USAF Predator, Reaper hit four million hours
The US Air Force’s (USAF's) fleet of MQ-1B Predator and MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft have completed more than four million flight hours, the USAF announced on 11 March.
The milestone was reached on 1 March 2019. The aircraft conduct persistent attack and reconnaissance, SAR and strike and support to civil authority missions in support of multiple combatant commands.
The MQ-9 is operated from Creech Air Force Base, Nevada; Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota; Whiteman AFB, Missouri and Shaw AFB, South Carolina.
Gen David Goldfein, USAF Chief of Staff, said: ‘Every day, airmen in this wing — from maintenance, to sensor operators, to pilots, to mission intelligence coordinators, to the thousand airmen who have their fingerprints on every aircraft, every sortie that takes off, to every line that we fly — are bringing new innovative ideas to how we do this business. It represents some of the most flexible operations that we have in our inventory.'The MQ-1B entered the air force fleet in 1996 and retired in 2018, and the MQ-9 mission began in 2007.
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