The Air Force plans to have the first of its newly acquired MC-12W intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance aircraft deployed to Southwest Asia by April, Brig. Gen. Blair E. Hansen, director of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities on the Air Staff, told reporters Jan. 23 in the Pentagon. This was USAF's first in-depth public discussion on the new platform.rnThe concept for these manned, medium-altitude platforms came out of the Office of the Secretary of Defense ISR task force last year as a means to quickly bolster the overhead ISR assets already in Afghanistan and Iraq and, in particular, to relieve the heavy burden being placed on MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles.rnThe MC-12Ws are known as Liberty Project Aircraft after the World War II effort to quickly press "Liberty ship" cargo vessels into the fight in Europe. LPA will contribute to the fight by passing valuable full-motion video and signals intelligence data directly to ground troops at the tactical level.
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