MQ-9B: Taking on the world's toughest RPA missions, from reconnaissance to rescue

Mediawire
New Delhi [India], January 31: "Revolution" does not overstate the case - the most advanced users of medium-altitude, remotely piloted aircraft are doing new things in ways they never could before. It's quiet, though, because the governments involved don't always talk about what's taking place.
What's making it possible, however, is not a secret: the next-generation MQ-9B SkyGuardian® and SeaGuardian® manufactured by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. As these aircraft grow in number and take on an increasing diversity of missions worldwide, they're changing the way professionals conduct maritime domain awareness, anti-submarine warfare, rescue, and many other roles.
Leveraging a strong legacy of innovation
Remotely piloted aircraft already changed the world once. What MQ-9B does today is thanks partly to the experience derived from those earlier-model aircraft, including the MQ-9A Reaper and MQ-1 Predator. That fleet has recorded more than 8 million operational hours globally, many of them in combat, providing a huge trove of experience that informed the design of the new system.
That combination of proven performance with new design and technology is what makes MQ-9B stand apart. Operational today, it leads its category and incurs much less cost or risk than a design from a clean sheet. In every environment, in all four corners of the earth, the aircraft are actively proving what they can do.
U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command, for example, uses MQ-9B to pioneer a new regime for integrating large, medium and small unmanned aircraft. With a large central fuselage and a broad wingspan, the SkyGuardian makes an optimal mothership for other aircraft, such as GA-ASI's Sparrowhawk - which it can launch and recover in mid-flight - or others.
Here's a look at how GA-ASI's aerial recovery system enables mid-flight launch and recovery.
Purpose built to be multi-purpose
American special operations personnel need intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; route clearance; early warning; communications and many other types of support during their missions. What AFSOC is showing with MQ-9B is how unmanned aircraft of various sizes can combine in novel ways in order to provide that.
Through complex exercises off the West Coast of the United States, the U.S. Navy also has shown that adding highly capable new remotely piloted aircraft changes the old way of doing business. MQ-9B aircraft, contracted for major fleet exercises, have escorted carrier strike groups, served as communications relays for ships at sea, and also helped prosecute simulated hostile submarines.
The SeaGuardian's unmatched endurance means it can stay on station longer than any human-crewed aircraft ever could, which gives unblinking eyes and unfailing ears to crews hunting for submarines. The U.S. Navy has validated this in difficult, complex exercises in the Pacific Ocean against simulated targets.
https://youtu.be/LVR_EioIM8c
Changing the world for good
Nations around the world are benefiting from these same capabilities, from Europe to the Middle East to East Asia to the Indian subcontinent. There are too many to list, but users include some of the most advanced naval and air services in the world.
One great example is the Indian Navy, which has logged tens of thousands of operational hours on its aircraft in missions that have transformed its ability to see and respond around the Indian Ocean.
In early January, a cargo vessel issued a distress call: it was being boarded by armed men. One of the first assets to arrive was an Indian Navy MQ-9B SeaGuardian, which helped coordinate initial assessments of the hijacked vessel and then the rest of the Indian Navy's response.
MQ-9B's ability to remain on station for many hours and its high-definition video and other sensing capabilities, gave Indian Navy commanders the ability to watch in real time as other ships and aircraft deployed and a team of naval special operators boarded the ship.
All of these nations are finding that MQ-9B enables new ways of taking on their toughest missions - and more are poised to follow suit.
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