After the Retirement, USAF Deciding What to do With Remaining Predators

Started by OldGuy, March 14, 2018, 06:39:17 AM

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OldGuy

While the Air Force held a ceremony officially retiring the MQ-1 Predator on Friday, there is still work to be done with the aircraft. The Air Force's transition from the MQ-1 to a predominantly MQ-9 fleet will be complete by the end of the year, and "transition work" deciding what will happen to the 128 remaining MQ-1s in the service's total active inventory is ongoing, Air Combat Command said in a statement to Air Force Magazine. The Friday ceremony at Creech AFB, Nev., was a chance to "honor the airmen who maintained and operated this platform as well as our teamwork with industry and coalition partners," ACC spokeswoman 1st Lt. Annabel Monroe said. Many of these MQ-1s have been crated and prepared for shipping, but others still need to be demilitarized. The Air Force doesn't expect the aircraft to be available to be sold to allied nations or private companies, Monroe said. Some have already gone to museums, such as the American Air Museum in England. The Air Force is still paying for operations and maintenance of the aircraft, including a March 9 contract to URS Federal Technical Services for a "high level" of support for the MQ-1, along with MQ-9 and RQ-4. —Brian Everstine

kcebnaes

I wonder how hard it would be to to buy one for my Aerial Photography company. Could be useful for those long term flights....  >:D
Sean Beck, Maj, CAP
Great Lakes Region sUAS Officer
Various Other Things™

Holding Pattern

Can we pull the sensor packages and and massively boost our surrogate drone program?