Photo: USAF/Airman 1st Class Alysa Calvarese
Military drones are not only very expensive pieces of equipment, but they are also highly sensitive, given the nature of the payloads they usually carry. That means most of the time the soldiers operating them take great care where they put these things down once a mission is over.
Because warfare does not always allow things to go according to plan, even drones have to adapt to changing conditions. For example, it may not always be possible to land a drone on nice, level tarmac, so knowing if these machines are capable of something more is essential.
One of America's most notorious drones is the MQ-9 Reaper. Put together by General Atomics and flying ever since 2001, it is used mostly for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, but it can also deliver deadly Hellfire missile blows to the enemy if need be.
The drone is powered by a Honeywell turboprop engine, and can stay in the air for up to 34 hours for the extended-range variant, reaching altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15 km).
Although the secretive nature of its missions doesn't give us an exact picture of where these drones take off from and where they return, it's obvious they do that from nice, neat runways.
That's not what happened on June 15, when one of these things was put down, on purpose, in the dirt. It was the first time such a thing happened, and the achievement (the military considers it a new milestone) took place at the Nine Mile Training Center in West Texas, "one of the largest private armed forces training centers in the country."
Apparently, the mission was a success, and the drone came out in perfect condition, just as it would be when landing on a usual runway. Aside from using a less-than-perfect runway for landing, the drone also managed to touch the ground without the use of line-of-sight antennas, a procedure it usually uses for this part of its missions.
Although landing a drone, even on a dirt strip, may not seem all that complicated, this month's maneuver, which was only announced this week by the U.S. Air Force (USAF), required the involvement of airmen from four distinct squadrons: 2nd Special Operations, 727th Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance, 311th Special Operations Intelligence, and 26th Special Tactics.
The mission profile not only required the drone to land on a dirt piece of ground, but also deliver supplies in a travel pod, something that was also not attempted before.
The airmen even gave this supply-carrying drone a nickname, Reaper Express, and said that even if the pod can't carry much cargo, it "might be the difference between getting that critical aircraft part to an isolated airfield or bringing in a blood supply for casualties sustained during a base attack."
The now-proven capability of the drone to land pretty much anywhere and carry payloads opens the doors for it to be used for secondary and tertiary missions as well. It's likely more and more capabilities will be discovered in the coming months, as the team behind this achievement continues to look into more uses for the $30 million drone.
One of America's most notorious drones is the MQ-9 Reaper. Put together by General Atomics and flying ever since 2001, it is used mostly for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, but it can also deliver deadly Hellfire missile blows to the enemy if need be.
The drone is powered by a Honeywell turboprop engine, and can stay in the air for up to 34 hours for the extended-range variant, reaching altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15 km).
Although the secretive nature of its missions doesn't give us an exact picture of where these drones take off from and where they return, it's obvious they do that from nice, neat runways.
That's not what happened on June 15, when one of these things was put down, on purpose, in the dirt. It was the first time such a thing happened, and the achievement (the military considers it a new milestone) took place at the Nine Mile Training Center in West Texas, "one of the largest private armed forces training centers in the country."
Apparently, the mission was a success, and the drone came out in perfect condition, just as it would be when landing on a usual runway. Aside from using a less-than-perfect runway for landing, the drone also managed to touch the ground without the use of line-of-sight antennas, a procedure it usually uses for this part of its missions.
Although landing a drone, even on a dirt strip, may not seem all that complicated, this month's maneuver, which was only announced this week by the U.S. Air Force (USAF), required the involvement of airmen from four distinct squadrons: 2nd Special Operations, 727th Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance, 311th Special Operations Intelligence, and 26th Special Tactics.
The mission profile not only required the drone to land on a dirt piece of ground, but also deliver supplies in a travel pod, something that was also not attempted before.
The airmen even gave this supply-carrying drone a nickname, Reaper Express, and said that even if the pod can't carry much cargo, it "might be the difference between getting that critical aircraft part to an isolated airfield or bringing in a blood supply for casualties sustained during a base attack."
The now-proven capability of the drone to land pretty much anywhere and carry payloads opens the doors for it to be used for secondary and tertiary missions as well. It's likely more and more capabilities will be discovered in the coming months, as the team behind this achievement continues to look into more uses for the $30 million drone.
Google News