Additional Gray Eaqles Ordered for US Army

摘要

The US Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) gave the go-ahead for the third low-rate initial production (LRIP) purchase of General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned air system (UAS) for the US Army in June. The proposed third LRIP batch would, like the second batch, include six unmanned air vehicle (UAV) platoon sets (each with four air vehicles) with ground control equipment, plus five attrition replacement aircraft, making a total of 29 MQ-lCs. LRIP 3 is intended to keep production going until the programme can transition to full-rate production, which is currently scheduled for 2013. The recent decision followed a DAB review into the Gray Eagle's performance during its deployment in Afghanistan over the past six months, where it exceeded the required 80% operational availability.