A General Atomics official said the company is surprised by the Air Force’s plan to stop buying new MQ-9 Reapers in fiscal 2020, after expecting to gradually wind down the production line. Chris Pehrson, General Atomics' vice president of strategic development, told Air Force Magazine ...
ISR
U.S. Special Operations Command’s armed overwatch planes eventually will replace the U-28 Draco, a small fleet of specialized and heavily used intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. James Slife said Feb. 12. Under the armed overwatch program, SOCOM ...
How the Air Force is preparing for counterinsurgency in 2030.
Only one-fifth of US Southern Command's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance requirement is being met, and much of that doesn't even come from military hardware. SOUTHCOM boss Adm. Craig Faller told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 30 that of the roughly 20 percent of ...
US strike aircraft dropped more bombs in Afghanistan in 2019 than any other year since at least the surge in 2009. US aircraft flew 2,434 strike sorties, releasing 7,423 weapons, according to statistics released Jan. 27 by Air Forces Central Command. These totals are higher ...
The Air Force’s MQ-9 presence in Eastern Europe has moved south again, as the 52nd Expeditionary Operations Group Det. 2 begins flying in Romania this month. The MQ-9s are deployed to Miroslawiec AB, Poland, and this is the second time they have moved to the ...
NATO on Jan. 17 received the first two of five Air Ground Surveillance system drones at NAS Sigonella, Italy. The AGS system, a variant of the RQ-4 Global Hawk already in use by multiple nations, will be used by NATO to watch over Europe, and ...
Two Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft escaped the chopping block in the joint, draft fiscal 2020 defense policy bill, but the aircraft are still under congressional scrutiny. At issue are the RC-135, a small fleet with multiple varieties of planes used to gather ...
US European Command and NATO are bringing in new remotely piloted aircraft, and repositioning aircraft already deployed to the region, to ensure it has the best “indications and warnings” of potential Russian activity. But, as always, more capability is needed, the head of US European ...
USAF airmen assigned to the 409th Air Expeditionary Group watch as a C-130J Super Hercules taxis in at Nigerien Air Base 201, Agadez, Niger, on Aug. 3, 2019. The C-130 landing marked the next step in airfield evaluations by starting...