ADVERTISEMENT

Apples and Oranges


Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org

If it takes about 170 personnel today to operate one combat air patrol of MQ-1 or MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft, how many are needed for a single high-flying RQ-4 Global Hawk CAP? Maj. Richard Johnson, Air Force spokesman for intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance issues, tells the Daily Report that the number is around 260 today, including some 160 imagery analysts. Johnson cautions that looking at the manpower needs for MQ-1/9 and RQ-4 CAPs is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Indeed, while all are capable and complementary RPAs, “the scope and scale of the ISR capability they provide is vastly different,” he said. He noted: “The amount of information we can collect from a Global Hawk is tremendous, and it is a manpower intensive process to turn all that data into decision-quality intelligence information.”

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org