MQ-1 Predator
The armed drone that made remote strike routine: no cockpit, no crew, twenty hours on station.
- No pilot on board
- Hellfire missiles
- Very long loiter
- Pusher propeller
מפרט
- מדינת מקור
- United States
- יצרן
- General Atomics
- תפקיד
- UCAV
- נכנס לשירות
- 1995
- סוג לחימה
- אוויר
- קוד הזמנה
- mq1
בשרת
The MQ-1 Predator has no cockpit and nobody on board. It entered service in 1995 as a reconnaissance aircraft, flown from a ground station over a satellite link, and in 2001 it was armed with Hellfire missiles, which made it the first drone used for routine armed strike. A single piston engine driving a pusher propeller gives it around twenty four hours of endurance at low speed, and its sensor turret is the real weapon system. On MCS the Predator is a surveillance and precision strike tool rather than a combat aircraft. It sits high and quiet over an area, watches a target develop and fires two missiles with no warning. It is slow, unarmoured and easy prey for anything that notices it, and it has no way at all to defend itself. Recommended for organised squads who want persistent eyes over an objective.