Raven Rules UAV Roost

Raven Rules UAV Roost: "

The small Raven unmanned aircraft is the king of the Pentagon’s UAV fleet, at least in terms of numbers. The Fiscal 2010 budget request provides enough money for the U.S. Army to buy 704 of the air vehicles.

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Unmanned aircraft did well pretty much across the board. That’s to be expected given what Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said. Here's some of the details:

The U.S. Air Force is planning to buy five Global Hawk high-altitude UAVs.

The service is, however, ceasing procurement of the General Atomics Predator UAV. From now on, the service will be buying MQ-9 Reapers only, the more powerful Predator derivative.

General Atomics will still sell Predators, though. The U.S. Army is buying 36 air vehicles - or three systems - with the Fiscal 2010 budget plan.

The U.S. Navy is buying five MQ-8 Fire Scout helo UAVs. And for the Marine Corps, the service has included 11 Shadow unmanned aircraft in the spending plan.

[Photo: Pentagon]

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(Via Ares.)