THE GENERAL ATOMICS RQ1 - MQ1 PREDATOR

The General Atomic MQ-1 Predator is an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built by General Atomics and used primarily by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Initially conceived in the early 1990s for aerial reconnaissance and forward observation roles, the Predator carries cameras and other sensors but has been modified and upgraded to carry and fire two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or other munitions. The aircraft, in use since 1995, has seen combat in war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the NATO intervention in Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq War, Yemen, Libyan civil war, the intervention in Syria, and Somalia.

MQ1 predator

Each Predator air vehicle can be disassembled into six main components and loaded into a container nicknamed "the coffin." This enables all system components and support equipment to be rapidly deployed worldwide. The largest component is the ground control station and it is designed to roll into a C-130 Hercules. The Predator primary satellite link consists of a 6.1 meter (20 ft) satellite dish and associated support equipment. The satellite link provides communications between the ground station and the aircraft when it is beyond line-of-sight and is a link to networks that disseminate secondary intelligence. The RQ-1A system needs 1,500 by 40 meters (5,000 by 125 ft) of hard surface runway with clear line-of-sight to each end from the ground control station to the air vehicles. Initially, all components needed to be located on the same airfield.

Hellfire missile

 The RQ1 is reinforced with ammunition Hellfire missile. The RQ-1 conducted its first firing of a Hellfire anti-tank missile on 16 February 2001; over a bombing range near Indian Springs Air Force Station north of Las Vegas, Nevada, an inert AGM-114C successfully hit a tank target. This led to a series of tests on 21 February 2001 in which the Predator fired three Hellfire missiles, scoring hits on a stationary tank with all three missiles. Following the February tests, the decision was made to move immediately to increment two of the testing phase, which involved more complex tests to hunt for simulated moving targets from greater altitudes with the more advanced AGM-114K version. The scheme was put into service, with the armed Predators given the new designation of MQ-1A. The Predator gives little warning of attack; it is relatively quiet and the Hellfire is supersonic, so it strikes before it is heard by the target.

MQ1 firing the Hellfire missile.

 On 16 February 2001 at Nellis Air Force Base, a Predator successfully fired three Hellfire AGM-114C missiles into a target. The newly armed Predators were given the designation of MQ-1A. In the first week of June 2001, a Hellfire missile was successfully launched on a replica of bin Laden's Afghanistan Tarnak residence built at a Nevada testing site. A missile launched from a Predator exploded inside one of the replica's       rooms; it was concluded that any people in the room would have been killed.

• In February 2002, armed Predators are thought to have been used to destroy a sport utility vehicle belonging to suspected Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and mistakenly killed Afghan scrap metal collectors near Zhawar Kili because one of them resembled Osama bin Laden.
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• Mohammed Omar and mistakenly killed Afghan scrap metal collectors near Zhawar Kili because one of them resembled Osama bin Laden.
• On 4 March 2002, a CIA-operated Predator fired a Hellfire missile into a reinforced Taliban machine gun bunker that had pinned down an Army Ranger team whose CH-47 Chinook had crashed on the top of Takur Ghar Mountain in Afghanistan. Previous attempts by flights of F-15 and F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft were unable to destroy the bunker. This action took place during what has become known as the "Battle of Roberts Ridge", a part of Operation Anaconda. This appears to be the first use of such a weapon in a close air support role.
• On 6 April 2011, the Predator had its first friendly fire incident when observers at a remote location did not relay their doubts about the target to the operators at Creech Air Force Base.
• On 5 May 2013, an MQ-1 Predator surpassed 20,000 flight hours over Afghanistan by a single Predator. Predator P107 achieved the milestone while flying a 21-hour combat mission; P107 was first delivered in October 2004.

  

  THE RQ1 PREDATOR..

                                         Information from the GENERAL ATOMICS  SITE.

US MILITARY SIZE COMPARISON

The two minute video lines up US Military weapons from the smallest to the largest.The clip starts at the small end with a .45-caliber bullet, which measures just 3.2 centimeters long, or about an inch and a quarter. Then things get bigger, through grenades and guns, through drones and tanks, through fighters and bombers until it reaches the macro end of the military, the 1,100-ft. Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft carriers.

The best way to appreciate the size difference between objects is just to lay 'em all out in a row and behold. That's what this two-minute video does with the weaponry of the U.S. military.

THREATS FROM RUSSIAN AND CHINA WARPLANES MOUNTS

A Chinese SU-27 fighter plane shown.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

    
WASHINGTON — Chinese and Russian warplanes have been increasingly aggressive intercepting U.S. military aircraft and patrolling near America’s West Coast, prompting the Air Force’s top combat officer to label their provocations one of his top worries.

Air Force Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, who leads Air Combat Command, said in an interview with USA TODAY that meeting the challenge from the Russian and Chinese to flights in international airspace is essential but dangerous.

“Our concern is a resurgent Russia and a very, very aggressive China,” Carlisle said.
Both countries are intent on expanding their spheres of influence — Russia in eastern Europe and the Pacific with China focusing much of its effort over the disputed South China Sea.

“Their intent is to get us not to be there,” Carlisle said. “So that the influence in those international spaces is controlled only by them. My belief is that we cannot allow that to happen. We have to continue to operate legally in international airspace and international waterways. We have to continue to call them out when they are being aggressive and unsafe.”

The stakes are high. Aggressive intercepts of U.S. patrol planes run the risk of mid-air collisions that would escalate tensions among nuclear powers.
“Any accident that occurs while the U.S. military is playing cat and mouse with Russian or Chinese forces could escalate into a real fight,” said Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and military analyst at the Lexington Institute. “If it does, American victory is not assured, because U.S. forces are operating thousands of miles from home and the other side is near its main bases. Small confrontations can turn into big wars, and Russian military doctrine embraces the use of nuclear weapons to win local conflicts."

An increasing number have occurred in recent months, Carlisle said, with fighters from Russia and China buzzing perilously close to American military aircraft.

The Pentagon has denounced the hazardous intercepts for more than a year, although condemnation hasn’t halted the practice. On May 17, two Chinese fighter jets flew dangerously close to a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the South China Sea. China has been on a campaign to assert its sovereignty over the busy waterways, building artificial islands on reefs in the sea and establishing military bases. In late April, a Russian fighter pilot performed a “barrel roll” over the top of an Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane, Carlisle said, above the Black Sea.

There has also been an uptick in long-range bomber activity from the Russians in Eastern Europe and extending to flights off the U.S. West Coast, Carlisle said.
“We have seen an increase,” Carlisle said. “All the way down to the California coast. The number and frequency has increased.”

For China, the goal appears to be establishing control of the international airspace over the South China Sea. There are conflicting territorial claims among countries in the region with China upping the ante by establishing a military bases on artificial islands around the Paracel and Spratley Islands chains.
Carlisle expects that the Chinese will institute an Air Defense Identification Zone over a large portion of the South China Sea. Zones like these extend beyond a country’s borders in its national security interests. Aircraft entering such a zone are required them to identify and locate themselves. The United States has established them after consulting with neighboring countries.

The Chinese unilaterally set up an identification zone in the East China Sea in 2013. Carlisle expects a similar action soon in the South China Sea.
“Their expansion into the Paracels and the Spratleys is so they can declare it and then have the capability to enforce it, where they can do intercepts,” Carlisle said. “They are doing it outside of what could be consider the norms.”
Maintaining communication with the Russian and Chinese military is key to avoiding mishaps, Carlisle said. Training pilots to deal with intercepts will continue.
“As they become more aggressive, you run the risk of miscalculation,” he said. “You don’t know where that’s going to lead, or end.”