In mid-July, the planned replacement for Britain’s armed Reaper drones, the Protector, made the first crossing of the Atlantic by a medium-altitude, long endurance remotely-piloted aircraft. (The first drone to cross the Atlantic, in 1998, was on auto-pilot.)
The Protector (aka MQ−9B SkyGuardian) will be able to fly further and carry more weapons than the Reaper. It has a wingspan of 79 feet, and is due to enter service in the UK in the 2020s.
The drone took off from, and was controlled throughout from, a US base in North Dakota. The 4,000-mile flight took 24 hours.
Topics: Drones & autonomous weapons