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December 1, 2004

Marines Aided by Robotic Airplane in Iraq

Topics: Middle East News and Perspectives

From the standpoint of my Recon days in the Marines (more years ago than I am willing to admit) I can only imagine how much our Marine Recons in Iraq love this little jewel. Imagine actually being able to view the steam from the coffee cup of a terrorist, and if the bast--d is anywhere near one of our Marine Scout Snipers, one squeeze of the trigger and one less Islamic terrorist to maim, murder, and slaughter innocent lives. As for the best part, we didn't have to risk the lives of our Recon teams to do it. Of course we still need them, but for every risky mission using our guys that we can replace with one of these big model airplanes with super-sophisticated spy gear, the better. Now, read about "ScanEagle."

From the IraqFiles blog comes this report of the following AP story:

ST. LOUIS (AP) - A robotic airplane called ScanEagle has done more than 1,000 hours of intelligence and reconnaissance work for the Marines in Iraq, its developers said.

It was developed and built by the St. Louis-based defense unit of Boeing Co. (BA) and the Washington-based Insitu Group.

Boeing officials said they could not comment on specific ScanEagle missions, but spoke generally of its use.

It travels above insurgent positions and sends real-time video images to Marines on the ground. The unmanned device can relay facial expressions on enemy soldiers, and can transmit in such detail that it shows steam rising from their coffee.

The 4-foot-long aircraft has a 10-foot wingspan and can fly up to 15 hours at a time on less than two gallons of fuel, Boeing officials said.

Unmanned aircraft such as ScanEagle are expected to play an increasing role in future battles because the Pentagon sees the planes as an integral part of combat missions. Weapon systems are in the works that will share a common operating language so soldiers, ships, submarines, planes and satellites can share information in a battlefield network.

Executives at Boeing, the lead integrator on the Future Combat Systems program for the Army, said unmanned combat aircraft will complement piloted planes.

"In general, unmanned combat aircraft will be able to provide the dull, dirty missions that you don't want pilots involved in," Dave Martin, the Boeing program manager for ScanEagle, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Sunday's edition.  Read More...

God bless ScanEagle, and may it be used to save the lives of our men while killing as many terrorists, Islamathugs, and insurgents as possible.

Posted by Hyscience at December 1, 2004 9:42 AM

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