The United Kingdom (UK) has received into service its final five General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, and will be transporting them into theatre "in the near future", a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson told IHS Jane's on 21 February.
The delivery brings to 10 the number of Reapers fielded in Afghanistan by the UK Royal Air Force (RAF), with the type expected to remain in-country as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform following the cessation of combat operations at the end of 2014.
These final Reapers were ordered in 2010 and were due to have been handed over in 2013. However, delays in clearing engineering modifications to the aircraft set this back by several months. The MoD declined to comment on the nature of these modifications.
The RAF has flown five Reapers out of Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan since 2007. Initially operated by 39 Squadron out of Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, these platforms are now also controlled out of RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire by 39 Squadron and the newly re-constituted 13 Squadron.
In December 2013 the MoD released its latest weapon-release statistics for the Reaper. In the six years' of operations, the RAF's Reaper force had flown 54,000 hours, and had dropped or launched 459 precision weapons. While the MoD did not break down the figure in terms of the number of AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles fired or Paveway laser-guided bombs dropped, Armed Forces Minister, Andrew Robathan, disclosed in 2012 that six Hellfires had been fired for every Paveway dropped to that date.
Despite being unmanned, the UK's Reapers are governed by the same rules of engagement as those applied to manned combat aircraft.http://www.janes.com/
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