Its secondary mission is to provide pilot-commanded kinetic effect to Land Force commanders for fleeting targets that “pop up” in the battlespace and also to provide Close-Air-Support (CAS) options to the Reaper’s supported unit.
Specifications
· Engines: Honeywell TPE 331-10T
· Thrust: 900shp
· Max speed: 250kts
· Length: 10.97m
· Max altitude: 50,000ft
· Span: 20.12m
· Aircrew: 1
Britain’s Royal Air Force Reaper drone missions over Iraq between the start of UK operations against Isis, firing a total of 102 Hellfire missiles on 87 separate occasions, according to new Ministry of Defence figures.
Britain joined the US-led international coalition against ISIS after a vote in Parliament at the end of last September. RAF drones fired their first weapon over Iraq just weeks later in October.
The RAF has long maintained that it uses Reaper drones primarily for reconnaissance and surveillance, and that it fires weapons only rarely. In total the RAF fired weapons from Tornado bombers and Reaper drones on 202 occasions between September and March. Of those, drones were responsible for 43% of the attacks, or 87. Tornados struck 115 times.
The UK is one of nine countries bombing Iraq. The others are the US, France, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Jordan and the Netherlands. In total this coalition carried out approximately 2,154 air strikes between September and April, according to the website Air Wars which is tracking the bombing campaign.
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All of these sorties have been purely for reconnaissance, according to the MoD, because the RAF does not have Parliamentary permission to engage its weapons in Syria.