mq-9 reaper show how carry out airstrikes on enemies
before we enter the video please click the subscribe button and press the bell beside
it so you'll never miss the latest video from us thank you the General Atomics mq-9 Reaper
sometimes called the predator bee is an unmanned aerial vehicle UAV capable of remotely control or
autonomous flight operations developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems GA ASI primarily for
the United States Air Force USAF the mq-9 and other UAVs are referred to as remotely piloted
vehicles or aircraft RP v or RP a by the USAF to indicate their human ground controllers the
mq-9 is the first hunter-killer UAV designed for long endurance high-altitude surveillance
in 2006 the then chief of staff of the United States Air Force general team Michael Mosley
said we've moved from using UAVs primarily in intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance
roles before Operation Iraqi Freedom to a true hunter-killer role with the Reaper
the mq-9 is a larger heavier and more capable aircraft than the earlier General Atomics mq-1
predator it can be controlled by the same ground systems used to control M key once the Reaper is
a 950 shaft horsepower 712 kilowatt turboprop engine compared to predators 115 horsepower 86
kilowatt piston engine the greater power allows the Reaper to carry 15 times more
ordnance payload and cruising about three times the speed of M q1 the aircraft is monitored and
controlled by aircrew in the ground control station GCS including weapons employment
in 2008 the New York air national guard 174th attack wing began the transition from f-16
piloted fighters to mq-9 a Reapers becoming the first fighter unit to convert entirely
to unmanned combat aerial vehicle UCAV use in March 2011 the US Air Force was training more
pilots for advanced unmanned aerial vehicles than for any other single weapon system the
Reaper is also used by the United States Navy the CIA US Customs and Border Protection NASA
and the militaries of several other countries the u.s. air force operates 195 and q9 reapers
as of September 2016 and plans to keep the mq-9 in service into the 2030s the recent killing of
senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani has been widely reported as conducted by an mq-9 Reaper
drone but what is such an operation actually involve well the ultimate decision to carry
out the attack has clearly been placed with the Trump administration much of the
reporting and commentary has still bought into the misleading idea that drones enable instant killing
using machines that take away the risks and responsibilities of warfare for military personnel
the US and other militaries that use attack drones are generally very secretive about
their operations adding to the lingering false perceptions as such no official statements have
confirmed the use of the Reaper in this instance although several reports include quotes from
unnamed government sources that do so however a drone strike seems likely in this case because
of the precise nature of the attack and the Reaper is the only publicly known attack drone
now operated by the US military I spent two years working with two RAF Reaper squadrons to research
the people who fly this aircraft this included watching real-time lethal strikes alongside crews
at Creech Air Force Base and RAF Waddington it also included ninety interviews with people who
work with Reapers based on what I learned here are the key things you need to know about how
such an attack would probably play out and the importance of understanding the role of human
military operators first Reapers are launched at the touch of a button from thousands of miles away
it takes up to two seconds for a satellite control signal to reach a reef around another continent
so such a delay would cause crashes on takeoff or landing instead the Reaper has to be taken
off within the line of sight of a nearby launch and recovery pilot this happens in or near the
location where the drones mission will take place once the Reaper is safely airborne control can be
transferred to a crew thousands of miles away one report claimed that the drone used in the
Soleimani killing was overhead Baghdad Airport when its missile was launched true Soleimani
was killed at Baghdad Airport and a Reaper may have been orbiting the target area but Hellfire
missiles are not fired straight downwards and orders a Reaper hover like a helicopter or
the smaller DJI phantom drone the Reaper is an aircraft with a 20 meter wingspan it's piloted
using flight control services like flaps and ailerons which are moved via satellite signal
for a successful missile firing the Reaper needs to be up to a few kilometers away from its target
and then pointed towards it to create the right firing angle the missiles typically take around
30 seconds to hit there depending on the launch height and distance once the targets identified
it's up to the human operators to launch the attack Reapers are not autonomous decision-making
weapon systems that select victims and choose how and when to kill them soleimani was killed
by a Hellfire laser-guided missile that may have come from a drone but it would have been fired by
a pilot in a ground control station located in the US each missile would then have been guided
by a senior operator under soleimani scar or as escort vehicle this represents the final stage
of a highly human operation sometimes we get the impression that the drone does it all it doesn't
not a video game this is important to understand because drones are often portrayed as turning
killing into a video game but that's not an accurate analogy at a purely economic level the
controls of an mq-9 Reaper drone are actually neither a sophisticated Norah's sensitive as
state-of-the-art gaming controllers the mq-1 predator on which the mq-9 Reaper was based
was rushed into service after 9/11 and typical military aircraft testing and development was
not carried out because of time constraints as a result the controls were not developed to be
as user-friendly as they will be in the Reaper successors more important is the human dimension
when Reaper crews have followed someone for days or weeks their targets not just pixels
on a screen but a living human being operators watch targets spend time with family and friends
and even playing with their children cruise commanders and image analysts also continue to
watch from above after a missile or bomb strike conducting battle damage assessment they see
the bits of bodies being collected and taken for burial they see grieving devastated family members
and they know it's no game with a reset button as a result operating a drone carries real risks for
one thing terrorists have tried to target Reaper pilots and published a hit list but more prevalent
is the psychological risk in repeatedly witnessing traumatizing events and lethal strikes in close-up
detail a senior Reaper commander has described the impact of this as far greater than it ever was
with a man cockpit these psychological effects are not yet fully understood but the risk is
there as one senior operator I interviewed said if anybody on the Reaper fleet says it doesn't affect
them then they're lying it does it has to remotely piloted aircraft like the Reaper will provide key
Air Force capabilities for generations to come for people to debate this technology in a useful way
they need to know what they can and cannot do and understand that their governments are not using
autonomous drones to kill random victims human operators are making life-and-death decisions
with huge consequences for everyone involved thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe