Photo: General Atomics
Generally speaking, the United States military and all of its contractors are very secretive when it comes to the weapons systems they develop, on all levels. Given the nature of the hardware, that's understandable.
Yet, for a number of years now, the U.S. has been sharing many of the military gear it produces with allied countries. Inevitably, some of the details of the aircraft, land vehicles, and weapons delivered to foreign nations have been shared too. In some cases, to such an extent as to allow the integration of weapons systems made abroad onto the American-made fighting platforms.
The next piece of hardware to suffer the same fate is the General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian, as it was announced this week it will integrate, for the first time, smart weapons made by a non-NATO country.
The SkyGuardian is a variant of the MQ-9 Reaper (formerly known as the Predator B). It was designed as a remotely piloted drone that's primarily to be used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes.
It does come with strike capabilities, and generally speaking those are taken care of by laser-guided bombs, air-to-ground missiles, and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). All of these weapons are made by NATO countries, and deployed even on variants of the drone that are in use at the hands of non-NATO members like the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Middle East nation has in its arsenal the Predator XP, but plans to buy some SkyGuardians as well. And it will probably fit them with home-brewed smart weapons.
On Monday an important air show opened its doors in Dubai, and it was there where General Atomics and a local weapons manufacturer called Edge announced they struck a deal for the integration of UAE-made smart weapons onto the drone.
The deadly arsenal targeted for integration includes precision-guided munition (PGM) and guided-glide weapons (GGW). That's not something that was never done before with the MQ-9B, but as per the American company the moment remains an important one as it "never before integrated a non-NATO weapon system onto one of our RPA platforms."
The weapons targeted for adaptation for use on this drone are part of the Desert Sting and Thunder families. A precision-guided munition called Al Tariq is also considered for the trial.
An exact timetable for when the first drone carrying the new weapons will fly was not made public and we also don’t know if the the drone in this configuration will be used by the UAE military alone or it will be deployed in other regions of the world as well. General Atomics, however, says this move is "signaling a new chapter in U.S.-UAE defense cooperation, and opening the door to further collaboration."
The next piece of hardware to suffer the same fate is the General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian, as it was announced this week it will integrate, for the first time, smart weapons made by a non-NATO country.
The SkyGuardian is a variant of the MQ-9 Reaper (formerly known as the Predator B). It was designed as a remotely piloted drone that's primarily to be used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes.
It does come with strike capabilities, and generally speaking those are taken care of by laser-guided bombs, air-to-ground missiles, and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). All of these weapons are made by NATO countries, and deployed even on variants of the drone that are in use at the hands of non-NATO members like the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Middle East nation has in its arsenal the Predator XP, but plans to buy some SkyGuardians as well. And it will probably fit them with home-brewed smart weapons.
On Monday an important air show opened its doors in Dubai, and it was there where General Atomics and a local weapons manufacturer called Edge announced they struck a deal for the integration of UAE-made smart weapons onto the drone.
The deadly arsenal targeted for integration includes precision-guided munition (PGM) and guided-glide weapons (GGW). That's not something that was never done before with the MQ-9B, but as per the American company the moment remains an important one as it "never before integrated a non-NATO weapon system onto one of our RPA platforms."
The weapons targeted for adaptation for use on this drone are part of the Desert Sting and Thunder families. A precision-guided munition called Al Tariq is also considered for the trial.
An exact timetable for when the first drone carrying the new weapons will fly was not made public and we also don’t know if the the drone in this configuration will be used by the UAE military alone or it will be deployed in other regions of the world as well. General Atomics, however, says this move is "signaling a new chapter in U.S.-UAE defense cooperation, and opening the door to further collaboration."
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