Britain's armed forces are sending pilotless "robot" strike aircraft into battle for the first time, allowing controllers sitting at a computer outside Las Vegas to drop guided bombs on the Taliban in Afghanistan. The £10million "Reaper" unmanned aerial vehicle marks a major watershed for the Royal Air Force and has been rushed into service after senior defence chiefs identified it as a vital weapon in the fight against Taliban insurgents.When the RAF bought its first three Reapers from American manufacturers last year commanders intended to use them only as spyplanes, but senior commanders have now decided to fit them with 500lb guided bombs and Hellfire guided missiles, turning them into Britain's first unmanned combat aircraft. The pioneering airstrikes are expected to take place in southern Afghanistan within days, once formal export clearances are confirmed by the U.S. Government.
The RAF already has almost 50 personnel operating similar American drones from Creech Air Force Base in the Nevada desert, outside Las Vegas, as part of an exchange programme. Now they will switch to flying the RAF's own Reaper drones, dropping weapons via satellite link on targets around 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan.
The Reaper, with an 86-ft wingspan - similar in size to an executive Learjet - will take off like a normal warplane from the runway at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan. Ten minutes into the flight the ground crew in Kandahar hand over to a pair of controllers sitting in a bunker in Nevada, who fly the drone and operate its impressive array of sensors and weapons until the ground crew take over again a few minutes before landing.
| Someone explain to me why the Kandahar crew can't manage the whole mission. Yes, you can have the crew 7,000 miles away, but if they can be close by, why not? |
Defence chiefs are so impressed they are hoping to buy another nine in the coming months, with the overall project costing around £500million.
One senior RAF insider said: "Operations in Afghanistan have convinced us there's a place for this capability." He said the operators were all trained RAF aircrew, with experience of dropping bombs themselves. "We believe it's important that they are 'air-minded' and fully understand the weapons and our rules of engagement.
"It is a slightly strange existence for them. They are intimately involved in the war in Afghanistan, watching the enemy and dropping weapons on them, but at the end of their shift they drive out of their base in Nevada, go home and live a normal life."
For now the RAF controllers will remain at Creech Air Force Base, relying on existing U.S. satellite links, but in time commanders hope to establish a new UAV "hub" at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, which is already home to other British spyplanes.
The Americans have already used earlier versions of the Reaper to kill terrorist suspects in the Middle East by remote control. But until now the British armed forces have used only smaller UAVs for spying missions, with no weaponry.
The success of the U.S-built Reaper threatens to overtake Britain's own costly £800million "Watchkeeper" programme, which is currently due to bring another 54 French-designed UAVs into service by 2010. They will be smaller and unarmed.
| So the American UAVs are bigger and badder. Heh ... |