By Nick Cook, JDW Aerospace Consultant,
London
Buoyed by successes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the General Atomics
Aeronautical Systems Predator unmanned air vehicle (UAV) goes from
strength to strength in the US, where the company has quietly begun
construction of a classified addition to the Predator family that
is aimed at deep-penetration missions in high-threat
environments.
Senior company officials have expressed frustration, however, at
the UK's decision to press ahead with its £800 million ($1.3
billion) Watchkeeper UAV development and production programme, when
the capability, they say, already exists and could be bought
largely off-the-shelf.
Tom Cassidy, president and chief executive officer of General
Atomics, visited the UK on 22 June in a bid to persuade the UK
Ministry of Defence (MoD) to test and later procure the Predator B
drone for a range of applications, including coastal surveillance.
He told Jane's Defence Weekly the MoD "ought to buy a system and
use it", given that the "aircraft are available right now".
Cassidy's remarks came as Lord Bach, the UK minister for defence
procurement, told the House of Commons Defence Select Committee
that the air vehicles the UK is set to procure under its
Watchkeeper UAV programme, which is currently in competitive
evaluation, were a "generation ahead" of Predator, an assertion
that General Atomics officials vehemently refute. "By any measure,"
one said, "that is untrue."
The Predator A was deployed operationally by the Central
Intelligence Agency and the US Air Force (USAF) in the mid-1990s
and the UK MoD was briefed on the system at the same time.
Predators have amassed 65,000 flight hours, half of them under
combat conditions. The USAF has taken delivery of more than 80
RQ-1A Predator As and is acquiring the MQ-9A Predator B
hunter-killer, a turboprop-powered variant with a 32-hour flight
endurance and a 10,000 lb gross take-off weight.
The Predator family uses synthetic-aperture radar, a TV/infra-red
sensor suite and a datalink to find and track targets and relay
data on them in real time. They are armed with the laser-guided
Hellfire air-to-surface missile to allow their man-in-the-loop
controllers to attack targets of opportunity and the Stinger
air-to-air missile for self-defence.