At medium altitude an aircraft is liable to be seen and shot at, and while Reaper operations generally avoid ‘defended airspace,’ as events in Yemen show, some losses are to be expected. Reapers operate at medium altitude other planes stay safe by flying at extreme altitude like the U-2 Dragon Lady, or by keeping down in the weeds. It also means the Reaper is not as expendable as the Predator, and losses cannot not be ignored.įor years Reapers operated with relative impunity over Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but two were shot down over Yemen by Houthi rebels last year. These are a set of semi-satirical observations formulated by a defense industry procurement executive in the 1980s that predict that by 2054 the Air Force and Navy will only be able to afford a single aircraft between them.īut that $32m price tag means that the Reaper could not be bought in large numbers. Military aircraft are notorious for following Augustine’s Laws. Increased performance always has a disproportionate effect on cost, and continual upgrades mean continual price hikes. The price inflation from $4m to $7m to 14m to the current $32m is no great surprise.
The Reaper is twice as fast as the original and carries five times the payload, making it more like a traditional Air Force plane…though it has less endurance than the Predator’s 40 hours which was arguably the rationale for a drone loitering above enemy territory. Things changed when the Predator was replaced by Predator B. Their expendability, going places too risky for manned aircraft, made drones useful. It barely merited a paragraph in the newspapers. When an unmanned Predator was lost, the Air Force simply bombed the wreckage to prevent the enemy gaining intelligence, and wheeled out the next replacement.
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When pilot Scott O’Grady was shot down over Bosnia in 1995, a huge rescue mission was mounted with full media coverage. At least five were lost in Balkans campaign in the ‘90s, either to mechanical failure or Serbian missiles, but this was considered good value for the intelligence they gathered. This original Predator was designed in the 90’s as a low-cost sensor platforms, with a simple airframe and repurposed engine – the Rotax powering the Predator was also used for snowmobiles – and cost around $4m each.
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The Reaper or Predator-B, is an upgrade of the original MQ-1B Predator which was retired in 2018 by the USAF. It is a lot for what is, at heart, supposed to be an expendable drone. That makes them even more expensive than the pricey, top-end AH-64E Apache attack helicopter. In 2008 they were $14 million apiece, but the Air Force’s latest budget figures shows each new Reaper costs $32 million. Iranian Quds Force General Soleimani was killed by a Reaper strike in January, showing they are employed against the very highest-value targets. The Reaper carries a suite of sophisticated sensors for a close-up view from 10,000 feet, and a mix of Hellfire missiles and laser- and GPS-guided bomb to attack targets.
Launched from air bases close in the theater of operations, it can cruise for 27 hours, flown remotely from Nevada by relays of pilots. The Reaper is the mainstay of the Air Force’s drone force.
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