The shooting down of the UAV may reveal losses to the US Reaper fleet

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on May 31 announced that it had shot down the US MQ-1 Predator drone, accusing it of violating airspace. Central Command (CENTCOM), the agency in charge of US military operations in the Middle East, later confirmed that an MQ-1 was shot down, but confirmed that the aircraft was operating in international waters at that time.

“This raises the question of whether the US is reusing the legendary MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) after decommissioning it eight years ago,” said Joseph Trevithick and Howard Altman, editors of the US military website. War Zonesaid on June 1.

Two American editors said that the downed UAV could be the MQ-1C Gray Eagle series. Although still bearing the MQ-1 designation, the C version was developed specifically to serve the US Army’s specific requirements, including the ability to operate with lower logistics costs and pilot training requirements than the Air Force’s MQ-1A/B variant.

The US Army has deployed units equipped with MQ-1C aircraft to the Middle East. The US Air Force in April also posted some photos of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, but captioned it as MQ-1 Predator.

“However, there is still the possibility that the US Air Force will allow the Predator fleet to operate again. It is possible that they are owned and operated by private companies, or withdrawn from military storage,” two US experts stated.

According to Trevithick, restarting the operation of the MQ-1 UAV is an attractive direction for the US military, especially when they need to fill the force gap after at least 50 MQ-9 Reapers were shot down by Iran and Houthi forces in Yemen.

Newspaper Bloomberg and magazines Air&Space Forces At the end of last month, citing sources familiar with the issue, Iran destroyed 30 MQ-9 aircraft in 6 weeks of fighting, equivalent to 20% of the total number of Reaper UAVs the US military owned before the conflict broke out, causing nearly a billion USD in damage.

TV channel Al-Masirahoperated by the Houthi forces, announced on May 29 that the Yemeni armed group had shot down the 25th Reaper since the regional conflict broke out in October 2023.

“The loss of the MQ-9 squadron and the need to use reconnaissance UAVs lead to the possibility of the MQ-1 line returning to operation. They can perform similar missions to the MQ-9 to some extent,” Altman said.

The US Congressional Research Service said the MQ-9 aircraft has a factory price of about 30 million USD, while each MQ-1 costs 4-5 million USD depending on configuration.

The MQ-1 Predator has a smaller size, shorter range, and lower overall performance than the MQ-9 Reaper. However, these limitations can be offset by the operational terrain in the Middle East, where US bases are located quite close to Iran and potential operating areas such as the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington used the MQ-1 to monitor Tehran’s activities in the Gulf, in which a Predator was shot down by an Iranian Su-25 attack in 2012.

“The US Air Force may be more willing to sacrifice MQ-1s than MQ-9s. Deploying this UAV model on missions in high-risk areas is the appropriate option,” Trevithick and Altman said.

In the late 2010s, the US Air Force discussed with the Navy and Marine Corps about transferring decommissioned MQ-1s. However, there is no sign that these two military services will receive the MQ-1 squadron. Instead, the US Navy helped the Marines lay the foundation for the MQ-9 Reaper squadron.

“If it is true that there are only 15 MQ-1Bs left in inventory by 2024, another question is what happened to the dozens of MQ-1s that the US Air Force operated until they were eliminated. It is possible that they were used as targets for live fire training, research, development, testing or converted into suicide UAVs,” Trevithick and Altman said.

The Pentagon currently needs the MQ-9 series in the Middle East, but losses in recent years have been worryingly high. It is unclear how many MQ-9s will be available for the US military to purchase or when a more modern aircraft model will be released to replace the Reaper fleet.

“The US military does not seem to have put any MQ-1Bs back into operation. Reusing them on a small scale is still a temporary solution, meeting operational needs and reducing pressure on the heavily affected MQ-9 fleet,” Trevithick and Altman stated.