The remotely piloted MQ-1 Predator aircraft officially will retire this summer.
The Air Force has found something younger ― and a bit larger ― with more horsepower and better sensors, that can fly higher and faster, and carry more ordnance: the MQ-9 Reaper.
The phase-out of the MQ-1 already has started, so it’s an appropriate time to say thank you to the Predator for 20-plus years of selfless service.
The Predator was the original unmanned recon and intel drone, and has helped keep troops safe the past two decades. It wasn’t designed to carry weapons, but it did, and it has quite an impressive hit list.
“The Predator has been a workhorse in Iraq, Afghanistan and the fight against ISIS.” said Lt. Col. Douglas, 361st Expeditionary Attack Squadron commander, in an Air Force press release. “When you see the results everyday on the battlefield, it’s unfathomable at times.”
Though the Air Force will save money using the MQ-9 full-time, we can’t say goodbye without saying thanks to the Predator for paving the way.
“It’s a very humble aircraft, but we’ve brought a lot to the fight with its modest capabilities,” Douglas said. “The aircraft’s mission is tremendous and it has opened the doors to the future.”
The crew of the Research Vessel Petrel, led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is on a roll.
The Defense Department on March 8 announced that troops deployed to Niger, Mali and northern Cameroon qualify to receive imminent danger pay/hostile fire pay, retroactive to June 7, 2017.
The other services should pay attention.
The daggers flew this weekend when a disparaging military rant by a California high school teacher went viral.
A technical sergeant from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada came under fire recently after she shared a racially-charged, expletive-laced rant to Facebook.
The signatures include the mother of Trevor Reed, a Marine imprisoned in Moscow on charges of assaulting a police officer in Russia.
Congress is set to force America’s armed services to keep better track of their guns and explosives, imposing new rules in response to an Associated Press investigation that showed firearms stolen from U.S. bases have resurfaced in violent crimes.
Defense officials say the threat demands vigilance from American forces, including counter-terrorism strikes in the country.
The National History Museum of the U.S. Air Force, located on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, has been collecting items from Operation Allies Refuge even before the last U.S. troops had left the country.
U.S. officials say they believe Iran was behind the drone attack last week at the military outpost in southern Syria where American troops are based.
Both the Air Force's F-15EXs -- tail numbers 001 and 002 -- spent a week at Nellis for a battery of operational tests.
A longtime professor at a U.S. Air Force school in Alabama has pleaded guilty to lying to a federal investigator about his contacts with a Chinese official, prosecutors said Monday.
The Countering Extremism Working Group report was due in July.
A majority of the Charleston AFB congregants have been attending services at the chapel since the mid-1970s, after they first were assigned to Charleston.
James Kilcer served in the Marine Corps from 2007 to 2011.
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