces an aerial image of the area in which they’re operating if they have the right equipment, and if fire from the Reaper is needed, “it’s easy to get a ‘talk on'" to the target, Greene said.

Initially, there was apprehension on the part of pilots who knew they would not get airborne for several years. Reaper pilots do not have a companion trainer to preserve airmanship skills. However, Greene said, the concerns usually evaporate when pilots realize their airmanship skills are still being exercised.

“You’re not physically in the air, but it’s still challenging. You’re still doing stick and throttle.” He added that “you’re still dealing with the same things: weather, air traffic control, traffic pattern ops, tactics.”

Besides X-CAS, the Reapers also perform a sort of forward air control-airborne mission. “It’s ... like a FAC-A, but you’re not giving clearance for guys to drop weapons. ... You’re like a traffic cop, working a kill box,” routing fighters to the areas where they are needed.

Creech does an excellent impression of a forward location. It’s a bare-bones facility surrounded by desert, with little in the way of housing and only one dining hall, open a few hours a day. It has two ground control stations. In years past, when it was Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, Creech was used by Nellis pilots for landing practice or as a marshaling site in large Red Flag or Gunsmoke events.

Members of the 42nd talk in terms of “caps,” which is the collection of aircraft, support gear, and persons needed to keep station for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A Reaper “combat air patrol” requires four aircraft, one ground control station, and 10 crews, Greene said. The 42nd will be full up in 2010, when it will have six caps’ worth of capability.

Many coalition uniforms can be seen. The Royal Air Force is acquiring and operating Reapers—they perform ISR functions only—and is setting up its own facility at Creech. British operators also serve as instructors for USAF flight crews. In Afghanistan, USAF and RAF crews share Reaper infrastructure. Plans called for a January activation of RAF 39 Squadron at Creech.

The 3-1 manual—tactics for the MQ-9—is being written on a daily basis. Speaking of his weapons tactics officer, Greene said, “He compiles all the lessons learned, he debriefs the crews, and he takes those and codifies them.” Greene declined to get into the lessons learned or the tactics employed.

Creech lies close to the Army’s desert training facility at Ft. Irwin, Calif. On training missions, Reapers will launch from Creech and fly through a specially designated air corridor to the skies over the training center and then work with Army troops preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. “They’re the guys we’ll be working with when they get downrange,” Greene said.

The Air Force will say only that it has roughly 10 of the new Reapers. The “program of record” calls for buying 60 Reapers in the next few years. However, USAF added eight in the 2007 supplemental defense spending bill for use by Air Force Special Operations Command, and will add eight to the 2008 supplemental, for a total buy of 76.

Plans call for the ANG’s 174th Fighter Wing at Hancock Field, N.Y., to convert to the MQ-9, using Ft. Drum, N.Y., as the launch-and-recovery facility. An operating location for AFSOC’s Reapers hasn’t been announced.

In Fiscal 2008, the Air Force will take delivery of four MQ-9s. The delivery rate is set to increase to nine in FY 09 and reach the maximum production rate of 11 in FY10. Those numbers do not include sales to Britain, other foreign operators, or other US agencies that will fly the MQ-9.

A maintenance official whose job it is to inspect the aircraft before accepting delivery on behalf of the Air Force said the aircraft so far have been “very clean. ... almost no write-ups.” In fact, changes made at delivery are usually extras requested by the Air Force—“Things that we actually asked them to do, like add some chafing protection on some wires, things not part of the original aircraft design,” the official said.

Spare Parts Problems Despite the fact that his unit has been flying combat missions since last September, Greene said the initial operational testing and evaluation of the MQ-9 is only now getting under way. Likewise, his unit won’t declare initial operational capability for about a year. The declaration of IOC involves many factors besides the readiness of flight crews: It also takes into account sortie rates, available aircraft, and a matured maintenance capability.

It is in the area of spare parts that the Reaper faces some of its biggest challenges, Greene acknowledged. Whenever a system is rushed from the factory to battle, it usually takes a while for the spare parts to catch up.

General Atomics continues to “build the spare parts and [wartime readiness] kits for us,” and occasional shortages come from “the fact that the aircraft was fielded so quickly and it has so much desired capability that we need, that it’s kind of ‘the cost of doing business.'"

MSgt. Darin Mauzy, a maintainer with the 432nd Wing, said it’s misleading to look at the maintenance facilities and see Reapers being routinely dismantled.

“It’s not that the aircraft broke,” he said, but rather that the parts are still so new that no track record of how they perform has been established. To be safe, maintainers will pull a component working perfectly well, as part of a process of collecting data on when it needs service. With more data, parts will be allowed to stay on the airplane for longer and longer periods, until there’s confidence in how long they’ll last.

“So, when you see one taken apart, it’s mostly for time-change orders,” not problems, Mauzy said. Operational test and evaluation should provide more of the knowledge needed to smooth out parts issues.

Another problem is tools. The Predator and Reaper—made mostly of composites and having little commonality with fighters—require unique tools, and there may be only two or three of a particular kind in the squadron. So, some downtime is a product of waiting for a turn with one of the gadgets that allow maintenance to be performed.

Greene said he’s pleased with the squadron’s effort to get Reaper operating. Although he is chided by pilots in other systems about flying a “video game,” he shrugs off the barbs because his unit is directly involved in the action.

“When I sit in the GCS in the seat, and I look down and I see guys on the ground over in Afghanistan, and I’m talking to them and supporting them, it’s unique and rewarding. We’re fighting the war all the time—all the time. There’s never a break.”

[Travis McGee]

I'll bet the Dept of Homeland Security can't wait to get some of these babies.

With a 66-foot wingspan, the Reaper is roughly the size of the A-10 attack airplane, and can carry 3,000 pounds of weapons—more than 10 times the capacity of the Predator. It can fly at up to 288 miles per hour, allowing it to transit from an operating base to a patrol area almost twice as fast as the Predator. The typical on-station time is 15 hours. It can cruise at 50,000 feet “clean”—that is, without weapons—but typically flies at about 30,000 feet, fully loaded.

“People call it ‘Predator on steroids,’ but it’s really more than that,” Greene asserted.

The Predator is described as a “killer scout”—dedicated chiefly to ISR but with a limited ability to shoot at targets of opportunity. However, the Reaper is defined as a “hunter killer,” meaning that it is dedicated to strike and yet still has sizeable ISR capabilities, including electro-optical, infrared, low-light TV, and synthetic aperture radar.

Air Combat Command compares the Reaper less to a Predator than to an F-16 fighter, which is meant to attack ground targets but which can use targeting pods to collect and transmit full-motion video to air operations centers and troops on the ground.

Guiding the Reaper The typical Reaper weapons load includes two GBU-12 laser guided bombs and four AGM-114 Hellfire laser guided missiles, but it can carry up to four LGBs. It eventually will carry both 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions and 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs. These GPS guided weapons will allow Reaper to precisely attack targets through bad weather.

[Travis McGee]

[Travis McGee]

Robot Air Attack Squadron Bound for Iraq

The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

The arrival of these outsized U.S. "hunter-killer" drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.

That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected "soon," says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? "We're still working that," Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview.

The Reaper's first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.

"With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home," North said.

The Associated Press has learned that the Air Force is building a 400,000-square-foot expansion of the concrete ramp area now used for Predator drones here at Balad, the biggest U.S. air base in Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad. That new staging area could be turned over to Reapers.

It's another sign that the Air Force is planning for an extended stay in Iraq, supporting Iraqi government forces in any continuing conflict, even if U.S. ground troops are drawn down in the coming years.

The estimated two dozen or more unmanned MQ-1 Predators now doing surveillance over Iraq, as the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, have become mainstays of the U.S. war effort, offering round-the-clock airborne "eyes" watching over road convoys, tracking nighttime insurgent movements via infrared sensors, and occasionally unleashing one of their two Hellfire missiles on a target.

From about 36,000 flying hours in 2005, the Predators are expected to log 66,000 hours this year over Iraq and Afghanistan.

The MQ-9 Reaper, when compared with the 1995-vintage Predator, represents a major evolution of the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV.

At five tons gross weight, the Reaper is four times heavier than the Predator. Its size — 36 feet long, with a 66-foot wingspan — is comparable to the profile of the Air Force's workhorse A-10 attack plane. It can fly twice as fast and twice as high as the Predator. Most significantly, it carries many more weapons.

While the Predator is armed with two Hellfire missiles, the Reaper can carry 14 of the air-to-ground weapons — or four Hellfires and two 500-pound bombs.

"It's not a recon squadron," Col. Joe Guasella, operations chief for the Central Command's air component, said of the Reapers. "It's an attack squadron, with a lot more kinetic ability."

"Kinetic" — Pentagon argot for destructive power — is what the Air Force had in mind when it christened its newest robot plane with a name associated with death.

"The name Reaper captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system," Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, said in announcing the name last September.

General Atomics of San Diego has built at least nine of the MQ-9s thus far, at a cost of $69 million per set of four aircraft, with ground equipment.

The Air Force's 432nd Wing, a UAV unit formally established on May 1, is to eventually fly 60 Reapers and 160 Predators. The numbers to be assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan will be classified.

The Reaper is expected to be flown as the Predator is — by a two-member team of pilot and sensor operator who work at computer control stations and video screens that display what the UAV "sees." Teams at Balad, housed in a hangar beside the runways, perform the takeoffs and landings, and similar teams at Nevada's Creech Air Force Base, linked to the aircraft via satellite, take over for the long hours of overflying the Iraqi landscape.

American ground troops, equipped with laptops that can download real-time video from UAVs overhead, "want more and more of it," said Maj. Chris Snodgrass, the Predator squadron commander here.

The Reaper's speed will help. "Our problem is speed," Snodgrass said of the 140-mph Predator. "If there are troops in contact, we may not get there fast enough. The Reaper will be faster and fly farther."

The new robot plane is expected to be able to stay aloft for 14 hours fully armed, watching an area and waiting for targets to emerge.

"It's going to bring us flexibility, range, speed and persistence," said regional commander North, "such that I will be able to work lots of areas for a long, long time."

The British also are impressed with the Reaper, and are buying three for deployment in Afghanistan later this year. The Royal Air Force version will stick to the "recon" mission, however — no weapons on board.

source: 15jul2007

[Armando Guerra]

The U.S. military is coming out of the Afghanistan/Iraq wars with not only the next generation of weapons, but invaluable experience for fighting the next generation of war against insurgents. I think part of the problem the U.S. has had in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the weapons systems and tactics were still based on the cold war. As long as the democrats don't cut and run and end up eviscerating the defense department, our military will come out of this stronger than ever.

[Travis McGee]

Size comparison of Reaper and Predator.

[Travis McGee]

Yep, it’s getting tougher and tougher to be a guerrilla. The days of G’s hiding out like Robin Hood and his Merry Men are OVER when the govt/occupiers have this kind of overmatch.

[kms61]

the obvious achilles heel of these things is the command and control network. No doubt potential adversaries like China have plans for cyberattacks in the event of conflict.

[Joe Brower]

As citizens, we need to continually do all we can to ensure that these gadgets stay pointed in the right direction.

[Travis McGee]

Yes, major nations can counter them. But it’s pretty tough if you’re trying to survive as an old school guerrilla without links to major state sponsors.

[Travis McGee]

Amen. These would be a tyrant’s best tool.

[live+let_live]

“potential adversaries like China”

This is a great weapon to fight inferior forces. Fighting a more conventional foe, like China, it won’t help much. I would expect China to shoot down all our satellites in the first few minutes of a conflict.

[cinives]

yep, that’s the downside.

[woollyone]

“And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men.”

[sam_paine]

In less than a year, the Air Force has brought into combat service its newest and most lethal unmanned aerial vehicle, the MQ-9 Reaper. A special squadron is simultaneously developing tactics, training flight crews, and operating the UAV in battle.

Another example of the side-effect of being in "the wrong war."

In peacetime, Generals' pet projects (Crusader artillery, etc) are funded. During a war, when troops are being "worn out" we're getting experience that can't be simulated and real-world battle-testing of weapons for the current and next war.

The russkies are flying 50 year old propaganda missions with empty bombers. Americans are flying 21st 'terminator' drones with hot weapons.

[CodeToad]

Just recently people were asking about PRVs and the next generation attack aircraft. Some people thought an armed UAV was silly and wouldn’t be mainstream. The fact is that they cost millions less and can be made to do far more than a manned aircraft. In fact, with computer controlled flight systems the “pilot” doesn’t need to be a trained pilot at all. They just tell the aircraft what they want to do and the computer decides how to do it; airspeed, rudder, controls, etc. They are far more dangerous to the enemy because no one knows after they depart where they are going because they can loiter for what seems to be forever.

[hoagy62]

Okay....so I’ve read the responses so far.

What’s the general opinion? I mean, are these things good or bad?

As far as I’m concerned...if they are used to kill terrorists or people trying to kill our troops...rock on, dude!

On the other hand...do you think these will be used against US, here in the United States? To what purpose?

Educate me, please!

[wildbill]

I predicted the end of the Soviet missile threat as soon as our anti-missile systems caught up with our human weapon systems.

We’ve had several generations of kids growing up to fight interstellar aliens or whatnot using joysticks and push-button weapons. My guess is they’d be bored by having a twenty-minute window to shoot down a missile.

The new UAV weapons are perfect for these kids. They’re pre-trained in many ways.

[ASA Vet]

Joint MI & SOCOM Ping.

Thanks Travis

[Travis McGee]

These killer drones are terrific for fighting non-technological primitives.

They won’t be nearly as useful fighting a first world adversary.

As long as we are only facing insurgents and guerrillas, fine.