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Air Force Adopts Army Aircraft
By Charlie
...a very small one...
October 15, 2007: The U.S. Army’s Raven UAV (RQ-11A) (VIDEO) has now been adopted by the U.S. Air Force. Last year, the U.S. Marine Corps replaced their Dragon View UAV with the Raven. In addition, all three services are using the newer Raven B. Nearly 4,000 Ravens (mostly the “A” model) have been produced so far. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) is also a big ser. In Iraq, Raven’s have flown over 25,000 sorties so far.
The big advantage with Raven is that it’s simple, reliable, and it works. A complete system (controller, spare parts and three UAVs) costs $240,000. The UAV can be quickly taken apart and put into a backpack. It takes off by having the operator start the motor, and then throwing it. This can be done from a moving vehicle, and the Raven is a popular recon tool for convoys. It lands by coming in low and then turning the motor off. Special Forces troops like to use it at night, because the enemy can’t see it, and often can’t hear it as well.
The Raven is a great example of how the high-technology advantage we have can be used to produce a simple, durable piece of equipment that troops can employ on the battlefield with little train-up.
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Comments
I'd have to disagree with the last sentence of the quoted article. The Raven A is loud, way too loud to use at night if stealth is needed. It just tips your hand and scares the bad guys away. Its great otherwise. I haven't worked with the B model, so hopefully they fixed that problem.
Kevin
Gotta disagree with Kevin. Stealth is nice, but not a necessity for a UAV. I'm speaking from experience as an OPFOR: if UAVs are buzzing around you simply have to hole up until they go away. And the enemy in Iraq doesn't even have the cover from trees we have in Louisiana.
Gotta disagree with the disagreement. I've seen too many blown raids from the targets scattering from the noise. And they don't need trees when they have buildings and alleyways. (Iraq has lots of trees too.)
It usually goes something like this:
Operator: The target heard us following him, 4 persons abandoned the car and now we have squirters from building 3. 2 to the N, 3 NE, 1 W, 5 S. Who should I follow?
PL: Follow the target,I guess. The cordon isnt set yet...
Operator: Not sure which one is the target and the 5 to the S split, lost the rest...
Kevin
It does not have a gun or MAU-12 bomb racks. Maybe they can mount a marlin .22 auto on the belly!lol
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How does the Raven compare against other mini-UAV's like, say, the Israeli-designed Skylark?