Air Force adds UAVs to combat exercises

The Air Force has added MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles to its top combat exercise as it prepares to experiment with news ways to conduct air campaigns in future years in contested air space, reports Defense News.

The Predator’s role in the Red Flag exercises, one of which took place in July at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., was to search for search for Scud missile launchers and persons of interest on the ground, the story said.

The surveillance information the UAV obtained was relayed back to an operations center, and then forwarded to an E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, which in turn told strike aircraft where to attack.

The effort, and similar ones in the future, is being done in preparation for a battlefield environment where the enemy would possess capabilities that could deny access, such as sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, which is known as “anti-access/area denial,” or A2AD, the story said.