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Anorak News | Look Out Iraq: The Robot Warplanes Are Coming

Look Out Iraq: The Robot Warplanes Are Coming

by | 16th, July 2007

robot-plane.jpgWHO do you think will win?

BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) – The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It’s outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there’s no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

The arrival of these outsized U.S. “hunter-killer” drones, in aviation history’s first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.

That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected “soon,” says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? “We’re still working that,” Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview.

(AP) Lt. Col. Stephen Williams, Commander for the 332nd Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron,…

The Reaper’s first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.

“With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home,” North said.

And if God makes it all happen, as the Islamists say, did He give America the greater fire power to kill the nihilists, racists and death cult?



Posted: 16th, July 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink