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Manned spy plane flies 1st combat sortie

The Air Force’s newest intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform flew its first combat sortie Wednesday, about seven months after the contract for the plane was first awarded.

An MC-12W Liberty took off from Joint Base Balad, Iraq, at 2:30 p.m. for a four-hour mission, according to an Air Force news release.

The manned ISR aircraft has been on a fast track to the war zones since the $461 million program was launched in July by a Pentagon task force. The Air Force plans to deploy 37 MC-12s to supplement the MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers already flying orbits around the clock.

MC-12Ws are twin-propeller Hawker Beechcraft King Air 350 airplanes outfitted with high-tech ISR sensors; unlike Predators and Reapers, they do not carry weapons.

The commander of U.S. Air Forces Central praised the Air Force and its industry partners for delivering the plane quickly under pressure.

“What our Air Force teams ... have done with the program has been nothing short of miraculous,” Lt. Gen. Gary North said in the news release.

But a spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed frustration last week that subsequent MC-12Ws are falling behind schedule.

Original plans called for 13 planes to be deployed by August. Lt. Gen. Craig Koziol, director of the Defense Department’s ISR Task Force, said he hopes to have six MC-12Ws deployed by then.

“Whatever the reason is for the delay, the secretary wants to see these aircraft in theater as soon as possible and put to work because it is a matter of life and death for these guys,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

“It’s not about pointing a finger at the Air Force. ... [Gates] doesn’t care where it’s stuck. He just wants to get it unstuck,” Morrell said.

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